Saplak is a village in the Qandahār district. The vulgar in India call him Siplakī (Sipkalī) with a kasr to the bā, which means ‘a lizard,’* and this greatly offended him, and he used to say, “What can I do, though they call me by the name of such a dirty carrion creature?” He was a devotee girt as to the loins and unfettered by conventions. On the day on which he saw Mullā Qāsim Kāhī* he asked him his age. Qāsim replied, “I am two years younger than God.” Sulān said, “My dear sir, I took you to be two years older. I fear you are deducting from your years.” Mullā Qāsim laughed and said, “You are worthy to associate with us.” It may be noted that as Mullā Qāsim Kāhī was a great plagiarist he probably borrowed this speech from Shaikh Bāyazīd of Busām* who said, “I am younger than my Lord by two years.” This is one of the ravings of the Ṣūfïs, and some men of God have interpreted it to mean, “I am younger than God (may He be honoured and glorified!) by two years, i.e. in two qualities, that is to say self-existence and omnipotence”; for a creature may display all divine attributes and qualities except these two; for the brand of accidental existence and dependence can never be removed from the forehead of a created being. I ask forgiveness of God for this nonsense and these ravings!

Sulān had a disposition well attuned to poetry. When he saw the Khānzamān,* who also used Sulān as a poetical name, and presented to him an ode in his praise, the Khānzamān sent him, as a reward for it, a thousand rupees and a robe of honour, ²³⁷ together with a request that he would, for his sake, change his poetical name. He sent back the gift and said, “Sulān Muḥammad is my name, which was given to me by my father. How can I give it up? Moreover, I wrote poetry under this name many years before you did, and obtained much fame by it.” The Khānzamān said, “If you do not give up the name I will throw you under the feet of an elephant,” and being enraged, he had an elephant brought to the spot. Sulān said “Ah, what good fortune is mine, that I shall attain martyrdom!” After the Khānzamān had threatened and intimidated him for a long time, Maulānā ‘Alā-ud-dīn Lārī,* the Khānzamān's tutor, suggested that an ode should be selected from the dīvān of the reverend Maulavī Jāmī,* (may God hallow his tomb!) which was at hand, and that if Sulān could answer it extemporaneously he should be pardoned, but if not the Khānzamān should do with him as he had proposed. From the dīvān of the reverend master (may his tomb be hallowed!) this ode was selected:—

The writing of God's creation knew the writing on thy
heart,
And knew the invisible proofs of kingship on the heads
of beardless boys.

Sulān Muḥammad recited an extemporary ode, the opening couplet of which is:—

“Whoever has regarded his heart as the shell containing
the pearl of God's secret
Has rightly appraised his own jewel.”

Although this ode was no great matter the Khānzamān was exceedingly pleased and praised it, and, having given the poet twice the reward which he had given before, dismissed him with honour. But Sulān could no longer stay in that place, and without the Khānzamān's leave he came thence to Badāon, and afterwards travelled through the country, and went to the Dakan. In the year in which the four kings of the Dakan formed a confederacy and after a great battle in a stricken field ²³⁸ conquered Vijayanagar,* and destroyed that famous idol-temple, which was a veritable mine of misbelief, Sulān Muḥammad was with their army and acquired great store of plunder, and returned, but no further information regarding him is to be had. It was, indeed, the height of discourtesy on his part to enter into a dispute with his betters and to refuse the request, so courteously made by a man like the Khānzamān, that he would change his poetical name.

In reply to the following opening couplet by Ghazālī,* viz.—

“Devotee, true knowledge of God lies not in the patched
robe, the rosary, and the tooth-stick,*
Acquire mystical love, for these other things have nothing
to do with the comprehension of God,”

he wrote,

“Though the dust of envy has settled on my rival's heart I
have no fear,
This is clear to me, that the mirror of his heart is not
clean.”

The following are other verses by him:—

“My love sits sometimes in my eyes and sometimes in my
heart,
She rests nowhere, she must be bewitched.”

“How can I liken thy eyebrow to the new moon, for I
Have seen the new moon in every hair of thy eyebrow?”