On Sunday (?), the 16th,*
four nilgaw were killed,
three females and one būkra*
nilgaw. On Mubārak-
Dhār is one of the old cities, and Rāja Bhoj, who was one of the great Rajas of Hindustan, lived in it. From his time 1,000* years have passed, and in the time of the Sultans of Malwa it was for a long time the capital. At the time when Sulān Muḥammad Tughluq was proceeding to the conquest of the Deccan, he built a fort of cut stone on the top of a ridge. Outside it is very showy and handsome, but inside the fort is devoid of buildings. I ordered them to measure its length, breadth, and height. The length inside the fort was 12 anāb, 7 gaz; the breadth, 17 tanab, 13 gaz, and the breadth of the fort wall 19 1/2 gaz. Its height up to the battlements appeared to be 17 1/2 gaz. The length of the outer circuit (?) of the fort was 55 tanabs. ‘Amīd Shāh Ghorī, who was called Dilāwar Khān, and who in the time of Sulān Muḥammad, son of Sulān Fīrūz, king of Delhi, had complete authority over the province of Malwa, built the Jāmi‘ mosque in the inhabitable part outside the fort, and opposite the gate of the mosque fixed a quadrangular iron column. When Sulān Bahādur of Gujarat took the province of Malwa into his own possession, he wished to transfer this column to Gujarat. The artificers did not take proper precautions when they lowered it, and it fell and broke into two pieces, one of them of 7 1/2 gaz and the other of 4 1/4 gaz. The column was 1 1/4 gaz round. As it was lying there useless, I ordered them to take the larger piece to Agra and put* it up in the courtyard of the mausoleum of H.M. Akbar, and to burn a lamp on the top of it at night. The aforesaid mosque has two gates. In front of the arch of one gate some sentences in prose have been carved on a stone tablet; their purport is that ‘Amīd Shāh Ghorī founded this mosque in the year 870,* and on the arch of the other gate a qaṣīda has been written, and these few couplets are from it—
“The lord of the age, the star of the sphere of glory,
Centre of the people of the earth, sun of the zenith of perfection,
Asylum and support of religious law, ‘Amīd Shāh Dā'ūd,
* In whose excellent qualities Ghor glories,
Helper and protector of the Faith of the Prophet, Dilāwar Khān,
Who has been chosen by the most mighty Lord (God),
Founded the Jāmi‘ mosque in the city of Dhār,
At a fortunate, auspicious time, on a day of happy omen.
The date of eight hundred and seven* had passed
When the Court of hopes was completed by Fortune.”
When Dilāwar Khān gave up the deposit of his life there was no king with full dominion over Hindustan, and it was a time of confusion. Hūshang, son of Dilāwar Khān, who was just and possessed of courage, seeing his opportunity, sat on the throne of sovereignty in Malwa. After his death through destiny the rule was transferred* to Maḥmūd Khaljī, son of Khān Jahān, who had been Vizier to Hūshang, and passed from him to his son Ghiyāu-d-dīn, and after him to Nāṣiru-d-dīn, son of Ghiyāu-d-dīn, who gave his father poison and sat on the throne of infamy. From him it passed to his son Maḥmūd. Sulān Bahādur of Gujarat took from Maḥmūd the province of Malwa. The succession of kings of Malwa ended with the aforesaid Maḥmūd.