He was an able Mullā, of a pleasant disposition, unaffected, a good conversationalist, a charming associate and a boon com­panion, ever ready with a pleasant jest. He attracted many to his society and delighted all who associated with him. He obtained an appointment in the military service of the empire which enabled him to live contentedly. He was much attached to me throughout his life. In the year H. 990 (A.D. 1582), when the victorious army was marching towards Aṭak on the river in the neighbourhood of Siyālkōṭ, he delivered up the life which had been entrusted to him,* and his corpse was taken to a village in the pargana of Amrōha, which he had beautified for himself, and was there buried.

This concludes the brief account of those Shaikhs and learned men of the age whom, for the most part, I have had an opportu­nity of meeting and waiting upon, and by whose illuminating regard I have been honoured; as for those of them whom I have not seen, be it as God will! Of all those of whom my pen has given an account, but very few remain here and there, like moles on the face of the age, in these days in which there is such a dearth of men worthy to be so called. Those who remain avoid and flee from the world and have been completely forgotten by those of feeble and defective nature, the vulgar, that is to say, who are no better than cattle. These learned men, counting as a ¹⁵⁸ loan the few moments of life which are left to them, await the arrival of the swift-footed messenger of death, and, having fully realized the dignity of old age, now hearken with the ears of the soul for the cry “Prepare to set out!” expectantly waiting to answer obediently to the shout.

Quatrain.

In the history of the world the lives of all, both small and
great,
Are written, and accounts of brave men and heroes,
Read, and on each page of it you will see “In such a year
Died such one, the son of such a one, the son of such a one.”

And other Shaikhs and learned men are and were scattered throughout all parts of India, throughout its length and breadth, in such numbers that the reckoning of them is left to the knowledge of the Knower of Secrets. Likewise the number of those who are famed and known for the natural wickedness of their dispositions and innate baseness, for their hypocrisy, vile­ness, worthlessness, crooked dealings and injustice is beyond computation, and there is no need for me to soil my pen by recording anything concerning this handful of rubbish, these base fellows, for I have a great task before me and but little hope of long life, and my condition resembles that of the ice merchant of Nīshāpur who was selling ice in the summer, and when the sun waxed hot cried out, “O, ye Muslims! Have pity upon him whose stock-in-trade is melting away on his hands!”

Couplet.

“Our life is as ice in the heat of summer,
But little of it remains and its owner is still deceived.”

And my recording the dates of the deaths of the men of whom I write resembles the case of that tailor who in a certain city had his shop by the gate of the graveyard, and hung an earthen pot from a nail in his door, his only care being to drop a stone in the pot for every funeral which came from the city. Every month ¹⁵⁹ he used to count the stones, saying, “They have carried away so many to burial.” Then he would empty the pot and hang it again on the nail, dropping stones into it as before till another month had passed. It so happened that the master tailor died and a man who had not heard of his death came to demand his services. He found the door of his shop shut and asked a neighbour whither the tailor had gone. The neighbour replied, “He too has gone into the pot.”

Couplet.

Regard well what happens to others,
For when it has passed by them it will be your lot also.
God be gracious! We have fallen into the mouth of a
dragon where we cannot even struggle or move, and
whence we cannot obtain freedom.
Devour thine own blood like the rosebud; mourn and open
not thy lips,
For the rosebud of this garden, the world, has no hope of
blossoming.
It points out to thee that some form, lofty as the cypress,
has crumbled away to dust.
On every spot which is shaded by the box-tree.
Since some rose from the pleasaunce is every moment borne
away on the wind
The solitary lily wears ever the blue raiment of mourning.

I would here request my respected and critical readers and acute appraisers not to be unduly carping and censorious as regards the lack of arrangement in this work, for the famous names of the members of the two classes which I have men­tioned, who have been specially chosen out from among the people for honour, are mentioned in these few pages at haphazard like scattered pearls, and without regard to precedence or place. I would deprecate criticism on this score inasmuch as these historical selections have been written, as it were, by a broken-winged pen in a hasty flight, and I have had no leisure to arrange my composition in a commonplace book. My case much resembles that of the saddler who was constantly losing ¹⁶⁰ his needle and said, “If my time were not mostly wasted in looking for my needle I should be able to get through a good deal of work in the day, notwithstanding that the beggars as one man gather round me like the thong of a whip.” This is a well­known saying. Although some of those whom I have mentioned may not perhaps be altogether as I would have them, for many a sincerely pious man wears the appearance of an atheist, yet if there be even one of them who is acceptable to the Lord, that one person will be sufficient for my salvation, to make intercession for me and to gain honour for me. Although all of them in general are entitled to be considered as, in some sort, saints, for “God is near to them who believe,” and are thus many degrees better than I, yet some of them have a special and manifest claim, which I fully admit, to be regarded as saints. It is for this reason that I have not included among these biographies those of the irreligious and lewd, taking as my rule of conduct the saying of the sage of Busām, which he spoke to one of his disciples by way of advice, saying, “If in these present times you see any­body who has faith in the sayings of the Shaikhs request his prayers both for me and for yourself, for the prayers of such a one will most certainly be answered.”

I know no way and I can find no help for myself,
Except the love of those whose faith is firm.

It so happened that when I reckoned up the number of those of this honoured class whom I have mentioned, most of whom are truly men of God, and generous and enlightened souls, I found that it came to a hundred and eleven, the number which is given by the word qub and also by the word alf (“one thousand”), which latter word was the date of the year* in which I wrote this treatise which has given me so much pleasure.

Now that my heart is disgusted with those depraved wretches who have not scrupled unblushingly to cavil at and openly to revile the faith of Islām, convicting themselves of infidelity and shamelessness, and who are the cause of all the ruin which has ¹⁶¹ fallen upon both the state and the people of Islām, and are known as the strife of the latter days, I will proceed to an account of the physicians (of the court) although some of these, too, may be classed in the same category as the infidels just mentioned.