I HAVE only given a summarised account of Yunus Khán in the above Chapter; I will now enter more into detail.

Yunus Khán was the son of Vais Khán, son of Shir Ali Oghlán, son of Muhammad Khán, son of Khizir Khwája Khán, son of Tughluk Timur Khán. I have never heard the date of his birth, but from the date of his death and the length of his days, it may be inferred that he was born in the year 819 of the Hajra [1416], but God alone knows. He succeeded to the Khánate upon the death of his father, Vais Khán. There was much dissension between himself and his brother Isán Bughá Khán, and the Amirs; Irazán and Mirák Turkomán had seized the Khán and several of the chiefs of families, and had taken them to Ulugh Beg in Samarkand. This was when the Khán was sixteen years of age. This disaster [viráni], which took place in the year 832 of the Hajra, forms, down to the present day, an epoch among the Moghuls.*

Mirzá Ulugh Beg sent the Khán to his father, in the manner related, and the Khán was received with all honour and respect by Mirzá Sháh Rukh, who put him under the guidance and care of Mauláná Sharaf-ud-Din Yazdi. The Mauláná was a man of profound learning, and had not an equal in all Samarkand, Khorásán or Irák. In former times enigmas [muammá] were of a different sort to what one commonly meets with nowadays. This new kind was introduced by the Mauláná, and he has written a book concerning the solution of these enigmas. He is the author, too, of the Zafar- Náma. He also wrote some mystical commentaries on poetry,* and he has never been excelled, at any time, in this style of com­mentary. Many other works were written by him, which it would take too long to enumerate here. I only wish to demonstrate how very talented he was. The Khán studied twelve years under him, with the result that there never was, either before or after, so wise a Khán as he, among the Moghuls.

When Khidmat Mauláná died, the Khán left Yazd and made a journey in Fárs and Azarbáiján. He profited much by his travelling, and gained great experience of life. He finally selected Shiráz as a residence; there he mixed with the learned men of the place, and acquired many useful sciences and crafts, so that he became known as Ustád Yunus.

In the meanwhile, Mirzá Sultán Abu Said had seized Khorásán, and was meditating the conquest of Irák, but was prevented from carrying out this project, by the frequent incursions of Isán Bughá Khán into Farghána, Shásh and Turkistán, which caused all ideas of an expedition into Irák to be temporarily abandoned. In the year 860 of the Hajra, Mirzá Sultán Abu Said sent people to summon the Khán from Shiráz, under the conditions above men­tioned, and to conduct him to Moghulistán. The Khán was then forty-one years of age.*