[19] Fig͟hānī was a famous poet and also a drunkard. See Rieu, ii, p. 651, and Sprenger, Oude Cat., p. 403. Fig͟hānī also means lamentation, and there is a play in the couplet on the double meaning. [↑]
[20] In the Elliot MSS., B.M., the second line is translated “Alas! if the angels made his shroud of another kind of odour!” The angels meant are Nakīr and Munkar. [↑]
[22] Cf. Jarrett, ii, p. 122. [↑]
[24] “What money and articles he could produce at the time” (Elliot, vi, 320). [↑]
[25] Apparently the person spoken of as a Nazarene (Christian) was the Emperor of Constantinople. Can this picture be the original of that prefixed to White & Davey’s translation of Tīmūr’s Institutes? [↑]
The Fourth New Year’s Feast after the Auspicious Accession.
The passing of the great star that illumines the world into the constellation of Aries took place on the night of Saturday, the 14th Ẕī-l-ḥijja, in Hijra 1017 (21st March, 1609), and New Year’s Day that made brilliant the world began with good auspices and rejoicing. On Friday, the 5th Muḥarram, in the year 1018, Ḥakīm ʿAlī died. He was an unrivalled physician; he had derived much profit from Arabic sciences. He had written a commentary on the Canon (of Avicenna) in the time of my revered father. He had greater diligence than understanding, just as his appearance was better than his disposition, and his acquirements better than his talents; on the whole he was bad-hearted, and of an evil spirit. On the 20th Ṣafar I dignified Mīrzā Bark͟hūrdār with the title of K͟hān ʿĀlam. They brought from the neighbourhood of Fatḥpūr a water-melon, greater than any I had ever seen. I ordered them to weigh it, and it came to 33 seers. On Monday, the 19th Rabīʿu-l-awwal, the feast of my annual lunar weighing was arranged in the palace of my revered mother; a part of the money was divided among the women who had assembled there on that day.