“The object of shade in Creation is this:
That no one place his foot on the light of my Lord, the Sun.”[34]
If the details were to be described of all the commanders and servants appointed by me, with the conditions and connections and rank of each, it would be a long business. Many of my immediate attendants and personal followers and nobles’ sons, house-born ones (k͟hānazādān) and zealous Rajputs, petitioned to accompany this expedition. A thousand ahadis, the meaning of which is single ones (Blochmann, p. 20), were also appointed. In short, a force was collected together such that if reliance on the Friend (God) were vouchsafed, it could have embarked on enmity and conflict with any one of the monarchs of power.
“Soldiers came up from all sides,
Seizing life from heroes of the world in battle;
They had no fear of death from the sharp sword,
No terror of water[35] and no flight from fire;
In valour singular, in vigour a crowd,
Anvils in endurance, rocks in attack.”