CHAPTER XXVII.
MUHAMMAD KHÁN, SON OF KHIZIR KHWÁJA KHÁN.

THIS Muhammad Khán was the son of Khizir Khwája Khán, who had, besides Muhammad Khán, other sons; among these were Sham-i-Jahán Khán and Nakhsh-i-Jahán Khán.* After Isán Bughá Khán, excepting Tughluk Timur Khán, there was no one left in the country of the Moghuls who was of the first rank of Khákáns. This fact I have already mentioned. After the death of Tughluk Timur Khán, Amir Kamaruddin murdered all Tughluk's sons, so that there was no one left but Khizir Khwája Khán. (This I have also already stated.) This last Khán left many sons and grandsons; the details of the lives of all of them have not, however, been preserved in the Moghul traditions. In fine, I have recounted what I considered worthy of belief regarding the history of the ancestors of the Khákáns. But I have not been able to learn any details concerning their uncles and cousins. Consequently I have only mentioned the sons of Khizir Khwája Khán, as for example, Muhammad Khán: for in him the race of Moghul Khákáns came to an end.

Muhammad Khán was a wealthy prince and a good Musulmán. He persisted in following the road of justice and equity, and was so unremitting in his exertions, that during his blessed reign most of the tribes of the Moghuls became Musulmáns.

It is well known what severe measures he had recourse to, in bringing the Moghuls to be believers in Islám. If, for instance, a Moghul did not wear a turban [Dastár], a horseshoe nail was driven into his head: and treatment of this kind was common. (May God recompense him with good.)

In the Moghul records it is stated that Amir Khudáidád himself raised six Kháns to the Khánate, and this Muhammad Khán was one of the number.

Muhammad Khán built a Rabát on the northern side of the defile of Chádir Kul. In the construction of this building he employed stones of great size, the like of which are only to be seen in the temples [Imárát] of Kashmir. The Rabát contains an entrance hall 20 gaz* in height. When you enter by the main door, you turn to the right hand along a passage which measures 30 gaz. You then come to a dome which is about 20 gaz, and beautifully proportioned. There is a passage round the dome, and in the sides of it; and in the passage itself are beautiful cells. On the western side there is also a mosque 15 gaz in height, which has more than twenty doors. The whole building is of stone, and over the doors there are huge solid blocks of stone, which I thought very wonderful, before I had seen the temples in Kashmir.*

In the time of Muhammad Khán, the learned Mirzá Ulugh Beg was reigning in Mávará-un-Nahr by the appointment of his father, Mirzá Sháh Rukh; he was the founder of the famous observatory and the author of the astronomical tables called Zij Kurkán. Mirzá Sháh Rukh was king of Khorásán and Irák. The dates of his birth and death are not known, but if we refer to other dates, we find that he must have died before 860 of the Hajra. (But God knows best.)*