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تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.90

English (machine translation) 13.90

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English

13.90.1

The vizier Sulaymān Mānāyak had sent to me proposing that I marry his daughter. I sent to the vizier Jamāl al-Dīn asking his permission for this, and the messenger came back to me and said, 'It did not please him; he would like to marry you to his own daughter when her waiting period is over.' But I refused that, fearing her ill luck, since two husbands had died while married to her before consummation! Meanwhile I was struck by a fever and fell ill with it — everyone who enters that island inevitably gets fever — and my resolve to leave it grew stronger. I sold some of the ornaments for cowries and hired a ship in which to travel to Banjāla.

13.90.2

When I went to take leave of the vizier, the qāḍī came out to me and said, 'The vizier says to you: if you wish to travel, give us back what we gave you, and go!' I said to him, 'With some of the ornaments I bought cowries; do what you like with them.' He came back to me and said, 'He says: we gave you gold, we did not give you cowries!' I said to him, 'I will sell them and bring you the gold.' I sent to the merchants to buy them from me, but the vizier ordered them not to do so; his aim in all this was that I should not leave him!! Then he sent me one of his intimates, who said, 'The vizier says to you: stay with us and you shall have whatever you wish.' I said to myself, 'I am under their authority; if I do not stay by choice, I will stay by force, so staying of my own choice is better!'

13.90.3

I said to his messenger, 'Yes, I will stay with him.' He went back to him, and he was glad of it and summoned me. When I came in to him he rose to me, embraced me and said, 'We want you near, and you want to be far from us!' I made my excuses to him and he accepted them, and I said to him, 'If you want me to stay, I make certain conditions with you.' He said, 'We accept them; state them.' I said to him, 'I cannot walk on foot.' It is their custom that no one there rides except the vizier; and when they had given me the horse and I rode it, people, men and boys, used to follow me marvelling at me, until I complained to him, and the dunqura was struck and it was proclaimed among the people that no one should follow me. The dunqura — with u after the unpointed d, n without vowel, u after the q and a after the r — is like a copper basin; it is struck with a piece of iron and its sound is heard from afar, and when they strike it, whatever is wanted is then proclaimed among the people. The vizier said to me, 'If you wish to ride in a palanquin (dawla) [you may]; otherwise we have a stallion and a mare, so choose whichever you like.' I chose the mare, and they brought it to me at that very hour, and they brought me a set of clothes. I said to him, 'And what shall I do with the cowries I bought?' He said, 'Send one of your companions to sell them for you in Banjāla.' I said to him, 'On condition that you send someone to help him with it.' He said, 'Yes.' So I then sent my companion Abū Muḥammad b. Farḥān, and they sent with him a man called al-Ḥājj ʿAlī. It happened that the sea became terrifying, and they threw overboard everything they had, even the provisions, the water, the mast and the yard! They spent sixteen nights with no sail, no rudder or anything else, and then came out at the island of Sīlān after hunger, thirst and hardships. My companion Abū Muḥammad came back to me after a year; he had visited the Foot, and he visited it a second time with me.

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