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تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.51

English (machine translation) 13.51

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English

13.51.1

The amīr of ʿAlābūr was Badr al-Ḥabashī, one of the Sultan's slaves, and one of those heroes who are proverbial. He was constantly raiding the infidels all by himself, killing and taking captives, until his fame spread, his renown became widely known and the infidels came to dread him. He was tall and massive, and would eat a whole sheep at a single meal! I was told that he used to drink about a raṭl and a half of ghee after his meal, after the custom of the Abyssinians

13.51.2

in their country! He had a son who came close to him in courage. It happened that once he raided a village of the infidels with a band of his slaves, and his horse fell with him into a pit. The people of the village gathered around him and one of them struck him with a qattāra (qattāra is spelled with a hard q and a dotted t): an iron implement like a ploughshare into which a man puts his hand, so that it covers his forearm, and a length of two cubits projects beyond it; its blow leaves nothing alive. He killed him with that blow. His slaves fought most fiercely and overpowered the village, killed its men, took captive its women and whatever was in it, and brought the horse out of the pit unharmed. They brought it to his son, and by a strange coincidence he rode the horse and set out for Dihlī; the infidels came out against him and he fought them until he was killed. The horse returned to his companions and they handed it over to his family; a kinsman of his by marriage rode it, and the infidels killed him on it too! Then we travelled to the city of Kālyūr (its name is spelled with a hard k with a, l with i, the last letter of the alphabet [y] with u, then w and r); it is also called Kiyālīr. It is a large city with an impregnable, isolated fortress on top of a lofty height; at its gate is the figure of an elephant with its mahout, of stone, which has already been mentioned under the name of Sultan Quṭb al-Dīn. The amīr of this city was Aḥmad b. Sīr Khān, a virtuous man, who treated me with honour during my stay with him before this journey.

13.51.3

One day I went in to him as he was about to have one of the infidels cut in half at the waist. I said to him, “By God, do not do it, for I have never seen anyone killed in my presence!” He ordered him to be imprisoned, and that was the cause of his deliverance.

13.51.4

Then we set out from the city of Kālyūr to the city of Barwan (its name is spelled with a hard b with a, r without vowel, w with a, ending in n), a small city of the Muslims among the lands of the infidels. Its amīr was Muḥammad b. Bayram, of Turkish origin. Wild beasts are numerous there. One of its people told me that a beast used to enter it at night while its gates were shut and prey on the people, until it had killed many of its inhabitants, and they were amazed at how it got in. Muḥammad al-Tawfīrī, one of its people, who was my neighbour there, told me that it entered his house at night and seized a boy from on top of the bed. Another told me that he was with a group in a house where a wedding was being held; one of them went out to relieve himself and it seized him. His companions went out looking for him and found him lying in the market; it had drunk his blood and had not eaten his flesh.

13.51.5

They said that this is how it dealt with people.

13.51.6

Strangely, some people told me that the one who does this is not a beast but a human being, one of the sorcerers known as the Jūgīs, who takes on the form of a beast. When I was told this I rejected it, but a number of people told me the same. Let us relate some of the stories of these sorcerers.

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