166 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XII, 



The same fly-leaf bears an illuminated star, now rather 

 faded, and several notes, seals, and signatures of the nobles 

 and Amirs of the Timuride sovereigns of India. 



The author does not choose any distinct title for the work 

 but calls it in several places simply a^U ^ijG or " the book of 

 history." In 'Inayat Khan's note, quoted above, it is called 



" while 



the author of the Raudat-ul- Jannat , who freely borrows his 

 account fr< " * * 



^°#, 



The scanty time at my disposal has not permitted me to 

 collect materials from external sources for a biographical 

 notice of the author, and the following information has been 

 gathered exclusively from the work itself. 



In the preface the author designates himself Sayf ibn 



ir^l v^«*i e* *+="o etf 



» • w^t i Ty — s err — •— — vyr < — . » 



but later on in the course of his narrative, he always calls him- 

 self by the simple name of Sayfi Harawi <^a Ju~ , the first 

 part of which he adopted as his poetical nom-de-plume. In 

 recording the events of the year a.h. 687 (a.d. 1288) he tells 

 us that he was then six years old. He must have been born 

 then m a.h. 681 (a.d. 1282). He says that before composing 

 this work he wrote a treatise on ethics called Majmu'ah-i- 

 £iyasi to secure himself an introduction to Malik Givas-ud-Din 

 ilurt, the fourth King of Herat of the Kurt race, "who ruled 

 from a.h. 708 to 729 (a.d. 1308 to 1329). We also learn that 

 he dedicated both these works to his patron, the aforesaid king. 

 I- I on he mentions that he wrote a poem of 20,000 lines in 

 which he gave an account of the exploits of Jamal-ud-Din 



MunammaH Sam «rV>^. lr;n„^ t\2_- 1 _,-»»,*« . ._ nn.a 



tA.D. l^Ub). This he wrote for the aforesaid Jamal-ud-Din Sam 

 after whose name he called it Sam Namah a*G r U. Sayfi was 

 also a panegyrist of Mailk Fakijr-ud-Din, the third King of the 



S.™" 1 ? {k t ^ 4 -708 = a.d. 1285-1308) in whose praise he 

 composed eighty Qasidahs and one hundred and fifty Qit'ahs : 



t 



twifJiVtl ° cc f ion ' ^ e af e told, Sayfi was arrested as a 

 traitor by the order of Bujai and very narrowly escaped death. 



