CHAPTER LIV.
HIS MAJESTY THE SHĀHINSHĀH GOES TO GHAZNĪN, AND EXALTATION
OF THAT PLACE BY HIS DWELLING THERE.

As His Majesty Jahānbānī perceived that the splendours of guidance and of capacity for affairs of His Majesty the Shāhinshāh were increasing daily, he determined, now that things were quieted, to separate him for a few days from his person in order that his greatness might be tested, that all might know his abilities, and also that he might have practice in the art of rule. For whoever in his youthful years, and also when by himself, shall make prudence his guide, and show magnanimity in all his ways, and who shall, without pluming himself on his own grandeur, exercise justice and equity to the humble and needy, and he whom real union (with his parent or guardian) shall suffice and whom physical remoteness shall not make sad,—assuredly he it is who can become the Unique Pearl of the Khilāfat. As the glories of such qualities were believed to be, or rather were known with certainty to be, written on the tablet-forehead of His Majesty the Shāhinshāh, he was sent to Ghaznīn in the beginning of 959, (end of December, 1551). The Atka Khān, Khw. Jalālu-d-dīn Maḥmūd and all the servants of M. Hindāl were attached to him in this happy enterprise, the general manage­ment being with the Khwāja aforesaid. He spent six months there in vigilance and prosperity, and as spiritual and temporal supremacy was ever visible in him, right actions and laudable manners, such as are not seen in mature and experienced men, displayed themselves in this fortunate and happy-starred youth. And he was continually winning hearts by his right ways and his worship of the right. He always strove to comfort the distracted. He was always bent upon pleasing that class of men who expend themselves in the domain of privation and who, having girt up the loins of effort for the purifica­tion of manners and the knowledge of God, have taken the path of poverty and renunciation, turning aside from ease and sorrow, and the praise and blame of worldlings, and concerning themselves solely with the Unique and Companionless One (God).

At that time there was in Ghaznīn Bābā Bilās* who was one of the enthusiastic God-knowers and immersed in the sea of contemplation and who spent his days in the cell and the hermitage of obscurity. His Highness frequently went to see him. And that seer of the work­shop of holiness read temporal and spiritual supremacy in the lines of his forehead and congratulated him on his external and internal kingship, and gave him the good news of long life, and lofty distinctions. When it was near the time that he should obtain respite from the hunting and travelling in Ghaznīn he, in accordance with an indication from His Majesty Jahānbānī Jannat-āshyānī, set about his return. The reason of his recal was that His Majesty Jahānbānī was ever engaged in business in Kābul. All his time was divided and apportioned, and not a moment of night or day was spent in frivolities or idleness. But together with his dispensing of justice, and comforting the brokenhearted and surveying the work of the kingdom, he took pleasure in travel and field-sports. One day he had gone riding to Zama* which is one of the delightful villages of Kābul, and had accidentally fallen from his horse, and sustained bodily injuries. As prudence is closely associated with dominion, he, out of precaution and reflection on the end of things, sent a letter recalling His Majesty Shāhinshāh. By the happy influence of his advent His Majesty attained a perfect recovery.