On Friday, the 9th of Rabí'u-l awwal, 952 A.H., when one watch and two hours of the day was over, Sher Sháh called for his breakfast, and eat with his 'ulamá and priests, without whom he never breakfasted. In the midst of breakfast, Shaikh Nizám said, “There is nothing equal to a religious war against the infidels. If you be slain you become a martyr, if you live you become a ghází.” When Sher Sháh had finished eating his breakfast, he ordered Daryá Khán to bring loaded shells,* and went up to the top of a mound, and with his own hand shot off many arrows, and said, “Daryá Khán comes not; he delays very long.” But when they were at last brought, Sher Sháh came down from the mound, and stood where they were placed. While the men were employed in discharging them, by the will of God Almighty, one shell full of gunpowder struck on the gate of the fort and broke, and came and fell where a great number of other shells were placed. Those which were loaded all began to explode. Shaikh Halíl, Shaikh Nizám, and other learned men, and most of the others escaped and were not burnt, but they brought out Sher Sháh partially burnt. A young princess who was standing by the rockets was burnt to death. When Sher Sháh was carried into his tent, all his nobles assembled in darbár; and he sent for 'Ísá Khán Hájib and Masnad Khán Kalkapúr, the son-in-law of 'Ísá Khán, and the paternal uncle of the author, to come into his tent, and ordered them to take the fort while he was yet alive. When 'Ísá Khán came out and told the chiefs that it was Sher Sháh's order that they should attack on every side and capture the fort, men came and swarmed out instantly on every side like ants and locusts; and by the time of afternoon prayers captured the fort, putting every one to the sword, and sending all the infidels to hell. About the hour of evening prayers, the intelligence of the victory reached Sher Sháh, and marks of joy and pleasure appeared on his countenance. Rájá Kírat Sing, with seventy men, remained in a house. Kutb Khán the whole night long watched the house in person lest the Rájá should escape. Sher Sháh said to his sons that none of his nobles need watch the house, so that the Rájá escaped out of the house, and the labour and trouble of this long watching was lost. The next day at sunrise, however, they took the Rájá alive.*
On the 10th Rabí'u-l awwal, 952 A.H. (May, 1545 A.D.), Sher Sháh went from the hostel of this world to rest in the mansion of happiness, and ascended peacefully from the abode of this world to the lofty heavens. The date was discovered in the words az átash murd, “He died from fire.”
On certain matters regarding Sher Sháh, on which he was busied day and night, and which he enjoined to his sons, chiefs, and nobles, and which he caused to be recorded.
When fortune gave into the hands of Sher Sháh the bridle of power, and the kingdom of Hind fell under his dominion, he made certain laws, both from his own ideas, and by extracting them from the works of the learned, for securing relief from tyranny, and for the repression of crime and villany; for maintaining the prosperity of his realms, the safety of the highways, and the comfort of merchants and troops. He acted upon these laws, and it was proved by experience that they became the means of procuring tranquillity for the classes above mentioned. Sher Sháh often said, “It behoves kings to inscribe the page of their history with the characters of religion, that their servants and subjects may love religion; for kings are partakers in every act of devotion and worship which proceeds from the priests and the people. Crime and violence prevent the development of prosperity. It behoves kings to be grateful for the favour that the Lord has made his people subject to them, and therefore not to disobey the commandments of God.”
Sher Sháh attended to every business concerning the administration of the kingdom and the revenues, whether great or small, in his own person. Nor did he permit his temporal affairs to be unmixed with devotion; day and night he was employed in both works. He had his dependents in waiting to awake him when two-thirds of the night were passed; and bathing himself every night he employed himself in prayer and supplication until the fourth watch. After that he heard the accounts of the various officers, and the ministers made their reports of the work to be done in their respective departments, and the orders which Sher Sháh gave they recorded for their future guidance, that there might be no necessity for inquiry in future. When the morning had well broken, he again performed his ablutions, and with a great assembly went through his obligatory devotions, and afterwards read the Musta'áb-i 'ashr, and other prayers. After that his chiefs and soldiers came to pay their respects, and the “heralds” (nakíbs) called out each man by name, and said:—“Such and such a one, the son of such a one, pays his respects.” One full hour after sunrise, that is to say about the first hour of the day, he performed the Namáz-i ishrák.* After this, he inquired of his chiefs and soldiers if any of them had no jágír, that he might assign them one before entering on a campaign; and said that if any asked for a jágír while engaged in a campaign, he should be punished. After that he asked if there were any who were oppressed or evil treated, that he might right them, for Sher Sháh was adorned with the jewel of justice, and he oftentimes remarked, “Justice is the most excellent of religious rites, and it is approved alike by the kings of infidels and of the faithful.” * * * So he employed himself in personally discharging the administration of the kingdom, and divided both day and night into portions for each separate business, and suffered no sloth or idleness to find its way to him. “For,” said he, “it behoves the great to be always active, and they should not consider, on account of the greatness of their own dignity and loftiness of their own rank, the affairs and business of the kingdom small or petty, and should place no undue reliance on their ministers. * * * The corruption of ministers of contemporary princes was the means of my acquiring the worldly kingdom I possess. A king should not have corrupt vakíls or wazírs: for a receiver of bribes is dependent on the giver of bribes; and one who is dependent is unfit for the office of wazír, for he is an interested personage; and to an interested person loyalty and truth in the administration of the kingdom are lost.”
When the young shoot of Sher Sháh's prosperity came into bearing, he always ascertained the exact truth regarding the oppressed, and the suitors for justice; and he never favoured the oppressors, although they might be his near relations, his dear sons, his renowned nobles, or of his own tribe; and he never showed any delay or lenity in punishing oppressors. * * * Among the rules which Sher Sháh promulgated, and which were not before known in the world, is the branding of horses;* and he said he ordered it on this account, that the rights of the chiefs and their soldiers might be distinct, and that the chiefs might not be able to defraud the soldiers of their rights; and that every one should maintain soldiers according to his rank (mansab), and should not vary his numbers. “For,” said he, “in the time of Sultán Ibráhím, and afterwards, I observed that many base nobles were guilty of fraud and falsehood, who, at the time when their monthly salary was assigned to them, had a number of soldiers; but when they had got possession of their jágírs, they dismissed the greater number of their men without payment, and only kept a few men for indispensable duties, and did not even pay them in full. Nor did they regard the injury to their master's interests, or the ingratitude of their own conduct; and when their lord ordered a review or assembly of their forces, they brought strange men and horses, and mustered them, but the money they put into their own treasuries. In time of war they would be defeated from paucity of numbers, but they kept the money, and when their master's affairs became critical and disordered, they, equipping themselves with this very money, took service elsewhere; so from the ruin of their master's fortunes they suffered no loss. When I had the good fortune to gain power, I was on my guard against the deceit and fraud of both chiefs and soldiers, and ordered the horses to be branded, in order to block up the road against these tricks and frauds; so that the chiefs could not entertain strangers to fill up their ranks.” Sher Sháh's custom was this, that he would not pay their salary unless the horses were branded, and he carried it to such an extent that he would not give anything to the sweepers and women servants about the palace without a brand, and they wrote out descriptive rolls of the men and horses and brought them before him, and he himself compared the rolls when he fixed the monthly salaries, and then he had the horses branded in his presence.