[6] Perhaps this is only rhetoric, but Abū-l-faẓl describes how lots were cast between him and Rāja Bīrbal as to who should go on the Yūsufzai expedition. [↑]
[7] Ichī means a hawk, but the meaning may be a S͟haik͟h of Uch. Acha is given in Zenker as meaning a father in Turki. The Iqbāl-nāma has Ajha. [↑]
[8] Text wrongly has Aʿz̤am. See Blochmann, p. 521, note. [↑]
[9] Kis͟hwar was the son of Jahāngīr’s foster-brother Qut̤bu-d-dīn, who was killed by Shīr-afgan. [↑]
[10] The Iqbāl-nāma and the B.M. MSS. call it Bak͟hla. [↑]
[11] These last words seem to be part of S͟hajāʿat’s speech, but see Iqbāl-nāma, p. 63. See also Elliot, vi, 329, and the translation of the Iqbāl-nāma account in Appendix L, Stewart’s Cat. of Tippo Sultan’s MSS., p. 275. The Iqbāl-nāma says that ʿUs̤mān’s corpulence compelled him to ride on an elephant. [↑]
[12] The text has dar adhār u t̤arf kih dar taṣarruf-i-ān tīra-rūzgār būd. I do not know if adhār is the name of a place or what its meaning is. The I.O. MSS., Nos. 181 and 305, have arhād. Blochmann, p. 520, on the authority of the Mak͟hzan-i-Afg͟hānī, says the fight took place 100 kos from Dacca and in a place called Nek Ujyāl, and he points out in a note that there are several Ujyāls in Eastern Bengal. Possibly Adhār is Udhār or Uzār, and a corruption of Ujyāl. The ‘hills of Dacca,’ referred to by Blochmann, might be Ran Bhawal or the Madhūpūr jungle. The Riyāẓu-s-salāt̤īn does not mention the site of the battle, and the translator, Maulawī ʿAbdu-s-Salām, has in his note at p. 175 confounded two ʿĪsā K͟hāns, and so drawn groundless inferences. Blochmann points out, p. 520, that the Maʾās̤iru-l-umarā says the prisoners were afterwards put to death. The passage is at vol. ii, p. 632. It says they were put to death by Jahāngīr’s orders by ʿAbdu-llah (who certainly was brute enough for anything). Jahāngīr, Tūzuk, p. 112, mentions the arrival of ʿUs̤mān’s sons and brothers at Court, so that Blochmann’s statement at p. 520 about their being executed on the road is not correct. It appears, too, they came to Court after S͟hajāʿat’s death. Jahāngīr says (Tūzuk, p. 112) he made over the prisoners to responsible servants of government. ʿAbdu-llah may have been one of these, and have got rid of his prisoners by killing them. It would appear that the battle with ʿUs̤mān took place to the east or south-east of Dacca, and not near Orissa, as Stewart supposed. [↑]
[13] The lines occur in Ḥāfiz̤ʾ divān, under the letter M, Brockhaus’ ed., No. 396, but Jahāngīr has missed out two lines in his quotation. An Indian lithograph has rak͟ht in the first line instead of ṣabr, but the latter reading occurs in Brockhaus. In the fourth line nargis is a mistake for tīrkas͟h. Tīr-i-falak, ‘the arrow of the spheres,’ is also a name for the planet Mercury. Tīrkas͟h-i-Jauzā means both a particular constellation in the sign Gemini, which is supposed to resemble a quiver in appearance, and also the strings of a musical instrument. The meaning of the lines seems to be, “I have been wounded by the shaft of heaven: give me wine that I may become intoxicated and be able to tie a knot in the quiver-girdle of the Gemini.” The appositeness of the fāl is not very apparent, but the mention of an arrow was taken to be an allusion to the death of ʿUs̤mān by a shot from an unknown hand. [↑]
[15] They call this in the English language a turkey, and the people of India call it pīrū; Persian-knowing Indians call it in Persian fīlmurg͟h. They are now plentiful in India. (Note of Sayyid Aḥmad.) [↑]