تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.4
English (machine translation) 13.4
- Language
- English
13.4.1
Its name begins with qāf and a hard jīm. This mountain of Qarājīl is a great mountain extending for three months' journey, and between it and Dihlī is a journey of ten [days]. Its sultan is one of the greatest of the infidel sultans. The Sultan had sent Malik Nakbiya, chief of the dawīdārs, to make war on this mountain with a hundred thousand horsemen and many foot soldiers besides. He took the city of Jidya — vocalised with i after the j, no vowel on the undotted d, and a after the y — which lies at the foot of the mountain, and took what lay around it, taking captives, laying waste and burning. The infidels fled to the top of the mountain, abandoning their lands, their wealth and their king's treasuries.
13.4.2
The mountain has a single road, with a valley below it and the mountain above, along which only one horseman at a time can pass, with another behind him. The Muslim troops ascended by that road and took possession of the city of Warankal
13.4.3
at the top of the mountain — vocalised with a after the w and the r, no vowel on the n, and a after the k — and seized all that was in it. They wrote to the Sultan announcing the victory, and he sent them a qāḍī and a preacher and ordered them to remain.
13.4.4
When the season of rain came, sickness overcame the army; they grew weak, the horses died and the bows came unstrung. The amīrs wrote to the Sultan asking his permission to leave the mountain and go down to its foot while the rainy season passed, and then return, and he gave them permission. So Amīr Nakbiya took the wealth
13.4.5
he had seized from the treasuries and the mines and distributed it among the men to carry and bring down to the foot of the mountain. As soon as the infidels learned of their departure, they lay in wait for them in those ravines and blocked the pass against them, and began cutting huge old trees into pieces and hurling them from the top of the mountain, and they struck no one without killing him. Many of the men perished and the rest were taken captive, and the infidels took the wealth, the baggage, the horses and the weapons. None of the army escaped except three of the amīrs: the chief of them Nakbiya, Badr al-Dīn al-Malik Dawlat Shāh, and a third whom I do not remember. This disaster had a great effect on the army of Hind and weakened it markedly. After it the Sultan made peace with the people of the mountain in return for tribute they would pay him, because the lands at the foot of the mountain belong to them and they cannot cultivate them except with his permission.
Linked texts (1)
- تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic