تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.88.2

13.88.2

Hilāl. He greeted me and gave me hospitality, and came to me with four men; two of them had put a pole on their shoulders and hung four chickens from it, and the other two had put a similar pole and hung about ten coconuts from it. I wondered at their making so much of this paltry thing, and was told that they had done it by way of honour and respect! We left them and on the sixth day stopped at the island of ʿUthmān, a man of merit and one of the best of people, who honoured us and gave us hospitality. On the eighth day we stopped at the island of a vizier called al-Talamdī, and on the tenth day we arrived at the island of al-Mahal, where the sultana and her husband are, and anchored in its harbour. Their custom is that no one goes ashore from the harbour without their permission; they gave us permission to land. I wanted to go to one of the mosques, but the servants on the shore stopped me and said: "You must go in to the vizier." I had instructed the nākhudha to say, if asked about me, "I do not know him," fearing that they would detain me. I did not know that some meddlesome person had written to them informing them about me and that I had been a qāḍī in Dihlī.