He is descended from some of the religious leaders of the Turks. He is acquainted with book-keeping, and was for some time accountant-general to the imperial government. He has a dīvān ²⁷⁸ full of long and short odes. One day in Lāhor he represented that he wished t?? present the emperor with a complete copy of his works, and at the same time to recite before him a long ode and a short ode which he had just composed. As his poetry was known to be ridiculous, the emperor told him to keep the two odes by him and to insert them in the complete copy of his works when he should present it, in order that all his poems might be heard at one reading. He composed a long manavī, like the manavī of Khanjar Beg, which has already been mentioned. This couplet occurs in it,

“I am mean, of no consideration, and ugly;
What a plague of a contemptible mannikin am I.”

Raḥmān Qulī Sulān, his son, had skill in composing chrono-grams, and wrote this hemistich as a posy for his seal.

“The slave Raḥmān Qulī Sulān, the son of ‘Ishqī Khān.”

(The author adds)

“How should that ingenious man have a worthless son.”

Since in this selection I have imposed upon myself the duty of quoting, just as it was written, the poetry of all the poets of the age without any distinction, and most of whatever I found in my sources of information, whether melodious or inelegant, has been reproduced, I have, of necessity, quoted some of the verses of ‘Ishqī Khān, in order to show no unreasonable preference. And, in truth, the responsibility rests with Mīr ‘Alā-ud-daulah,* not with the author. The following couplets are his:—

“The reflection of thy eye, heavy with the drowsiness of
wine,* has fallen on the wine,
Like a drunkard who, in his drunkenness, falls into the
water.”

“The bud, in desire of thy lip, smiled not at the breath of
the morning,
But in order to see thy face opened the eye of its heart.” ²⁷⁹

“As I write my letter to thee the paper is wet with my
tears,
I weep in jealousy of the pen which writes thy name on
the paper.”*

He was, at all events, a mild and dignified man, of old-fashioned manners. He has now wholly accepted the Ṣūfī doctrine of anni­hilation, and is become an old man nearing actual annihilation.