التاريخ اليميني 22
English (machine translation) 22
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22.1
When the Sultan [151b] Yamīn al-Dawla wa-Amīn al-Milla had finished with the affair of Sijistān, its pulse had calmed for him and its cloud had cleared away from him, he turned with eagerness to the raid on Bhāṭiya. He led forth the hosts, marked with the emblems of trusted guides and the banners of armed defenders, until he crossed the Sayḥūn beyond al-Multān to the city of Bhāṭiya. He found it possessed of a wall from whose height the wings of eagles slip, surrounded by a moat like the encircling ocean, deep in its bottom and broad in its width, and filled to the limit of imagination with equipment and men, things wrought of iron, and elephants each like a rebellious devil. Their chief at that time was the one known as Bijrā; pride in what his hand held made him rash enough to come out from behind the wall, terrifying with the numbers of his men and the bulk of his elephants, and stretching out the arm of power to fight him.
22.2
The Sultan stoked the fire of war against him for three days and nights, pelting him with thunderbolts from the flashing edges of swords and hurling at him gleaming meteors from the points of levelled spears. On the morning of the fourth day he kept it up against them with blows that sent eyebrows flying from eyes and split skulls along their sutures, and with volleys that left bodies like sieves, nay like nostrils [152a] whose veins had burst and whose breaches defied all damming. When the sun had crowned the summit of the day, he called for a charge against the wicked infidels, and the strains of 'God is greatest' answered one another, calling down the help of God [Mighty and Glorious] and seeking fulfilment of God's true promise. The friends of God charged the people of falsehood and polytheism with a charge that broke their ranks and rubbed their noses in humiliation. The Sultan came on like a noble stallion, striking with both hands, cleaving the mailed warrior in two and giving those thirsting in unbelief to drink from the cups of death. In that single onset he seized from them a number of the elephants which the infidel had counted as fortresses for his heart and reckoned as the repose of his heart.
22.3
The two sides surged in the depths of that charge, between blows that spilled the brains from skulls and thrusts that drained the last breath from bodies. God raised high the banner of the Sultan, nay the banner of religion and faith, made the wind of victory blow gently, and turned hardship of life back into ease. The polytheists fled toward the city to take refuge behind its wall and shut themselves in its houses; but the pursuit gave them no time for precautions, and [the Sultan] seized from them the entrances of the fortification. The various units of the army joined in filling its moats and demolishing its defences, and combined to widen its narrow passages and open its locked gates.
22.4
When the cauldrons [152b] of war had boiled over and the sickles of thrust and blow had reaped, Bajhrā had sensed disgrace and ruin and glimpsed the lightning of woe and destruction, so he slipped away with a band of his foot-soldiers to take shelter in some thicket or seek refuge on the peaks of one of those mountains. The Sultan sent a squadron of his elite troops after them, and they encircled them as buttons encircle necks and gave the thin keen blades sway over them. When Bajhrā saw what had befallen him, he took a dagger from his belt, tore open the veil of his breast with it, and passed to the kindled fire of God which rises over the hearts — the recompense of one who disbelieved and turned away, denied the first [life], neither fasted nor prayed, nor glorified his Lord Most High.
22.5
Then the Sultan's army came up; they slew the fighting men and took the wealth that was there as spoil. To the Sultan fell one hundred and twenty elephants, together with treasures of wealth and weapons to match them — a possession whose attainment was beyond others, and a property whose lawfulness befitted its splendour. He remained at Bhāṭiya until he had cleansed it of the filth of those vile men and the defilement of those wretches, and he appointed there someone to teach the bearers of religion the practices of Islam and explain to them the ways of the lawful and the forbidden. Then he returned to Ghazna with abundant glory, [153a] his banner victorious, his judgement exalted, his fortune running along a straight course; except that his return coincided with pouring rains, overflowing rivers, towering mountains and the blows of foes and enemies, so that drowning swallowed most of his baggage and dispersal overtook a number of his men. But God preserved him from the perils of that distance and the dangers of those roads, and He takes care of the righteous.
22.6
Abū al-Fatḥ ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Bustī used to disapprove of the Sultan's going in person on those expeditions, with counsel he drew as if dictated by Mercury; and truly he spoke what reason bears witness to. But when Mars comes, with the cutting sword, with might and boldness, then speech falls away and pages and pens are void. On this subject Abū al-Fatḥ al-Bustī recited these verses of his own:
22.7
Convey to the Sultan from me a counsel ... attended by affection and seasoned judgement:
22.8
You have surpassed the apogee of the sun in might and height ... and humbled by force all who held sovereignty.
22.9
So why these wearying motions you keep up? ... Be patient, for the sun's apogee does not move.
22.10
This is a question disputed among the ancients: some of them assign the sun's apogee a motion like the other motions of the apogees, but the exact scholars have denied it with geometrical proofs and demonstrative figures [153b].
Linked texts (1)
- التاريخ اليميني — Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-ʿUtbī, Arabic