The 46th was the last year of which A. F. wrote an account. He was killed in the 47th year on 4th Rabi' I. 1011 A.H., 12th August 1602. That year began on 26th Ramẓān 1010, 11th March 1602, and so he was killed five months after it had begun. The Bib. Ind. ed. continues the history to the end of Akbar's reign and there is no note to the text to indicate when A. F.'s writing ends, and Muḥibb 'Alī's begins. But a sentence at the end of the editor's preface to the third volume states that A. F. wrote the history to the end of the 46th year, and that the continuation is the work of Muḥibb 'Alī K. Chalmers, and Elphinstone after him, give the name of the continuator as 'Inayat Ullah or Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ. Blochmann XXX says that in two MSS. which he has seen, the name of the continuator is given as 'Inayat Ullah Muḥibb 'Alī. At the end of Chalmers' translation the continuator is called 'Inayat Ullah or Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ. See Elliot VI. 115.

The two I.O. MSS. Nos. 235 and 236 and the B.M. MS. Add. 26, 207 (Rieu I. 251) give, in addition to the 46th year, the heading of the 47th, some poetry and a long khāima, or conclusion. This couclusion is also found in the 3rd book of the Inshā, ed. Newal Kishore, p. 223, and is presumably genuine. Abul Faẓl appears to have written it because the 46th year completed or nearly completed the second qaran, or cycle, of thirty years, reckoning from Akbar's birth. As a fact, the cycle did not finish till about the middle of the 47th year. The conclusion appears in a very abridged form at the end of the Lucknow edition and at p. 843 of the Bib. Ind. ed. It is as follows:

In the name of God! Hail, acute intelligence:
In that thou hast given a new ending to words,
The pen has at once rested from movement
For the second* volume has been completed.

Inasmuch as intellect assisted, and there was true devotion, wakeful for­tune, and help of auspiciousness some thing of the events of the second cycle, which is conjoined with eternal dominion, has been written down. By the help of the glorious authors (the Fates) my energy has been in some measure light­ened of its burden.

When a brilliant half was completed
Half the world came into my hands.
If life be granted for the other half
I'll write it in such an instructed manner
That readers will be aroused from sleep
And that the fishes will dance in the water.

I shed many drops of sweat* from my intellect's brow into the skirt of hope in order that half a drop of the river of enlightenment might refresh me! How the heart-fumes rose up in order that the ears might so far be enlight- ⁸⁴⁴ ened! May it confer a great name by being accepted of hearts! May I be made an eternal entertainer!

From my life I gave it flight
May God give it a place among lives.

Hail the noble work of disposition, and the wonders of the pen! He who is bound in humanity's prison takes his flight towards the sky, and in the artificiality of the market-place of affairs he shows a desire for the holy hour of joy. The exchanging of the coin of celestials is performed in the assay-place of mortals, and Divine secrets adorn the stations of service. The strains of detachment are sung amid the troubles of association.

Our eyes are opened to the spectacle of truth.
Primal reason fears the standard of our audacity.
I lower my head and look into the fold of the two worlds,
Mayhap Love has fashioned our robe of the woof of vision.

I* hope that the thread of the description of events will not be broken and that from time to time the office of thanksgiving will acquire new lustre, and that many wondrous events will be handled by the truthful pen—whose slit is the dawning of the heart, and that a treasure-chest of auspiciousness has been filled and will be a present to future students, and that connoiseurs of jewels will have joy.

Verily, while on this earth there is the beauty of order
May there be from spirituality a lofty name to words.

May the order of speech be in accordance with Thy words
May the ornament of spirituality be in Thy name.

In the preface to the 3rd vol. of the Akbarnāma, p. 3, the editors say that the author was Muḥibb 'Aiī Khān. The B.M. has three copies of the continuation, viz. Nos. Or. 1854, 1858, and 3271. All three correspond with the con­tinuation given in the Bib. Ind. (Rieu. III, 929 and 1031 and Suppleṃent, p. 52). The India Office has two copies, Nos. 260 and 261 of Ethī. The Bodleian has two copies, see Nos. 200 and 208 of Cat. In the account of No. 200 a reference is made to Aumer's Cat. of the Munich MSS., p. 90, Aumer states that the continuation was written in the time of Shāh Jahān as the preface contains the praises of that monarch. In the prefaces as contained in I.O. MSS. 260, 261 I do not find any clear indication that the reigning sovereign was Shāh Jahān. The phrase Ṣāhib Qirānī is used, but it has not the addition of the word ānī, and the whole phrase is “Lamp of the family of Ṣahib Qirān.” Here Ṣāhib Qirān means Timūr and the phrase is applicable to any of his descendants. But it is clear from the disparaging way in which Jahāngīr is spoken of that the continuation was not written in his reign. It is also clear that the continuation is a copy, and often a verbal copy of the Iqbālnāma of M'utamid K. The latter wrote, as he tells us in his preface, in 1029, 1620, which, as Gladwin remarks, is only fifteen years after Akbar's death. In one place M'utamid in treating of the death of Prince Daniel speaks of his widow, Jānāra Begam, as still alive. In the continuation in the Bib. Ind. ed., p. 838, she is mentioned as having died. This shows that the continuation was at least written after 1029, but apart from this, it is clear that the con­tinuator could never have written of Jahāngīr as he has done during his life­time, nor could it be Jahāngīr who ordered him to write. In all probability the Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ of Chalmers is identical with the Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Kambū who wrote the 'Amal Ṣaliḥ which is sometimes called the Shāhjāhān­nāma. See Rieu. Cat. I. 263. His work was finished in 1070, 1660, or a year after Aurangzeb had begun to reign in fact, though while Shāhjahān was still alive. In the preface in the I.O. copy of the 'Amal Ṣāliḥ No. 332 of Ethé, the author calls himself Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ and adds that he is commonly known as Kamāl Hamadānī. In the colophon of the 2nd vol. of 332 he is called Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Kambū. The circumstance that the author of the continua­tion is sometimes called 'Ināyat Ullah and sometimes Muḥibb 'Alī may be due to the fact that there are more than one continuation. The continuation as given by Chalmers differs considerably from that in the Bib. Ind. ed. and the continuation in Nos. 260 and 261 of the I.O. differs from both of them. But evidently all the continuations are more or less reproductions of the Iqbālnāma. The Bib. Ind. continuation differs chiefly from the Iqbālnāma in being shorter in places and in the different view that it takes of the characters of A. F. and Prince Salīm. Possibly the name 'Inayat Ullah may be accounted for by the fact that Muḥammad Ṣaliḥ had an elder brother named 'Inayatullah who was also a historian. See Rieu. l.c. Perhaps he was the author of the continuation, or of one of them. See Rieu's description of the three MSS. of the continuation.