2,101. “Mercy’s Mount” is the hill ‘Arafāt situated about 12 miles from Mecca.

“Abū Qubais” is a hill to the east of Mecca.

2,102. The “circle” is possibly still the Brazen Fort, i.e., the king’s court, by which may be symbolized the king’s dominions, which by a poetical compliment would include the whole world.

Or, the “circle” may directly mean the whole world and sky. The sense of the distich is, May the world and sky be eternal through the king! By this prayer the eternal existence of the king is prayed for.

“That high sun” means, of course, the king.

2,103. Rings worn in the ears were a badge of slavery. The allusion here is to the circle of the sky.

2,104. A compliment to the king, implying his sway over North China and Turkistan.

2,105. This would correspond with A.D. 1197.

2,106. “This, my composition”; i.e., this poem.

2,107. See Notes 274, 1,201, 1,562, and 1,698.

2,108. Ai dar-īn mulk jāvidān bādī, mulk bā ‘amr-u ‘amr bā shādī!

The B. ed. of 1328 has,

Andar-īn ‘amr jāvidān bādī, mulk bā ‘amr(w) zaid bā shādī!

Zaid in this reading would mean “increase”.

The artistic symmetry of this, however, is much inferior, and it has only the rather doubtful rhetorical merit of bringing together the names ‘Amrw and Zaid, which are used in law books for plaintiff or defendant, and in Arabic grammar to illustrate the case-endings.

The title Gūrkhān is probably a Persian corruption of the Mongol or Turkish title assumed by Yelui Tashi, the founder of the Qārā-Khiṭāy dynasty in Chinese Turkistan.

The word, according to Grigoryev, (quoted by Barthold in the Encyclopœdia of Islām), is most probably taken from the Mongolian Gürgen, (no doubt the Turkish Gürgyān), which latter Redhouse renders, “Allied to the royal house by marriage with a princess”; and Barbier de Meynard, “Titre de tout prince de la famille de Timour-lenk, qui épouse une princesse de la lignée de Djenguiz-Khan.”

The principal reason for equating Gūrkhān to Gürgen or Gürgyān, on which Barthold comments rather unfavourably, is, I think, the fact that Mīrkhvānd (History of the Khvārazm-Shāhs) ascribes the title Gūrkhān to the Qārā-Khiṭāyan kings ultimately conquered by Muḥammad the Khvārazm-Shāh, whilst at the same time we may gather from Redhouse and Barbier de Meynard’s Turkish Dictionaries that any prince who married a princess of the imperial house of Chingiz Khān had the title Gürgyān, a title which evidently descended, since Tīmūr (see Redhouse) was also called Gürgyān.

Without assuming that the founder of the Qārā-Khiṭāyan dynasty did marry into the house of Chingiz, we have as facts that the Persian historians entitle the king of that race Gūrkhān, that this form is impossible in Turkish, and that phonologically the Turkish “ü” would become in Persian “ū”, whilst “gy” would quite possibly become “kh”, especially when we consider that the Persian would naturally incline to the idea of a title, khān, “lord or prince,” in so exalted a title as Gürgyān.