تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.57
English (machine translation) 13.57
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13.57.1
Malik Khaṭṭāb al-Afghānī told me that he was once imprisoned in a pit in this fortress called the Pit of the Rats. He said: "They would gather around me at night to eat me, and I would fight them off, and I suffered great hardship from it. Then I saw in a dream someone saying to me: 'Recite the Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ a hundred thousand times, and God will deliver you.' So I recited it, and when I had completed it I was brought out."
13.57.2
"The reason for my release was that Malik Mall was imprisoned in a pit next to mine; he fell ill, and the rats ate his fingers and his eyes, and he died. This reached the Sultan, who said: 'Bring Khaṭṭāb out, lest the same thing happen to him.'" It was to this fortress that Nāṣir al-Dīn, son of the aforementioned Malik Mall, and the qāḍī Jalāl took refuge when the Sultan defeated them.
13.57.3
The people of the land of Dawlat Ābād are of the tribe of the Marhata, whose women God has distinguished with beauty, especially in their noses and eyebrows, and they possess a delight in intimacy and a knowledge of the movements of lovemaking such as no other women have. The infidels of this city are merchants, most of their trade being in jewels, and their wealth is vast. They are called the Sāha, singular Sāh, with an undotted sīn, and they are like the Akārim in Egypt.
13.57.4
In Dawlat Ābād there are grapes and pomegranates, which bear fruit twice a year. It is one of the lands with the greatest revenue and the largest land-tax, owing to its abundant cultivation and the extent of its province.
13.57.5
I was told that one of the Hindus undertook to farm its taxes and its whole province—which, as we have said, is three months' journey across—for seventeen karōrs, a karōr being a hundred lakhs and a lakh a hundred thousand dinars. But he did not fulfil it, and a balance remained owing from him; his property was seized and he was flayed.
Linked texts (1)
- تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic