I will state at the outset* that as the author of the Tārīkh-i-Niāmī * has given an account of the nobles of the realm immediately after his history of the empire, and as most of them are now dead, and gone to perdition,*

[In no one have I seen fidelity,
If thou hast found one who possesses it convey to him my
blessing.]

I will refrain from polluting the nib of my pen with a descrip­tion of such worthless wretches, and will commence with the enumeration of some of the holy men of the age, for an account of noble men who have chosen the way of God is in every way to be preferred to an account of scoundrels and debauchees. And so will I not be a mark for threats and comminations.* (“Throw dust on the faces of those who praise without stint,” and again, “may God protect us from the wickedness of tyrants.”)* An account of the base acts of the followers (of the Divine Faith),*

with whose unclean existence the age is polluted may be thus described:—

Their letters do not spell sense,*
Nor do their thoughts tend in the direction of sense;
Think meanly of the base, and of those whose faith is weak,
Form the same estimate of the latter as of the former.
When one can call to mind one's friends,
And so make the heart a garden of sweet memories,
Pity were it to mention one's enemies
For that were to quit the sweet garden for the midden.*

The holy men by whose noble existence the reign of Akbar ^2. Shāh was adorned have now, for the most part, withdrawn, as the ‘anqā* retires to the mountains of Qāf, to the neighbourhood of the Great God. It is as though they had all conspired together to roll up and remove the baggage of life from this dwelling of care and deceit and to take up their abode in the home of joy and bliss. And now of that caravan not one remains to encourage stragglers.

“The mansions are deserted, temporary and permanent
dwelling alike,
“Nothing remains but owls and rubbish.”*

I shall begin with that class of men who were regularly employed in the Imperial service until* their fame reached such a pitch that it was as manifest as the sun at midday.