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تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.47

English (machine translation) 13.47

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English

13.47.1

On one of those days I rode out with a group of my companions and we entered a garden to take our midday rest there, for it was the season of intense heat. Then we heard shouting, so we mounted and caught up with some infidels who had raided one of the villages of al-Jalālī. We pursued them and they scattered, and our companions scattered in pursuit of them. I was left alone with five of my companions, when a body of horsemen and foot soldiers came out at us from a thicket there, and we fled from them because of their numbers. About ten of them followed me, then they fell away from me except for three of them, and there was no road ahead of me. That ground was very stony, and my horse's forelegs got stuck between the stones, so I dismounted, pulled its leg free, and mounted it again.

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It is the custom in Hind for a man to carry two swords: one hung from the saddle, called the rikābī, and the other in the quiver. My rikābī sword fell from its scabbard, and its fittings were of gold, so I dismounted, picked it up, girded it on, and mounted again while they were on my track. Then I reached a great ditch, dismounted and went down into it, and that was the last I saw of them.

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Then I came out into a valley in the middle of a dense thicket of trees, with a path through its middle. I walked along it without knowing where it led. While I was doing so, about forty of the infidels came out at me with bows in their hands and surrounded me. I feared that if I fled from them they would shoot at me all at once, and I was not wearing armour, so I threw myself to the ground and gave myself up as a prisoner, for they do not kill anyone who does that. They seized me and stripped me of everything I had on except a jubba, a shirt and trousers, and took me into that forest and brought me to the place where they sat, by a pool of water among those trees. They brought me bread made of māsh, that is, vetch, and I ate some of it and drank some of the water.

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There were two Muslims with them, who spoke to me in Persian and asked me about myself. I told them part of my story, and concealed from them that I came from the Sultan. They said to me: "These men or others are bound to kill you; but this is their leader," and they pointed to one of the men. So I spoke to him through the interpretation of the two Muslims and tried to win him over, and he put three of them in charge of me:

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one of them an old man with his son, and the other a wicked black man. Those three spoke to me, and I understood from them that they had been ordered to kill me. In the evening they carried me off to a cave. God afflicted the black man among them with a shivering fever, and he put his feet on me, and the old man and his son slept! When morning came they spoke among themselves and signalled to me to go down with them to the pool, and I understood that they meant to kill me. So I spoke to the old man and tried to win him over, and he took pity on me. I cut off the sleeves of my shirt and gave them to him, so that his companions would not hold him to account for me if I escaped.

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Around noon we heard talking by the pool, and they thought it was their companions, so they signalled to me to go down with them. We went down and found some other people, and they urged them to go along with them, but they refused. The three of them sat down in front of me, with me facing them, and they laid on the ground a hemp rope they had with them. I watched them and said to myself: "With this rope they will tie me up when they kill me." I remained like that for an hour; then three of their companions, those who had captured me, came and spoke with them, and I understood that they were saying to them: "Why have you not killed him?" The old man pointed to the black man, as if excusing himself by his illness! One of these three was a young man with a handsome face, and he said to me:

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"Do you want me to let you go?" I said: "Yes." He said: "Go." So I took the jubba I was wearing and gave it to him, and he gave me a worn-out tarred garment he had, and showed me the way. I went off, fearing that they might change their minds and catch up with me, so I went into a reed thicket and hid in it until the sun set. Then I came out and took the road the young man had shown me, and it led me to water, from which I drank. I walked until a third of the night had passed and reached a mountain, and slept at its foot. In the morning I took the road and by mid-morning reached a high rocky mountain on which grew acacia (umm ghaylān) and lote trees. I kept picking the lote fruit and eating it, until the thorns left marks on my arms that remain there to this day! Then I came down from that mountain to land sown with cotton, with castor-oil trees on it, and there was a bāʾin there. The bāʾin, among them, is a very wide well lined with stones, with steps by which one descends to the water. Some of them have domes, arcades and sitting places of stone in the middle and on the sides. The kings and amīrs of the country vie with one another in building them along roads where there is no water, and we shall mention later some of those we saw. When I reached the bāʾin I drank from it and found there some mustard shoots that had fallen

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from someone who had washed them. I ate some of them and kept [some] mustard shoots that had fallen from someone who had washed them; I ate some of them and kept the rest, and slept under a castor-oil tree.

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While I was so, about forty armoured horsemen came to the bāʾin. Some of them went into the sown field, then they left, and God blinded their eyes to me. After them came about fifty men under arms, who went down to the bāʾin, and one of them came to a tree opposite the tree I was under, but he did not notice me.

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At that point I went into the cotton field and stayed there the rest of the day, while they stayed at the bāʾin washing their clothes and amusing themselves. When night came their voices fell silent, and I knew that they had moved on or gone to sleep. So I came out then and followed the tracks of the horses, the night being moonlit, and walked until I came to another bāʾin with a dome over it. I went down into it, drank of its water and ate some of the mustard shoots I had with me, and went into the dome, which I found full of grass such as birds collect, and I slept there. I could feel the movement of some creature in that grass, which I took to be a snake, but I paid it no heed because of my exhaustion. In the morning I took a wide road leading to a ruined village, and took another, and it was the same; and I went on like that for some days. On one of them I reached a thick clump of trees with a pool of water among them, and inside it something like a house, and on the banks of the pool plants of the ground like couch grass and others. I decided to stay there until God should send someone to bring me to inhabited land.

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Then I found a little strength and got up and set off on a road on which I found the tracks of cattle, and I found a bull with a pack-saddle and a sickle on it. That road turned out to lead to the villages of the infidels, so I followed another road, which brought me to a ruined village, where I saw two naked black men. I was afraid of them and stayed under some trees there. When night came I entered the village and found, in a room of one of its houses, something like a large jar of the kind they make for storing grain, with a hole at its bottom through which a man can pass. I went into it and found the inside spread with straw, and in it was a stone; I laid my head on it and slept.

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Above it was a bird that kept flapping its wings for most of the night; I think it was afraid, so the two of us were together in our fear. I remained in that state for seven days from the day I was captured, which was a Saturday. On the seventh of them I reached an inhabited village of the infidels, with a pool of water and green plants growing in it. I asked them for food, but they refused to give me any. Then I found radish leaves around a well there and ate them. I went into the village and found a band of infidels who had a lookout posted; their lookout called me, but I did not answer him and sat down on the ground. One of them came with a drawn sword and raised it to strike me with it, but I paid him no attention because of the extreme exhaustion I was in. He searched me and found nothing on me, so he took the shirt whose sleeves I had given to the old man who had been put in charge of me.

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On the eighth day my thirst became severe. I had no water, and I came to a ruined village but found no pool in it. Their custom in those villages is to make pools in which rainwater collects, and they drink from it all year round. I followed a road which brought me to an unlined well, over which there was a rope made of some plant of the land, but there was no vessel on it to draw water with. So I tied a rag that I had on my head to the rope and sucked the water that clung to it, but it did not quench my thirst. Then I tied my boot on and drew water with it, but it did not quench my thirst, so I drew with it a second time, and the rope broke and the boot fell into the well. I tied on the other boot and drank until my thirst was quenched. Then I cut it and tied its upper part onto my foot with the well-rope and with some rags I found there. While I was tying them and thinking about my situation, a figure appeared before me. I looked at him, and it was a black-skinned man with a jug and a staff in his hand and a bag on his shoulder. He said to me, "Peace be upon you," and I said to him, "And upon you be peace and the mercy of God and His blessings." He said to me in Persian, "Jīkas?" which means "Who are you?" I said to him, "I am lost." He said to me, "So am I." Then he tied his jug to a rope he had with him and drew water. I wanted to drink, but he said to me, "Wait!" Then he opened his bag and took out of it a handful of roasted black chickpeas with a little rice, and I ate some of it and drank. He performed the ablution and prayed two rakʿas, and I performed the ablution and prayed. He asked me my name and I said, "Muḥammad," and I asked him his name and he said to me, "al-Qalb al-Fāriḥ (the Joyful Heart)," and I took this as a good omen and was glad of it. Then he said to me, "In the name of God! Will you come along with me?" I said,

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"Yes." So I walked with him a little, then I felt a weakness in my limbs and could not get up, so I sat down. He said to me, "What is the matter with you?" I said to him, "I was able to walk before I met you, but when I met you I became unable." He said,

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"Glory be to God! Ride on my neck!" I said to him, "You are weak and cannot do that." He said, "God will give me strength; you must do so." So I rode on his neck, and he said to me, "Recite often: God is sufficient for us, and how excellent a guardian is He," and I recited it often.

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Sleep overcame me, and I did not wake until I fell to the ground. I awoke and saw no trace of the man, and I found myself in an inhabited village. I entered it and found it belonged to Hindu subjects, and its governor was a Muslim. They informed him about me and he came to me. I said to him, "What is the name of this village?" He said to me, "Tāj Būra, and between it and the city of Kūl, where our companions are, is two parasangs." That governor carried me to his house and fed me hot food, and I washed. He said to me, "I have a garment and a turban that an Egyptian Arab from the people of the camp at Kūl left in my keeping." I said to him,

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"Bring them, and I will wear them until I reach the camp." He brought them, and I found that they were garments of mine which I had given to that Arab when we came to Kūl. I was greatly amazed at this!

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I thought about the man who had carried me on his neck, and I remembered what the friend of God Most High, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Murshidī, had told me, as we mentioned in the first volume, when he said to me: "You will enter the land of Hind and meet there my brother Dilshād, and he will rescue you from a hardship you will fall into." And I remembered what he said when I asked him his name, and he said,

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"al-Qalb al-Fāriḥ," which in Persian is Dilshād. So I knew that he was the one whose meeting he had foretold to me, and that he was one of the friends of God; but I had of his company no more than the amount I have mentioned.

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That night I wrote to my companions at Kūl informing them that I was safe, and they came to me with a horse and clothes and rejoiced over me. I found that the Sultan's reply had reached them; he had sent a young man called Sunbul the Jāmadār in place of Kāfūr, who had been martyred, and he ordered us to continue our journey. I also found that they had written to the Sultan about what had happened to me, and they considered this journey ill-omened because of what had befallen me and Kāfūr in it, and they wanted to go back. But when I saw the Sultan's insistence on the journey, I insisted with them and my resolve grew stronger. They said, "Do you not see what happened at the beginning of this journey? The Sultan will excuse you; let us go back to him, or stay until his reply arrives." I said to them, "Staying is not possible; wherever we are, the reply will reach us."

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So we departed from Kūl and halted at Burj Būra. There is a fine hospice there, with a shaykh of fine appearance and conduct called Muḥammad al-ʿUryān (the Naked), because he wears nothing on himself but a garment from his navel downward, and the rest of his body is uncovered. He is a disciple of the pious friend of God Muḥammad al-ʿUryān who lives in the Qarāfa of Miṣr, may God give benefit through him.

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