And in the year 790 H. (1388 A.D.) Muḥammad Shāh arrived on a hunting expedition at the Sirmūr hills, and Malik Mufarriḥ who was in Gujrāt, in unison with the Amīrs of hundreds put Sikandar Khān to death, and the whole of his army being utterly despoiled came with the Sipahsālār to Dihlī; Muḥammad Shāh, returning from the hill country, with the great carelessness which charac-terises youth took no thought for avenging Sikandar Khān, but spent his time in enjoyment and luxury, so that the affairs of the kingdom fell into great disorder; and the Sulān's soldiery by reason of their enmity and jealousy against Samāu-d-Dīn and Kamālu-d-Dīn, who were the protégés of Muḥammad Shāh, set themselves up in opposition to them, and assembled in a spacious plain, and stoned and wounded Malik ahīru-d-Dīn Lāhorī whom the Shāhzāda had sent to admonish them. He came in that state before Muḥammad Shāh and informed him of what had happen­ed, whereupon the Shāhzāda having collected forces set out to do battle with that party. The army of the Shāhzāda was victorious at first, and bore back the army of the Sulān, so that they took refuge with the Sulān Fīrūz. The battle raged fiercely for two days and when the Sulān's body servants found themselves in straits, they bore the Sulān, who was little more than a puppet, to the field of battle and displayed him there, and when the troops of Muḥammad Shāh and his elephant drivers set eyes upon Sulān Fīrūz they left fighting and came over to the Sulān. Muḥammad Shāh with the small following which remained to him, went towards the Sirmūr hills, and the army of the Sulān, which was near a hundred thousand cavalry and infantry, fell upon the camp of Muḥammad Shāh, and entering his private apartments sacked them and swept them away. The Sulān at the instigation of some interested persons, unwillingly deposed Muḥammad Shāh ^255. from his position as heir apparent, and conferring upon Tughlaq Khān* the son of Fatḥ Khān, his grandson, the title of Tughlaq Shāh raised him to the position of heir-apparent. Tughlaq Shāh beheaded Mīr Ḥasan the son-in-law of the Sulān, who was a special favourite of Muḥammad Shāh, and having exiled Ghālib Khān the governor of Sāmāna, sent him to the country of Bihār. On the sixteenth of Ramaẓān in the year 790 H. Sulān Fīrūz attained deliverance from the tortures of existence, and hastened to the world of permanence, and was buried on the borders of the Hauẓ-i-Khāṣṣ, over his tomb a lofty dome was erected which is well-known. They devised two chronograms for the date of his death Wafāt-i-Fīrūz and Naql-i-Fīrūz Shāh, the second of these is deficient by one unit.* The duration of his reign was thirty-eight years and some months.*

All good fortune is till death and no longer,
In the dust one man is no better than another.
When a drop is thrown into the river
It cannot again be recognized.
The nature of the Heavens is to overthrow,
It is of no use to oppose the decree of Fate.
Who knows with the blood of what hearts
This stirred up dust has been mixed!
Every road, if the wise man is not blinded,
Is the hide of the elk, and shagreen from the wild ass.*

Among the poets of the reign of Fīrūz Shāh and his boon-com­panions, is Malik Aḥmad, the son of Amīr Khusrū, may God have ^256. mercy upon him, and although there is no famous anthology of his, still there are some imitations of the writings of the earlier poets which are entered in the writings of some of the learned men; and are well-known. Among them is an imitation of this poem of ahīr*

*

Hail! thou whose cap of empire snatched in its exaltation the
cap of empire of the heaven, by craftiness.

And it is said that in the first hemistich we should read

[

Hail to thee! the blow of whose wrath, in thy supreme power

and in place of (snatched) in the last hemistich we should read (thrown)];* and another is this verse

This was extremely easy, that he asked for red sulphur:*
If he had asked bread from the Khwāja, what could I have
done?

which was thus written,

This would have been very easy had he asked for the water
of life.

Another is in this verse,

If the sky calls the dust of your door musk, do not grieve,
For the jewel's worth is not affected by the abuse of the pur­chaser.

The poet had written,

If Jupiter calls the gravel at your door rubies, do not grieve.

^257. And some of his poems also I have seen, but I remember none of them, and since Malik Aḥmad was the real son of Amīr Khusrū, and reminded them of his father, the King and his companions and the learned men of the age were greatly pleased with these imitations and thought them very valuable.

Another poet was Maulānā Mahar Karra,* whose descendants are still living in the city of Lakhnautī and have been highly thought of and respected from generations back. There is an anthology of his consisting of fifteen or sixteen thousand verses, but inasmuch as he was more of a Mulla than a poet, his poetry is not so highly esteemed by the learned, although were they to search, they would bring to light many a good thing in the way of rarity (of expression).

Another (poet) is Qāẓī ‘Ābid* who wrote this poem—

My friends say, ‘Ābid with this fine nature of yours
How is it that you have not written more poems and odes?
To whom shall I address poems and odes, since in our time
No suitable lover and no generous patron has arisen.

This is a translation of the following poem in Arabic—

They say, thou hast given up writing poems, I reply, yes!
perforce;
The door of claims and causes is closed.
The land is empty—there is no benefactor from whom to
hope for favours, nor is there any beauty to love.
And the strange thing is that though no one will buy poetry
Still in spite of this they appropriate and steal it.