And if my life should obtain a few days grace from that exact­ing creditor* Death, this qaṣīdah, together with all the qaṣīdahs and such useful information as I have written down in a separate note-book in the course of my travels, shall, should opportunity offer, be included among the contents of the second volume of the Najātu-r-Rashīd* which I am anxiously longing to complete, ^471. should God, who facilitates our undertakings, so will it.

Another poet* is Wafā‘ī, by which takhalluṣ Shaikh Zainu-d-Dīn Khāfī* is commonly known, who was Ṣadr-i-mustaqill (Judge-plenipotentiary) * during the reign of Bābar Pādishāh. There is a mosque in Agra to his memory,* and a school situated on the other side of the river Jamna. He was the possessor of excellen­cies both bodily and mental, and in the construction of enigmas and chronograms, and in extempore versification, and in all the minutiæ of poetry and prose, and in rhetoric, he was unapproach­able in his own age.

They say that in the very first assembly in which he made homage to Bābar Pādshāh, he asked, what is your age? Without premeditation he answered, Qabl azīn ba panj sāl chil sāla būdam, wa ḥālān chihal sāla am, wa ba‘d az dū sāl-i-dīgar chihal tamām mī shavad.*

It should moreover be known that (Bābar Pādshāh) also asked (a riddle) of the author of this Muntakhab saying: Pīsh azīn ba yak sāl panjah sāla būdam, wa ḥālān panjāh sāla am, wa ba‘d azīn ba dah sāl panjāh sāla mī shavam.*

It is well known that one day Shaikh Zain went to visit the brilliant resting-place of Sulānu-l-Mashāikh Niāmu-d-Dīn Aulīyā may God sanctify him, and having heard that story of the Shaikh about “Al Hidāyā mushtarak wa tanhā khushtarak”* repeated this qi‘ah on the spot:

Qi‘ah.

Oh our Shaikh! may there come to thee from God gifts with­out ceasing,
What am I that I should say “Al Hidāyā mushtarak”
Thou sayest “Tanhā khushtarak” as thou didst say before
Make it “Mushtarak” if thou dost not say

“Tanhā khushtarak.”

Verse.

Grief has seized me by the sleeve, why should I hide my head
in my sleeve?
Desire has grasped my skirt, why should I withdraw my foot ^472.
within my skirt?
Ah! my sleeve in desire for thee and my skirt also are torn
to rags,
Why should I hide my head in my sleeve and withdraw my
foot within my skirt without thee?*

He wrote a tārīkh dealing with the circumstances* of the con­quest of Hindūstān, and explaining its wonders, in which he did full justice to the claims of erudition.

His death occurred near Chinhār in the year 940 H. and he was buried within the precincts of a college which he himself had founded.

Another (poet) was Maulānā Nādirī-i-Samarqandī, who was one of the wonders of the age, of excellent qualities, and a compen­dium of perfection.* He had a strong attachment for a beautiful youth named Niām, and the following well-known solution of an enigmatical meaning, was composed for him:

Verse.

I the broken-hearted tell the praises of Niām the famous,
For my heart, when absent from him, lies disordered* and
enfeebled.

Rubā‘ī.

I am grieved, and in my heart on thy account I hold a
hundred sorrows,
Without the rubies of thy lips, I am matched against pain
hour by hour;
I am in despair for this life, I the poor, the dejected,
I hope that the road of annihilation may become my refuge.

Gūshwāra.

I sing the praise of the locks of my beloved.

And the following verses are part of the fruit of his fertile genius.

Ghazal.*

How wondrous graceful is my loved one's form,
I yield myself a slave to that figure and carriage;
My loved one would not look towards me with compassion,
Perhaps she displayed an inclination towards strangers.
Nādirī! go towards the wineshop
And pledge thy head and turban for wine.

Verse.

^473. Though I remained my whole life-long there at the head of
thy street,
I swear by my life, that I never enjoyed a moment's peace;
Wherever I bowed my head with the intention of obeisance
Thou wert there the Ka‘bah* towards which I turned.
A whole world was admitted to intimacy, and yet I remained
forlorn,
All were accepted there but I was rejected;
Why do you ask Nādirī, what is thy condition in that road,
At one time I am unhappy, at another I was happy* there.

He also wrote this Qaṣīdah in honour of the deceased Emperor.

Qaṣīdah.

Thanks be to God that with a settled mind
Intimate* friends sat together in pleasure;
The rose-garden is the pleasure-resort of people, for there in
the presence of the rose, the nightingale sorrowful at the
absence of his beloved became rejoiced by its presence.
It may be that the beloved one of the garden had been
stripped naked by Autumn,
So that she has woven a patchwork garment of the hundred
petals of the rose.
The rose and the jasmine, the spikenard and the basil are in
one place,*
See! the Emperor of Spring has come with his retinue and
troops.
The birds are singing the praises of the Emperor of heavenly
grandeur*
On the branches of the trees, like the preachers from their
pulpits.
The glorious Khāqān, the Emperor of dignity like Jamshīd,
Humāyūn,
Who has a powerful hand and a sturdy heart by the decree
of the Almighty.
From his intelligence springs the wisdom of the learned,
From his insight arises the perception of the men of acute
vision.
Since prohibited things are unlawful by the statutes of religion,
He hastens to perform the deeds for which there is divine
sanction.
^474. There have gathered together, to secure the victory of the
army of Islām,
The unrivalled warriors of his army, the brave men of his
troops,
Beneath his victorious standard, on the field of Fortune,
May the favour of the Everlasting be his protector and ally.
Oh thou by the generosity of whose hand all things have
their being,*
By the sharpness of whose sword all properties both acci­dental and essential* obtain permanence.
In the first day of eternity, the object of creation for the
Lord of the world was the evolution of thy form from this
revolving sphere,
Should Gabriel a second time be the bearer of revelation,
Pure passages* will be revealed in thy glory.
Every subtilty of science which thy ruby lip pronounces
Has become as famous in the world as the uninterrupted
tradition.*
It is well-known that this is a commentary on the books of
mathematical science, this wonderful composition of thine
on the discovery of circles.
How can any one deny the vastness of thy knowledge?*
None but a stubborn disputant* will deny self-evident truths.
I cannot estimate thy perfections, for in every art thou hast
become perfectly skilled;
When compared with thy philosophic intellect and good for­tune, the angelic essence becomes as one of the common
material* objects.
Thy generosity is of such a nature that at the moment of ^475.
bestowing
Thou knowest without asking all the hidden desires of the
mind.