SECTION THE FIRST.—The author of this book never happened to have intercourse with learned and dis­tinguished men among the Yahuds; and he set no value upon what he found in the books of foreigners about their religion: because envy is a corrosion and a fire, which attacks the enemy. But in the year of the Hejira 1057 (A. D. 1647), when I came to Hyder abad, I contracted friendship with Moham­med Sâid Sarmed, who was originally from a family of learned Yahuds, of a class whom they call Rabá­nián (Rabbins); after an investigation into the faith of the Rabbins and the perusal of the Mosaic books, he became a Muselman; he read the scientific works of the wise men of Iran, such as Mulla Sader, and Mír Abu-'l Kásem, of Kazer sak, and many others; at last, for the sake of commerce, he undertook by sea the voyage to Hindustan. When he arrived in the town Tata,* he fell in love with a Hindu boy, called Abhi Chand, and, abandoning all other things, like a Sanyási, naked as he came from his mother, he sat down before the door of his beloved. The father of the object of his love, after having found by investigation the purity of the attachment mani­fested for his son, admitted Sarmed into his house, and the young man too met him with an equal affec­tion, so that he could no more separate from him, and he read the book of Moses, the psalms of David, and other books with Sarmed. The following verses are the composition of this young Hindu:

“I submit to Moses' law; I am of thy religion, and the guardian of thy way;

I am a Rabbi of the Yahuds, a Kafir, a Muselman.”

The learned rabbis say, according to their belief, among the sons of Israel it was not required that women should wear a dress, and Sarmed said that Ishâiá, the prophet, himself used to go naked in his last days. Sarmeda was a good master of poetry. Here follow some of his verses:

“Sarmed, whom they intoxicated from the cup of love,

Whom they called, exalted, and depressed,

Asked for wine, worship of God, and wisdom:

(But) they intoxicated him, and made him a worshipper of idols.”

In the praise of the prophet, we find what fol­lows:

“O thou, by whose cheek is wounded the mind of the red rose,

Internally is the whole blood of the heart, externally the red rose;

Thou camest so late after Joseph, who was in the garden expecting thee,

That the rose (of his cheek) became first yellow (from vexation) and at last (from pleasure) a red rose.”

“This existence has, without the azure sphere, no reality,

This existence is confined; for, except the absolute being, nothing has reality.

Is God ever in vain? No! God is not in vain.

This existence is real only with respect to its origin, but whatever is derived has no reality.”

“When God weighed in the balance of destiny with the sun,

The being endowed with every excellence, Muhammed,

This was so heavy that it moved not from its place;

The other was so light that it fiew up to heaven.”

“Sarmed, who is a nightingale, has no desire of gold;

(But) his friend is the rose, and the rose has need of a handful of gold.”

“In the Kâbah and in the idol temple is his stone the symbol of male energy, and his is the symbol of female productiveness;*

In one place it is the black stone of the temple of Mecca; in another place an idol of the Hindus.”

In the eulogy of Shaikh Mohammed Khan, who was the chief minister of the illustrious Dara, Sultan Abed Ullah Kaťeb, we find the following quatrain:

“O thou, who art the circumference of greatness to the centre of the throne!—

Thou, to whose service a hundred persons are devoted, as is the firmament to the universe—

Make thou to me, who am a stranger, my evening equal to midday,

If at the side of Kateb* thou art as happy as at midday.”

The Shaikh desired the society of Sarmed. The author of this book was one day among the persons present; he said to one called Jerán, who made the eulogy of the Shaikh: “In a short time the Shaikh will, with whatever he may have acquired, turn towards the voyage of the other world, and Mîr Mohammed Sâid Mîr will take complete possession of the dignity of government; and the same year the Shaikh undertook to set out for Mecca from Hyder­abad. In the year of the Hejira 1059 (A. D. 1649), in the harbor of Fahardanish, he passed from this bodily ark to the circle of freedom. Hafiz says:

“The paradise of eternity is in this cell the share of the durvishes;

The Kâbah of the universe is the dominion of the durvishes;

O my heart, be there with reverence: for the sultan and the country

All are in the service of the majesty of the durvishes.”

Sarmed gave the information that, according to the Yahuds, God, the Almighty, is corporeal; and that his body is after the image of mankind, and similar to it; that, during the course of time, he is dispersed in the same manner as splendor is dissi­pated. Sarmed moreover said, that it is mentioned in the Mosaic book and in the holy writings, that the spirit of the divine body is beauty itself, and manifests itself under a human form; that punish­ment and recompense of the other world are already experienced in this state; that life lasts one hundred and twenty years; after that, man's whole life may be considered as one day, which, when he dies, is followed by night; that his body assumes partly the form of a mineral, partly that of a vegetable, and partly that of an animal, and the like; when one hundred and twenty years have elapsed, night comes to an end, and the morning appears again; if an atom of his bodily dust be in the east and another atom in the west, they unite in one place, and life is renewed to last again one hundred years, as we have said, when night returns. Punishment and recompense are solely for this world. They main­tain that whatever is, bears eternally the form of mankind, composed of water and earth.

The Yahuds agree in denying the appearance of Aisia (Jesus) as a prophet; they say that he was a deceiver; and they reject what the Aisuyan, “Chris­tians,” adduce from the Old Testament about the appearance of Aísya; they maintain that the prophet Ishâía spoke of himself the words* which have been applied to Aísya. They assert that Ibrâhím was no prophet, but a holy man, and they esteem a holy man higher than a prophet. They say that, in the Mosaic book, no mention is made of Pharâún's pre­tensions to be a god; but they relate that this king was a tyrant who oppressed the children of Israel, wherefore Musiâ (Moses) rose, and protested against his tyranny. As Pharâún did not attend to his words, he met with his fate. They also say that it is not to be found in the sacred book that Harun (Aaron) was joined to Musiâ in the divine mission, although he acted as his substitute. They agree in saying that Dáúdâ (David) sent Urîa to be killed, because the king coveted the possession of that man's wife, whom he took afterwards, and hence Solíman was begotten. They further insist that Aísia was no prophet, as the Nazaréans believe. Dáudâ said: “My hands and feet will fall, and my bones have been counted;” all this was fulfilled at the time when Aísia suffered death; but they assert that Dáúda spoke those words of himself, and in such manner all things which the Nazáréans set forth about Aísia, the Yahuds interpret clearly in another sense. It is besides written in their sacred book that, when the children of Isráîl shall perform iniquitous acts, Muhammad will appear. About this, Sarmed said that, although the name of the prophet is in the sacred book, yet another meaning may more evidently be attached to it; but if even the prophet's very name be insisted upon, it has no other import but that it exhorts the children of Isrâíl to convert themselves to his religion, and, in such an endeavour, carried beyond all bounds, he said many other things.

The Yahuds receive no stranger into their com­munity; circumcision is the law of their prophet, not that of others. They say also that a prophet is always living and present, to be the propagator of the law which is contained in the sacred book. Abhî Chand, having translated a part of the Mosaic book, the author of this work revised it with Sar­mad; they corrected it completely, affixed their mark to it, so that it became a correct copy, from which is the followíng: