It is an old story that the tyrannous sphere, though it may for a time knit the knot of complaisance, and make a covenant of mutual sincerity, turns from its promise, and that discordant time, although it professes to shew acquiescence, and makes specious promises of fidelity, fails to perform them.
The wanton-eyed heaven, the pupil of whose manliness is sullied by the defect of the mote of meanness, at first, like a drunken man, gives some bounty in a case where there has been no favour received to demand it, but in the end, like the children, takes the gift back again without any treacherous conduct having been committed. The habits and customs of the oppressive times are cast in the same mould, whether by experience or by hearsay, we 132. see or hear that whomsoever it perceives coming to perfection like the moon, it desires to darken the face of his fulness with the blot of defect, and whomsoever it finds rising like a cloud him it strives to tear to pieces, and to scatter his substance to the extreme boundaries of the horizon. As in this orchard of amazement and garden of regrets, no rose blooms without a thorn so no heart escapes the thorn of sorrow. Alas! for the newly sprung verdure which has become yellow, withered in the bloom of its beauty by the autumn of calamity. Alas! for the many fresh-springing trees which have been laid low in the dust of the ground by the fierce blast of Death.
Consider the winds of Autumn, how chill they are and cold,
The cowardly blows they have dealt alike at the young and
old.
One of the examples of this allegory is the death of the late Emperor Qā‘ān-i-Mulk Ghāzī,* may God make manifest his demonstrations and weigh down the scale with his excellencies, on Friday the last day of the month of Ẕū-l-Hijjah in the year 683 A.H., when the moon, like kindness in the heart of infidels, could nowhere be seen, the Sun with the company of the army of Islām came forth to smite with the sword, and the great Prince who was the Sun of the heaven of the kingdom, with the light of holy war shining on his noble brow, and the unchangeable determination of “jihād” firmly planted in his illustrious mind, placed his auspicious foot in the stirrup. By night they submitted to his judgment which solved all difficulties, that Ītimar with the whole of his army had advanced into the plain at a distance of three farsangs. When morning broke, he commenced to march intending to leave that place, and at a distance of one farsang coming face to face with those accursed ones,* elected to draw up their forces in a place on the outskirts of Bāgh-i-Sarīr* on the banks of the river of Lāhor. Accordingly 133. he very strongly fortified a large village which was close to the river, and made such dispositions that when the infidels came against it, both rivers* should be in the rear of his army, so that neither could any man of his own army turn in flight nor could any injury be inflicted upon his army by that tronblesome horde* and in very truth that choice of position was the acme of caution and the very height of skill in that world-conquering Khān, but since when Fate is adverse the thread of all plans becomes tangled, and the orderly row of enterprises becomes disordered,
He who falls in with evil fortune by the way,
His affairs fall out just as his enemies desire.
His Fortune like a mad man loses the right way,
His senses, like the nightblind, fall into the well.
By chance that day the Moon and the Sun, which may be compared to kings, were suspended in the sign of the Fish,* and Mars, whose blood-red aspect is entirely due to the blood of the princes of the people, had drawn out from the quiver of that sign the arrow of disappointment and the dart of disobedience against that Orion* (white) girdled Khān, who was like Leo coming forth from a watery sign; the house of fear and calamity and the proofs of sedition and signs of harm thus became evidently manifest, while the hint and indication of the proverb “In face of Fate wide becomes strait” became written on the consecutive pages (of his history). In short, at midday just as the courier of the heaven reached the country of noon, and the day of that world-conquering Emperor was approaching its decline, suddenly a band made its appearance from the direction of those infidels. The Khān-i-Ghāzī at that same moment mounted his horse and issued an order in obedience to which all the cavalry and the body servants and retinue and retainers, in accordance with the mandate ‘Kill the infidels all of them’,* drew up in a line a hundred times stronger than the rampart of Sikandar.* After ordering the right wing and dressing the left wing, he himself of noble qualities, stood in the centre like the moon and the host of the stars, ready for the jihād, while the Tātār infidels, let confusion and dismay come upon them, crossed the river of Lāhor, and confronted the ranks of the Muslims. Thereupon these wild- 134. loving desert-born savages, placing the feathers of the owl* upon their illomened heads, while the Ghāzīs of Islām, kings of Turkestan and Khilj and notables of Hindustān, and all the soldiery made the battlefield a place of prayer—as the Holy Apostle, may the blessings and peace of God be upon him, declared that the holy war was closely allied to prayer, saying We return from the lesser holy war to the greater holy war,* reciting the takbīr*
raised their hands in prayer, and in the first attack they put to the sword a considerable number of ablebodied men of the Mughūl cavalry, and the lances of the Maliks of the Court so wounded the limbs of their enemies that above each of them the blood spurted up like a spear, while sixty selected Turks interweaving their arrows like closely-woven cloth, made it appear as though the weft (of existence) of the Tātārs was being torn to shreds.*
In the beginning of the fray the arrow of the king leapt forth
The Tātārs were all laid low.
As often as the great Lord, lion-hearted, wielding the sword,
with a blade as bright as his own faith, sallied forth to
attack from the midst of the ranks.
You would say that the sword was trembling in that battlefield at the excellencies of the monarch, and becoming in its entirety a tongue was saying to him, Up and make an end of these accursed ones, and entrust their discomfiture to thy servants, but do thou thyself refrain from personal action, for the sword is double faced, and the scimitar of Fate pitiless in its wounding—no one can tell what may happen to any one of us from the decree of the All powerful. I close my eyes against the fatal eye.*
Go not, that I may bind thy dust upon mine eyes.
Act not, for I greatly fear the evil eye.
The heaven has never seen such a brilliant countenance,
I am as rue upon that fire to guard that eye.*
As long as he strenuously performed the duties of fighting and 135. warfare, each of the weapons as it were entered into colloquy with him — the spear was saying, Oh King! refrain your hand from me this day, for the tongue of my point by reason of constant fighting and slaying is blunted, and I have no power left of opposing the enemy with thrusts, I fear lest I should leap up and should commit some untoward act. The arrow too was saying,
Thou, the knot of whose bowstring opens the knot of the
Jauzhar, do not advance to meet this danger.*
I myself in rushing forth to destruction cast dust upon my head, lest the close-eyed beauty of the heaven,* who sits on the fifth roof near the door of the eighth mansion,* sitting in ambush, out of temerity and spite, should discharge against you the shaft of crror from the bow of fraud and malice; the lasso was saying, to-day the thread of planning should not be let go from the hand of deliberation, for I am contorted with anxiety at this precipitate conflict and ill-considered battle; wait a while! for Islām and the Muslims are like the tent ropes connected with the tent of your favours. Oh God! in dealing with this people, do not so long delay putting the halter round their necks.
I have willingly put my neck in the noose for thy sake
Thou art my lassoer, who takest me with the noose of thy
locks.
In short, that mighty king, the defender of the faith, the uprooter of infidelity, from mid-day till eventide attacked that impious crowd with the whole main body of his army, cheerfully and willingly, while the shouts of the victors in the fight, and the clamour of those eager for the fray* deafened the ears of the world and of the sky,* and tongues of fire which leapt from the heads of the flashing spears, and tongues of the swords made not a single mistake in even in a letter in transmitting the message of destruction. In that uproar like the day of resurrection every one thought of this Āyat A day when a man will flee from his own 136. brother,* the surface of the earth, like the eyes of old men who have lost their sons* was full of blood, and the face of the sky like the head of sons who have killed their fathers, full of dust.