As Lahore is one of the greatest places in Hindustan, a great number of people gathered in six or seven days. It was reported on good authority that 10,000 or 12,000 horse were collected, and had left the city with the view of making a night attack on the royal vanguard. This news was brought to me at the sarāy of Qāẓī ‘Alī on the night of Thursday the 16th. Although it rained heavily in the night I beat the drum of march and mounted. Arriving in Sulānpūr at dawn I remained there till noon. By chance, at this place and hour the victorious army encountered that ill-fated band. Mu‘izzu-l-mulk had brought a dish of roast meat,* and I was turning towards it with zest when the news of the battle was brought to me. Though I had a longing to eat the roast meat, I immediately took a mouthful by way of augury and mounted, and without waiting for the coming up of men and without regard to the smallness of my force I went off in all haste. However much I demanded my chiltah (wadded coat), they did not produce it. My only arms were a spear and sword, but I committed myself to the favour of God and started off without hesitation. At first my escort did not number more than fifty horsemen; no one had expected a fight that day. In fine, when I reached the head of the bridge of Gobindwāl,* 400 or 500 horse, good and bad, had come together. When I had crossed the bridge the news of a victory was brought to me. The bearer of the good news was Shamsī, tūshakchī (wardrobe man), and for his good news he obtained the title of Khūsh-khabar Khān. Mīr Jamālu-d-dīn Ḥusain, whom I had sent previously to advise Khusrau, came up at the same time and said such things about the number and bravery of Khusrau's men as frightened his hearers. Though news of the victory came continuously, this simple-minded Sayyid would not believe it, and expressed incredulity that such an army as he had seen could be defeated by Shaikh Farīd's force, which was small and not properly equipped. When they brought Khusrau's litter* with two of his eunuchs, the Mīr admitted what had happened. Then, alighting from his horse, he placed his head at my feet and professed every kind of humility and submission, and said that there could be no higher or more lofty fortune than this.
In this command Shaikh Farīd behaved with sincerity and devotion. The Sayyids of Bārha, who are of the brave ones of the age, and who have held this place in every fight in which they have been, formed the van. Saif Khān, son of Sayyid Maḥmūd Khān Bārha, the head of the tribe, had shown great bravery and had received seventeen wounds. Sayyid Jalāl, also of the brethren of this band, received an arrow in his temple and died a few days later. At the time when the Sayyids of Bārha, who were not more than fifty or sixty in number, having received wounds from 1,500 Badakhshī horsemen, had been cut to pieces, Sayyid Kamāl, who, with his brothers, had been appointed to support the van, came up on the flank and fought with wondrous bravery and manliness. After that the men of the right wing raised the cry of Pādshāh salāmat (“Long live the King”) and charged, and the rebels hearing the words, gave up and scattered abroad to various hiding-places. About 400 Aimāqs became crushed on the plain of anger and overcome by the victorious army. Khusrau's box of jewels and precious things which he had always with him, fell into our hands.
“Who thought that this boy of few years
Would behave so badly to his sire?
At the first taste of the cup he brings up the lees.
He melts away my glory and his own modesty.
He sets on fire* the throne of Khūrshīd,
He longs for the place of Jamshīd.”
Short-sighted men in Allahabad had urged me also to rebel against my father. Their words were extremely unacceptable and disapproved by me. I know what sort of endurance a kingdom would have, the foundations of which were laid on hostility to a father, and was not moved by the evil counsels of such worthless men, but acting according to the dictates of reason and knowledge I waited on my father, my guide, my qibla,* and my visible God, and as a result of this good purpose it went well with me.
In the evening of the day of Khusrau's flight I gave Rāja Bāso, who is a trusty zamindar of the hill-country of Lahore, leave to go to that frontier, and, wherever he heard news or trace of Khusrau, to make every effort to capture him. I also appointed Mahābat Khān and Mīrzā ‘Alī Akbarshāhī to a large force, which was to pursue Khusrau in whatever direction he might go. I resolved with myself that if Khusrau went to Kabul, I would follow him and not turn back till he was captured. If not delaying in Kabul he should go on to Badakhshan and those regions, I would leave Mahābat Khān in Kabul and return myself (to India). My reason for not going to Badakhshan was that that wretch would (in that case) certainly ally himself with the Ūzbegs, and the disgrace would attach to this State.
On the day on which the royal troops were ordered to pursue Khusrau, 15,000 rupees were given to Mahābat Khān and 20,000 to the ahadis, and 10,000 more were sent with the army to be given to whom it might be necessary to give it on the way.
On Saturday, the 28th, the victorious camp was pitched at Jaipāl,* which lies seven kos from Lahore. On the same day Khusrau arrived with a few men on the bank of the Chenāb. The brief account of what had happened is that after his defeat those who had escaped with him from the battle became divided in opinion. The Afghans and Indians, who were mostly his old retainers, wished to double back like foxes into Hindustan, and to become a source of rebellion and trouble there. Ḥusain Beg, whose people and family and treasure were in the direction of Kabul, suggested going to Kabul. In the end, as action was taken according to the wish of Ḥusain Beg, the Hindustanis and the Afghans decided to separate themselves from him. On arriving at the Chenāb, he proposed to cross at the ferry of Shāhpūr, which is one of the recognized crossings, but as he could find no boats there he made for the ferry of Sodharah, where his people got one boat without boatmen and another full of firewood and grass.
The ferries over the rivers had been stopped because before Khusrau's defeat orders had been given to all the jagirdars and the superintendents of roads and crossings in the subah of the Panjab that as this kind of dispute had arisen they must all be on the alert. Ḥusain Beg wished to transfer the men from the boat with firewood and grass to the other, so that they might convey Khusrau across. At this juncture arrived Kīlan,* son-in-law of Kamāl Chaudharī of Sodharah, and saw a body of men about to cross in the night. He cried out to the boatmen that there was an order from the king Jahāngīr forbidding unknown men from crossing in the night, and that they must be careful. Owing to the noise and uproar, the people of the neighbourhood gathered together, and Kamāl's son-in-law took from the boatmen the pole with which they propel the boat, and which in Hindustani is called ballī, and thus made the boat unmanageable. Although money was offered to the boatmen, not one would ferry them over. News went to Abū-l-Qāsim Namakīn, who was at Gujarat, near the Chenāb, that a body of men were wanting to cross the river by night, and he at once came to the ferry in the night with his sons and some horsemen. Things went to such a length that Ḥusain Beg shot arrows at the boatmen,* and Kamāl's son-in-law also took to shooting arrows from the river-bank. For four kos the boat took its own way down the river, until at the end of the night it grounded, and try as they would they could not get it off. Meantime it became day. Abū-l-Qāsim and Khwāja Khiẓr Khān, who by the efforts of Hilāl Khān had assembled on this (? the west) side of the river, fortified its west bank, and the zamindars fortified it on the east.
Before this affair of Khusrau's, I had sent Hilāl Khān
as sazāwal to the army appointed for Kashmīr under Sa‘īd
Khān, and by chance he arrived in the neighbourhood (of
the ferry) that same night; he came in the nick of time,
and his efforts had great effect in bringing together Abū-l-
On the morning of Sunday, the 24th of the aforesaid month, people on elephants and in boats captured Khusrau, and on Monday, the last day of the month, news of this reached me in the garden of Mīrzā Kāmrān. I immediately ordered the Amīru-l-umarā to go to Gujarat and to bring Khusrau to wait on me.