Thanks be to God that the writer of this Muntakhab was born in the reign of so just a king; to use the words of the Prophet, may the peace and blessing of God be upon him,* I was born in the reign of the just king, on the seventeenth of Rabī‘u--ānī* in the year 947 H. (1540 A.D.) but, in spite of this, would that the ^364. name of that hour and that day had been erased from the chroni­cles of years and months, so that I had not been obliged to leave the private chamber of non-existence, where I dwelt with the inhabitants of the world of dreams and fancies, and to place my foot into this world of imaginary existence, and to suffer* so many scars of various misfortunes, all of which are branded with the stamp, He loses this world and the next, the context is well-known.

Verse.

My body bears a robe, surpassing splendid
My hopes for this world and the next are ended.

Rubā‘ī.

I came yesterday, and have accomplished nothing,
To-day my efforts have availed me nothing,
To-morrow I depart, having learned no single secret;
Better had been non-existence than this vain superfluity.

And when one looks into the matter carefully one becomes aware that seeing that the Lord, the repository of the seal of the prophetic office, upon him and his family may the peace and bless­ing of God rest, says:* “Would that the Lord of Muḥammad had not created Muḥammad,” it is not in the power of a weak-minded mortal (like myself) to draw a single breath in this valley (of desolation), and one fears lest such an attempt should lead to audacity in the way of religion, and lest its fruit should be ever­lasting destruction. I entreat pardon from God of all that is an abomination to Him.

What power has the clay that it should say to the potter
Why dost thou make me and why dost thou break me.*

After that Shīr Shāh reached the hill-country of Bālnāt. He built there the fortress of Rohtās as a protection for the army of Hindūstān against the Mughūl forces. Then he appointed Khawāṣṣ Khān to undertake the pursuit, and returned. While on the march he heard that a commander named Khiẓr Khān Sarak had become infatuated with rebellious notions and was behaving as though he were a Sulān. Shīr Shāh* accordingly bent his course ^365. thither, and Khiẓr Khān hastening to encounter him was taken prisoner. Shīr Shāh took possession of that country and conferred it by way of jāegīr upon several of his Amīrs, and appointed to the superintendence of the fort of Rohtās,* Qāẓī Faẓīlat the Qāẓī of the army, who was popularly known by the more appropriate title of Qāẓī Faẓīḥat.*

In the year 948 H. he came* to Āgra, and in the year 949 H. proceeded to Gwāliār with the intention of conquering Mālwa.* Abūl Qāsim Beg, one of the Amīrs of Humāyūn Pādshāh who had entrenched himself in that fortress, came in and had an interview with him, giving up the keys of the fort. Mallū Khān the gover­nor of Mālwa, who* was one of the slaves of the Khiljī Sulāns, and held absolute and unlimited power in that province, offered his services to Shīr Shāh, and was honoured by splendid rewards. Shīr Shāh also had tents pitched for him close to his own tent, and prepared a hundred and one horses and other apparatus of pomp and dignity in his honour. In the meantime a suspicion arose in Mallū Khān's mind, and one night he tore his tent and escaped alone after the accustomed manner of slaves, and fled. Shīr Khān wrote the following:—

Verse.

You see how the chicken-hearted slave Mallū has treated me
It is a saying of Muṣafā “There can be no good in a slave.”

Shīr Khān then nominated Ḥājī Khān Sulānī to the subjuga­tion of the province of Mālwa, and Sazāwal Khān* to adminis­ter the affairs of the district of Sawās;* Mallū Khān fought with Ḥājī Khān and Sazāwal Khān, and suffered a defeat from which he never recovered.

Every weakling who fights with one stronger than he,
Gets such a fall that he can never again rise.

And Khān-i-Khānān Sarwānī,* who was the* permanent Gov­ernor of the fort of Ranthanbūr, yielded up that fortress to Shīr ^366. Shāh and came with his family to the township of Basāwar. It is said that some one introduced some poison into his cup. His tomb is in the suburbs of that township, in a pleasant spot, and is well­known at this time:

Quatrain.

Death, thou hast desolated hundreds of homes,
In the kingdom of existence thou makest life thy spoil.
No jewel beyond price has come into the world,
But thou has borne it away and hidden it beneath the dust.

In this year Shīr Shāh* led an army against the fortress of Rāī Sen and besieged it, because Pūranmal the son of Silhadī, one of the Chiefs of Rāī Sen, had attacked the city of Chanderī, which is one of the chief cities of Hindūstān, and had put its inhabitants to death, and was keeping two thousand* women, Hīndūs and Muslims, in his own ḥarīm. The following couplet was found to record the date of this siege: