Kamgar Khan, the son of Jafar Khan, petitioned the Emperor, “Mirza Muhammad Niamat Khan, whose malignant nature is accustomed to satirising, has published certain verses on my marriage, saying, ‘The object of it [i.e., marriage] is lawful movement, but in this case there is a coupling of two quiescents.’ And he has besides introduced into them other disgraceful remarks about me, so that I have been put to shame before the public. I hope that your Majesty will so punish him that he may not again venture to compose such idle tales. It was proper to submit this matter to your Majesty.”
Above the words ‘it was proper’ Aurangzib wrote ‘it was wrong (haram),’ and on the top of the petition he made this remark, “Punishing him will cause greater disgrace [to you than before]. This simple-minded hereditary servant wishes to make me his sharer in this [public] contempt, so that Niamat Khan may say and write about me whatever [satire] he likes and make me notorious in the world. Formerly, too, he had not spared me [in his satires]; in return, I had increased his reward, that he might not do it again; yet in spite of this [favour] he had not on his part been less [satirical]. It is not possible to cut out his tongue and sever his neck. We ought to repress our feelings and live in harmony [with others]. He is a friend, who neither clings to thee nor separates himself from thee.”
Text.—MS. N. 6b 7—7b 1.
Notes.—Kamgar Khan, the son of Aurangzib's early wazir Jafar Khan and Farzana Begam, (M. U. i. 531) was appointed khan-i-saman in 1687, and married the daughter of Sayyid Muzaffar Haidarabadi in September 1688 (M. A. 297, 312). Life in M. U. iii. 159. His simplicity was notorious. The first couplet of the satire on his marriage is given in M. U. iii. 160, and the whole in the Mazhakat of Niamat Khan.
Mirza Muhammad Haji Niamat Khan, poetical name Ali, was the son of an eminent Persian doctor, Hakim Fatih-ud-din. Under Bahadur Shah he got the title of Danishmand Khan. He wrote the Bahadur-Shahnamah, Jangnamah, Waqai, and Mazhakat, and was the most famous satirist of the age (M. U. ii. 690; M. A. 267; Khafi Khan, ii. 338, 359; Elliot's History of India, vii. 200). There is a play upon the word quiescent, which means (1) a consonant not followed by a vowel and therefore incapable of being joined to another letter, and (2) a man wanting in virility.