18G9.] Badaoni and his Works. 127 



the people were ready for prayer (iqdmat), appears to have given him 

 much annoyance. " After having been appointed Imam," he says, 

 " His Majesty told me to join the army ; and giving me an 

 inconsiderable sum of money for an outfit, he ordered me to take a 

 Bisti ship, and to bring the regulated number of horses to muster. 

 Shaikh Abulfazl, who had lately joined Court, and who, to use 

 Shibli's phrase with respect to Junaid [two celebrated saints], had 

 come out of the same oven as I, accepted at once, cunning and time- 

 serving as he was, the military career. He brought his horses to 

 muster, and shewed himself so officious, that he ultimately received 

 an apppointment as Duhazari, and was made minister of the empire. 

 But inexperienced and simple as I was, I could not bring myself to 

 join the army, and thought of the verse which a Sayyid of Injii [Mir 

 Jamaluddin Husain] had said when in similar circumstances, ' You 

 make me join a contingent, and appoint me to a command of Twenty. 

 Good Grod, if my mother saw me in this wretched plight !' My wish 

 was to be content with a grant of land which the emperor might 

 bestow upon me as a means of livelihood; I thought of quietly 

 retiring from the bustle of the Court, and passing my life in study and 

 independence.* * * But this wish has not been fulfilled. In the 

 month of Shawwal 983, I applied for leave, which was not granted. 

 His Majesty said he would exempt me from military duties, and gave 

 me about one thousand bigliahs of land. This was at that time the 

 maximum allowed to such as applied for grants, and corresponded 

 to the salary of a Commander of Twenty ; but on account of the 

 unwillingness of the Qadr ['Abdunabi] and the wretchedness of the 

 present hard times I could not get more. Uufortunately the thousand 

 big'hahs were described in my grant as madad i ma 'ash [not as ajdgir, 

 which is given for services at Court] ; and as on several occasions I re- 

 presented that it was impossible, on so small a grant, to live constantly 

 at Court, His Majesty promised to let me have an increase on the 

 military list. Shaikh 'Abdunnabi, the ^adr, told me plainly that he 

 had never seen a man of my class getting so large a grant of land. 

 The promised assistance from the military list has, however, remained 

 up to the present time [1005] buried in the will of Grod, though 

 twenty-two years have elapsed. Times have now altered ; and 

 though once or twice I had a present, His Majesty's promise was a 



