At the time when Khosru Parviz was keeping his sons in confinement on account of the prediction of the astrologers, in order to prevent them from having intercourse with females, as has already been stated above, Shehriâr Bin Khosru sent a man to Shirin, and complained that his impulse of sexuality was distressing him. Therefore she sent him a girl of noble birth—who had on account of some crime been apprenticed to a barber—in a male dress, under the pretence of shaving him. Shehriâr had intercourse with her, and she became enceinte with Yazdejerd. The infant to whom she gave birth was brought up in the harem of the king from his birth till the age of five years. One day Khosru happened to perceive the boy and asked whose child he was, and the attendants said, ‘He is the son of Shehriâr.’ As, however, the astrologers had predicted that the last king of the Sasanian dynasty, from whom the kingdom would pass over to strangers [i.e., to the Arabs], would have a blemish on his body, Khosrû ordered Yazdejerd to be stripped, and on discovering that fault on his knee, intended to kill him, but Shirin interfered. Then Khosru exclaimed: ‘Take the wretch away from the palace, that I may never see him.’ Accordingly Shirin had the boy transferred to the country to avoid the anger of Parviz.
When the professors of Islâm had become victorious on the frontiers of Persia, and Farrakhzâd had departed to the regions of non-existence, the lords of the government brought Yazdejerd from Estakhar to Madâin, and placed the royal crown on his head. During his reign many battles were fought between the Arabs and the Persians. When at last the Moslems were approaching Madâin, Yazdejerd fled from the sword of Sa’d Bin Woqâs to the Persian E’râq, thence to Khorâsân, and was finally killed at Merv. The standards of the infidels were turned down, and those of Islâm rose upwards. The whole affairs of Yazdejerd will be described* in the history of the divinely-guided Khalifahs (the benediction of Allah be upon them all) in the course of the second volume, if it pleaseth Allah the Most High.
It is not hidden to the minds of the enlightened that the author’s object in the composition of this work—which contains accounts of the prophets, the histories of kings and philosophers—was chiefly to fulfil a duty towards God, and to gain royal favours, by always secretly, as well as publicly, treading the paths of verity, and abstaining from evil ways in prosperity and distress. Our efforts were constant in exalting the teachers and the doctrines of our religion, and we spared no pains in reproving whatever is evil and wicked, so as to open the portals of mercy to the inhabitants of the world, and to enable the rich and the poor to taste the sweet beverage of virtue at the fountain-head of justice and beneficence.
We are grateful for the blessings of God, by whose favour the country of Khorâsân in general, and the metropolis of Hirat in particular, have always been adorned by the presence of ecclesiastical and secular doctors, and that he who is without an equal in the world is most distinguished by his extraordinary attainments in all branches of knowledge, so that in whatever assembly a philosopher expounds tenets, he profits by his instructive conversation, and divines request him to open the flood-gates of his religious acquirements. His breast is a repository of the treasures of certainty, and his gentle heart a receptacle of the enigmas of subtlety. We mean the most righteous and just Amir, who is possessed of the highest qualities of an exalted mind, the establisher of justice and equity, the destroyer of the foundations of tyranny, the confidant of his royal majesty, the curator of the state, whom the poor and the rich delight to obey, the administrator of the shining and brilliant religion, the Amir A’li Shir, may Allah the Most High exalt his dignity and perpetuate his government.