تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.92
English (machine translation) 13.92
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13.92.1
On the second of Shawwāl I agreed with the vizier Sulaymān Mānāyak to marry his daughter. I sent to the vizier Jamāl al-Dīn asking that the marriage contract be concluded in his presence at the palace, and he agreed. He had betel and sandalwood brought as is the custom, and the people assembled, but the vizier Sulaymān was slow in coming. He was summoned and did not come; then he was summoned a second time and excused himself on account of the girl's illness. The vizier said to me privately, 'His daughter has refused, and she is mistress of her own affairs. The people have gathered; would you be willing to marry the stepdaughter of the sultana, his father's wife, whose daughter his son is married to?' I said to him, 'Yes.' So he summoned the qāḍī and the witnesses, the witnessing took place, and the vizier paid the dowry. She was brought to me a few days later, and she was one of the best of women. So good was her companionship that when I married another wife besides her she would perfume me and fumigate my clothes with incense, laughing, with no sign of displeasure showing on her.
13.92.2
When I had married her, the vizier compelled me to take the office of qāḍī. The reason for this was my objection to the qāḍī's taking a tenth of estates when he divided them among their heirs. I said to him, 'You are entitled only to a fee agreed upon with the heirs.' He was not competent in anything. When I took office I strove my utmost to establish the rules of the sharīʿa; there are no lawsuits there as there are in our country! The first bad custom I changed was that divorced women stayed in the houses of the men who had divorced them; such a woman would remain in her former husband's house until she married another. I cut off the cause of this; about twenty-five men who had done so were brought to me, and I had them beaten and paraded through the markets, and removed the women from them. Then I was strict in enforcing the prayers, and ordered men to go at once through the lanes and markets after
13.92.3
the Friday prayer; anyone they found who had not prayed I had beaten and paraded. I obliged the imāms and muezzins who received stipends to be diligent in their duties, and I wrote to all the islands to the same effect. I tried to make the women wear clothes, but I could not manage it!
Linked texts (1)
- تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic