1693. LETTER CXXV.

Saiyad Sa’ad Alláh* often writes me letters and requests of me the following things: “The reporter* of the Harbour of Sūrat* should not be transferred; the son of the deceased Hakim Asharaf should be given some service in the hospital and should be encouraged by increasing his salary”. You should write to the Saiyad, “Henceforth you should not interfere in the affairs of the (government) servants, who are really oppressors, according to the deci­sion of the auspicious verse of the Koran, ‘Don’t associate with those who oppress lest the fire of hell might catch you’ (and so on upto the end of the verse). Though these officials are not tyrants to others, they are oppressors in their own nature”. In every letter he expresses his desire, with a prayer, to die in God*. ‘Death is also life’ is true. This humble servant of the court of God (i.e., Aurungzebe himself) always recites in his daily prayer this auspicious verse of the Koran, ‘O God! Creator of heaven and earth! Thou art my master in this life as well as in the next; let me die a Moslem (or a true believer in Thee) and enable me to join the virtuous and the pious’. I think carefully over the meaning of ‘The man who dies this death (i.e., death in God) will meet, before meeting God, the prophets and the saints.’* Though the learned men of my court have given nice interpretations (of these Koranic and traditional verses and sentences), I have not been per­fectly satisfied with them. That learned man* should write to me about these phrases of the Koran and the tradition after an inquiry. May peace be upon you.