36 © Major Price’s Extracts from the Mualijat-i-Ddrd Shekohi. 
In the first place, I shall undertake to demonstrate to the discreet and 
prudent, by proofs and arguments both verbal and intellectual, from whence 
came man, and to what he shall return. From the inspired assertions of 
the Koran to make it manifest, that the Prophet’s mission was designed to 
awaken mankind from that sleep of ignorance in which they had for a long 
time been previously immersed, and to bring those unacquainted with true 
religion, and so enslaved to their own conceptions, inclinations, and opi- 
nions, as to have lost all knowledge on the subject of genuine theology, and 
of the mysterious meanings conveyed in the code of divine relation, once 
more under the controul of the true faith: for of all prophecy such must 
ever be the object. And it is sufficiently known that the subject of the 
Prophet’s grievous complaint to his Maker was, that the people evaded the 
meanings of the Koran, and adhered to the visionary speculations of my- 
thology. 
Of the intelligent reader, in the mean time, I would intreat that he will 
make this book the subject of his deep and most serious reflection, so as to 
secure from it an unfailing provision in his perilous journey through life ; 
and having so done, he will peradventure think with me, that to have 
introduced or promulgated a study at once so delicate, difficult, and indis- 
pensabie to human happiness, is just as if a man were to excavate a deep 
well, or to construct an aqueduct, to convey from the bowels of the earth 
to some arid plain, a full supply of the refreshing stream, furnishing, at the 
same time, to the thirsty traveller the welcome remedy against otherwise 
inevitable perdition. Let him nevertheless, as he values the inestimable 
boon, carefully guard the fountain against all access from the irreligious 
idiot, lest its waters be polluted or troubled by the attempts of folly and 
imbecility ; nay, lest peradventure it be irrecoverably choked with dust 
and clay. For the rest, may God so prosperthe reception of this work, 
as it is intended for the instruction of his creatures in the pursuit of what 
is just and good. 
Thus far the prefatory chapter of Nasar Ibn Khusru has been given at 
length. What follows must be considered an abridgment composed by the 
compiler of the dictionary, Hakim Nur-ud-din Shirazi. 
