The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c26.16

c26.16

Abul Fazl persists in using sābāt in a different sense from everybody else. To begin with the siege of Chunār, Abul Fazl (Lucknow edition), Book i, 114, line 6, says Rūmī Khān, ba kishtīhāe tartīb-i-sābāt sākhtah. The passage is translated by Mr. Beveridge, i, 331, “Rūmī Khān, . . . . . . constructed a covered way (sābāt) upon boats, and arranged such a roof (sataḥa) . . . . . .” But if we go to Jauhar, Āftābchī, my Ms. fol. 16b, or to Niẓām-ud-dīn, Ṭabaqāt, fol. 151b, we find that Rūmī Khān took three boats and built on them a battering ram (muqābil-kob). The passages are rendered to the same effect in Stewart, Tezkereh-al-Vakiāt, p. 20, lines 11—25, Erskine, “Bābar and Humāyun”, ii, 140, 141, Budāonī, Ranking, i, 456, and Elliot, “Mahomedan Historians”, v, 199. In none of them is there a word about a sābāt, nor did they ever dream of calling this high erection built on boats, a sābāt.