He is Sayyid Muḥammad of Najaf who made a name in the Dakan* and came to Ilāhābād and paid his respects to the emperor. He was very unconventional in all outward observances and was bold and slovenly. It was reported to the emperor that he had written a satire in the Dakan on Shāh Fatḥullāh,* and when he was questioned on this point he denied that he had done so, saying, ‘In that country I would have taken no notice of a man of that sort.’ This remark increased the suspicion that he had written the satire and he was imprisoned, and it was ordered that all his papers should be examined in Fatḥpūr in order that it might be discovered, whether he had written satires on anybody while he was in Hindūstān. Some incrim­inating papers were discovered, and he remained in prison in Gwāliyār for ten* years until at length he was pardoned at the intercession of the eldest prince and other courtiers, and was summoned to Lāhor, but he still retained his evil disposition.

One day he came to the house of Qāẓī Ḥasan of Qazvīn,* who has the title of Khān, and the doorkeeper opposed his entering. ‘Itābī grappled with him, entered the assembly, which was a party of friends who had sat down to food, and said to Qāẓī Ḥasan, ‘It was this food, that led you to cause your door to be shut in the face of a learned man, a foreigner, and you have a perfect right (to keep your food to yourself).’ In spite of all that the master of the house and his guests could do in the way of excusing themselves, saying that the doorkeeper had not recog­nized him, ‘Itābī would not be appeased, and refused to sit down and eat. He had great skill in writing Persian and Arabic poetry, also in penmanship and in prose composition. He has composed a dīvān. The following couplets are by him:—

“We have scorched our wise hearts in the furnace of desire,
“We have burnt the lamp of the Ka‘bah at the door of the
idol-temple.”

“We have given thee permission to shed this innocent blood, ²⁷⁶
We have given it to thee verbally, in writing, and under a
formal attestation.”

“We swear by thy honour that we are the nightingales of
this meadow,

That the rose has bloomed and we know not where the
garden is.”
“In thy country the name of faithfulness causes weeping,
Both the messenger, and the letter which he bears cause,
each separately, weeping.

“The drum of thy munificence sounds loudly, but I can find
no way to the sun (of the assembly).
This special custom and public assembly of thine will kill
me.”*

“I have left thy street, besmirched with accusations;
I brought to it chastity, and I leave it defiled with sin.
May the black night of thy locks be pleased with the
multitude of hearts (offered to it)
While I stray, miserable, from thy street.
The fountain of Khiẓr* prides itself on receiving the dust
of my feet
While I go, thirstier than ever, from the dimple in thy
chin.
Sugar was poured out at each door at which I knocked,
thou wouldst think
That I had been to beg from that laughing lip.
I knocked at the door of the seventy-two sects of Islām,
and from the door of despair
I turned, hopeless of help from either fire-worshipper or
Musalmān.”

“In my impatience, ‘Itābī, I resolved to part from her, and
now
Each time the thought of her enters my heart I weep un-
restrainedly.”

A quatrain.

“In the love of thy face I have lost both learning and sense. ²⁷⁷
But what of these? I have lost my very soul
In following thee, whatever I had at the end of my life
Have I lost, and yet I have lost all evil.”

“It would not be wonderful if from the atmosphere of thy
face,
And from the heated iron of my heart, a film should form
on the mirror.”

After his release from confinement he was given a sum of a thousand rupees for travelling expenses and was placed under the charge of Qilīj Khān,* who was ordered to send him off from the port of Sūrat on a pilgrimage to the Ḥijāz, but on the way to Sūrat he escaped and fled into the Dakan, where he took refuge with the rulers of the country, and there he still wanders about in the condition in which he formerly was.