This Mullā of pleasant manners, cheerful nature and graceful actions used the poetical name of ‘Ārif. In argument, and at other times, he would say things fit to make his hearers die with laughter. In his common-place book he has written an essay on the commentary* on the Maqāṣid and has stated the proposition that the title means ‘the book of endeavour,’ which was one of the compositions of the writer, and also a com­mentary called the Tajdīd (‘renewal’) on the commentary* on the Tajdīd, and also some marginal notes on the Muawwal,* in which he writes, “This book is copied from the book uwaḷ,* which is equal in length to the Muawwal, or even longer.” He has also written a book containing accounts of the Shaikhs of India, in which he has entered everything that he has heard from every mosque-sweeper and beggar, adding also some conjectures of his own, and he has named it Wa fawātiḥ-ul-wilāyah. When they questioned him regarding this title, saying, “The particle wa (‘and’) requires something preceding it, to be coupled with the latter clause, and what should precede, it does not appear,” he replied, “That which precedes it is here understood, and is mani­fest by transposition, that is to say, the title should be Fawātiḥ-ul-walāyah , with a fatḥah over the wāw of walāyah as the wāw preceding the phrase indicates, not with a kasr under the wāw of wilāyaḥ, as it is commonly read.”*

The Mullā was always jealous of Qāẓī Khān of Badakhshān,* on the ground of his having invented the sijdah* (‘prostration’). One day in Fatḥpūr he led the late Mīrzā Niām-ud-dīn Aḥmad and the author off to his house at early dawn, with much solicita­tion, and, having given us an appetizing electuary, began to show us his books, talking about them from dawn till midday, while we remained hungry and were not able to get a word in. At last the Mīrzā, no longer able to endure it, asked the Mullā whether he had anything to eat. The Mullā answered, “I thought that ²⁷¹ you had eaten before you came. I have a lamb here; if you wish I will kill it now.” We rose and went home. It is im­possible to recount all pranks of this nature which he played.

When he saw that Shaikh Abū'l-Faẓl, Qāẓī Khān, and others of his contemporaries from being mullās rose to the rank of amīrs of the highest grade, while he continued to draw a small stipend, he petitioned that he too might be admitted as a soldier. His request was granted, and one day, at the time when the guard turned out for the evening salute, he appeared in military guise before the emperor, girt in a grotesque fashion with a borrowed sword, and, having approached the presence from one side of the darbār, stood, and, catching his scabbard to him, said, without any introduction,* “By which manṣabdār* shall I stand, and from what place shall I make my obeisance?”* The emperor was sagacious enough to penetrate his design and said, “Make your obeisance from that place in which you are now standing.” When the Mullā saw that this effort to obtain recognition had failed he wandered at large. One day, in order to show that he possessed all that became a soldier, he came to court, in the noonday heat, in dirty, greasy clothes quilted with cotton, which had been either given or lent to him by somebody, and Mīrzā ‘Azīz Kūka cracked some pleasant jests on his appearance, and the Mullā returned pleasant answers to them.

As his birthplace was Gulbahār, a village in the district of Kābul, he wrote for some time under the poetical name of Bahārī, but afterwards, having recognized that the name was unbecoming, as it called to mind the names borne by servant girls, he changed it, and called himself Rabī‘ī.* The motto which he composed for his seal was, “He had a well-ordered mind.”*

²⁷² The following few couplets are quoted as a memorial of him:—

“That eye in which I delighted every moment flees away,
It may be that I shall place a straw from her wall upon it.”

“The glass of delight has been shattered, with whomsoever
I sat;
The bond of fellowship has snapped, with whomsoever I
bound it.
She has risen to slay me, with the sword of hatred in her
hand,
Whenever I sat in kindness with anybody for a moment.”

He has composed, some couplets in the metre of ‘The Chain of Gold’* and he has called his book of nonsense “The Tinkling of the Bell,” and has enumerated in it books said to be of his own composition, some of which have no existence but in his verses, and has given them imaginary names, as in the following verses:—

“Thou mayst have seen, from a copy of the Tajdīd,*
That a new favour has newly arrived
In which are concealed a hundred stages of the pilgrimage,*
And from the contents of which great enterprises* are mani-
fest.
The text of the Tajūd* is halting beside it,
Its rose-garden has lost its colour from want of water.
Its splendour, without dissimulation and without exaggera
tion,
Is perfect wisdom, the wisdom of the sunrise*
And of that book, the attributes of which are beyond
telling,
Dalālat-ul-‘aql* is the name and description.
And that pearl which has come from the ocean of generosity,
Is the Lujjat-ul-jūd fi'l-wujūd.*
I am the compiler of that ‘Awālim-ul-āthār,*
From the instructions of the knower of chronicles,

In which I have collected a hundred and twenty different
branches of learning,
Say who else can be thus described.”

In spite of all this fooling he was a good friend, tactful, accom­plished, able, sympathetic, unceremonious, agreeable, acceptable, and jocular. I hope that God (He is praised and exalted!) may in His grace and benevolence have made him a partaker of eternal life in heaven.