History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c9.5.3

c9.5.3

In the same year the Chaghtai chief Tarmāshirīn who invaded Khorasan was driven beyond the Oxus by Chauban’s son Amir Hasan who encountered him near Ghazni and inflicted a sharp defeat upon him. All this aggravated Chauban’s arrogance, and so great was the resentment felt in the royal seraglio that one day one of his father’s widows Duniyā Khātūn addressed Abu Sa‘id in these words: ‘If I were a man, I would not have allowed Chauban and his son to behave as they are doing.’ When pressed by Abu Sa‘id to be more explicit, the lady complained of the conduct of Chauban’s son Damishq Khwajah who made free with the widows of Uljaitū. Abu Sa‘id was struck with shame and began to devise means to get hold of the culprit in the manner suggested by Duniyā Khātūn. The young man was arrested and put to death by a Mongol nobleman, Misr Khwajah, and a slave Lulu by name, and his house was plundered.⁴ When Chauban resisted Abu Sa‘id’s wish to marry his daughter Baghdad Khātūn, of whom he had become enamoured, he resolved upon his destruction. Knowing the king’s intentions, Chauban consulted his son Hasan and others as to the course which should be adopted. They decided to have recourse to arms in order to save themselves and Chauban put to death Wazir Rukn-al-Din Sa‘in and collected a force of 70,000 men with whom he advanced upon ‘Iraq. At first he marched towards Mashed and then towards Simān, from where he sent the great Shaikh ‘Alai-ad-dowlat to intercede with the Sultan.