II. SHAIKH JALĀLU'-D-DĪN OF THĀNESAR.

He was the Khalīfah* or deputy of Shaikh ‘Abdu-'l-Quddūs of Gangoh* (may God sanctify their tombs!) His attainments, both in exoteric and in esoteric learning, were great, and he employed himself in imparting instruction in divinity and in the spreading abroad of those branches of knowledge which are, as the subject of divine revelation, certainly proved. In his last years he abandoned the pursuit of secular knowledge and, choosing privacy rather than publicity, spent his valuable time in reading through the blessed Qur'ān, in performing works of supererogation, and in praise and prayer. When he was ninety-three years of age he was exceedingly weak and feeble, so that there seemed to be nothing remaining of him but skin and bone.

Couplet.

When the veins of an aged man, in consequence of his
abandonment of worldly desires, stand out on his skin.
Then it is that he becomes, as it were, a ruler to guide
disciples in the way of righteousness.*

And although he had not so much strength left as enabled him to sit down and rise up* and to move about, and used, in 4. consequence of his feebleness and weakness, to lie all day long in a reclining position, yet no sooner did he hear the call to prayer than he would, without the assistance of anybody, rise up, put on his shoes, take his staff in his hand, perform his ceremonial ablutions by himself and without any help, and stand up for his prayers.* This done he would again recline in his wonted position on his couch. I twice had the honour of attending on him, once in the year H. 969 (A.D. 1561-2), in Āgra, when he had come there to settle the matter of his aima* holding in Thānesar* and to have the subject represented, and again in the year A.H. 981 (A.D. 1573-4) when I was accom­panying Ḥusain Khān in his pursuit of Ulugh Mīrzā.* He seemed to me to be a quantity of (divine) light in bodily form. He bade farewell to this transitory world in the year A.H. 989 (A.D. 1581), May God remember him to his good!