The next day when the king of stars made his appearance from behind the curtain of night, a camelman bearing a letter from the capital of the Khalífahs arrived. Mu­hammad son of Alí, and Abdul Hasan Humadání relate that at the time of Rai Dáhar's death, two of his virgin daughters had been captured in his seraglio. Muhammad Kásim sent them in charge of some Abyssinian servants to the holy city of Baghdád.* The Khalífah ordered them to be taken into his seraglio, in order that they might take rest and be comforted for some days, and be in a fit con­dition to be admitted into his bed-chamber. After some time* the Khalífah remembered them, and ordered that both, of them be brought to him at night. When they came, Walìd son of Abdul Malik required his interpreter to make the usual enquiries, and to ask them as to which of them was the elder, so that one of them might be kept back and taken care of till her sister's turn was over. The interpreter first asked their names. The elder of them said, “My name is Súrijdew,”* and the younger said “My name is Pirmaldew.” He then called the elder sister to himself, and ordered the younger to be removed and taken care of. When he seated the elder near himself, she unveiled her face and the Khalífah of the time looked at it, and became charmed with her perfect beauty. Her blood-sucking blandishments, took away patience from his heart, and he began to take liberties with her, and, catching hold of Súrijdew, pulled her to himself. Súrijdew sprang up and said: “May the king live long: I, a humble slave, am not fit for your Majesty's bed-room, because the just amír, Imáduddín Muhammad Kásim kept us both with him for 3 days, and then sent us to the Khalífah. Perhaps your custom is such, or else this kind of disgrace should not be permitted by kings.” At that moment his passion for the girl blinded the Khalífah. He lost patience, and his excess of jealousy did not permit him to make any enquiries. He therefore immediately sent for pen, ink and paper, and with his own hands wrote an order, directing that “Muhammad Kásim should, wherever he may be, put himself in raw leather* and come back to the chief seat of the Khalífah.”

When Muhammad Kásim received this order on his arrival at Udhápur, he at once asked his men to put him into a fresh hide. This was done and the living parcel was placed in a box and carried away. Muhammad Kásim thus in a short time breathed his last. After his death the governors, appointed to different divisions of the country, remained in charge of them. As for the box, it was taken to the Khalífah. The men who had brought it, at first requested the chief attendant, to inform Walíd son of Abdul Malik son of Marwán that Muhammad Kásim had been brought. “Is he dead or alive?” in­quired the Khalífah. “He is dead” was the reply. “He got your order in the town of Udhápur, and immediately he enclosed himself in raw leather. After two days* he entrusted his soul to God and went to the everlasting abode. The rulers and governors appointed by him to different places have remained secure in their possessions and are trying their best to administer the country well in the name of the Khalífah, whom they duly mention (with praise) in the orations and addresses that are delivered from the pulpits.”

Then the Khalífah raised the lid, and opened the box. The two girls were also called to be present there. The Khalífah had a stick of green emerald in his hand at that time, and he placed it on the teeth of the dead body, and said: “O daughters of Rái Dáhar, look how our orders are promptly obeyed by our officers; they are ever anxious to carry them out strictly. As soon as he got our letter in Kanúj, he sacrificed his dear life at our behest.”

Hearing this, the virgin girl, Jankí,* removed her veil from her face and placing her head on the ground, said: “May the king live long, and may his power and dignity increase and last for many many years! The sovereign of the time, who is supposed to be a perfect paragon of wisdom, should consider it his duty, to weigh and test (like gold) whatever comes to his ears whether from a friend or a foe, and when he finds it to be true beyond doubt, then only (and not before) is he justified in issuing decisive orders, lest he be punished by the divine wrath and held up to scorn by human tongues. It is true that your command is strictly obeyed, but it never occurred to your majesty to make a preliminary enquiry. The fact is that Muhammad Kásim was like a brother or a son to us; he never touched us, your slaves, and our chastity was safe with him. But in as much as he brought ruin on the king of Hind and Sind, desolated the kingdom of our fathers and grandfathers, and degraded us from princely rank to slavery, we have, with the inten­tion of being revenged on him and of bringing ruin and degradation on him in return, misrepresented the matter and spoken a false thing to your majesty against him. Now our object is gained, for by means of this deceit and falsehood, we have taken our revenge. As for your majesty's passing an urgent and irresistable order, if the excess of lust and passion had not eclipsed and clouded your majesty's reason and judgment, you would have thought it proper to enquire into the matter first and would not have made yourself blameworthy and repentant. As for Muhammad Kásim himself if he bad had any sense in him he would have travelled in the usual way, till he had arrived within a day's journey from here, and then enclosed himself in raw leather, so that after enquiries had been made he would have been acquitted and would not have died.”

When the Khalífah heard all this, he was so much overpowered by grief, that he bit the back of his hand.

The Princess Jankí then once more attempted to speak, and looking at the Khalífah and finding that he was much enraged, said: “The king has committed a great blunder, since for the sake of two slave girls he has killed a man who captured a hundred thousand noble girls like us, brought down seventy kings, who were rulers of Hind and Sind from a royal throne to a bier, and built mosques and minarets in place of idol-houses and temples. Even if it be assumed that he did some slight mischief or was guitly of an inde­cent act, Muhammad Kásim should not have been killed simply on the slanderous word of a malicious individual.”

The Khalífah immediately ordered the two sisters to be buried alive in a wall.* From that time up to our own days, the banner of Islám has been rising higher and higher and gaining greater and greater glory day by day.

May the sovereign of highest dignity and of the holiest names, keep the past kings of Islám drowned in the ocean of His mercy, and the present kings, steadfast on the thrones of their kingdoms, as long as the universe lasts and time continues, and until the period of life, given to Adam's children, comes to its close; and may He with his divine grace and help, protect the banners of Islám, through their power and awe, from accidental misfortunes and evil auguries of the time.

This book which bears the title of ‘The highway of religion and the glory of the high and great chief the eye of the king­dom’ is one of the compositions of Arab men of learning* and moral philosophers, on the conquest of the country of Hind and Sind. It is a book adorned with beautiful thoughts and varieties of nature, with wonders of wisdom and curiosities of knowledge and with excel­lencies of hearts and singularities of mind. It is nectar for the hearts of friends and a garden for human beings and spirits. It is based on the foundation of laws and of Government and on the strength of constitutional administration. It contains eloquent discourses on reli­gious and state matters and treats of territorial and national peculiarities. As it occupied a high rank in the very superior arabic language and in the accomplished Hijazic tongue, all the princes of Arabia derived encouragement and excessive pleasure from reading it. But since it was enveloped in Arabic, and was made of the ornament and beauty of Persian idiom, it could not become popular with Persia or other non-Arab countries. No dresser of the people of Fars (Persia) had (before this translation) dressed and adorned the bride of this book of conquest, or prepared garments for her in the manufactory of just and philosophical words, or given her any orna­ment from the treasury of wisdom, and none of them had galloped a horse in this field of eloquence or in this meadow of rhetoric. The events of the days of yore crowded in my mind, and the troops of tragical occur-rances and accidents of the time assembled in the ship of my chest. Different kinds of misery and anxiety are hard by, but there are no means of help and patronage avail­able. Different varieties of danger have settled them­selves around (me), but the means of avoiding or averting them are uncer ain.

Thanks to God, the book is finished.