192 Translations from the Tdrikh i Firhz Shdhi. [No. 4. 



Khan's quarters. The nephew (sister's son) of Sultan 'Alauddin, 

 however, happened to he sleeping below Ulugh Khan's quarters ; and 

 the mutineers imagining that he might possibly be the Khan, put him 

 to death under this misapprehension. The mutiny extended at length 

 throughout the army, and the camp was very nearly becoming the 

 scene of indiscrimate riot and pillage ; but as the good fortune of 

 'Alauddin was in the ascendant, such a tumult as this even was 

 speedily quelled. The cavalry and infantry of the army formed 

 up in front of Nucrat Khan's pavilion, and the recently converted 

 Amirs and horsemen dispersed, such of them as had been the chief 

 actors and confederates in the mutiny fleeing away and gaining 

 the disaffected and rebellious Rais. After this, the search after the 

 booty in the army was abandoned, and Ulugh Khan and Nucrat 

 Khan reached Delhi with all the wealth, elephants, slaves, and other 

 spoils they had got possession of from the pillage of Grujrat. 



As soon as the news of the mutiny among the new converts reached 

 Delhi, Sultan 'Alauddin, under the influence of the haughty pride 

 which had now inflated his brain, directed that the wives and 

 children of all the mutineers, both high and low, should be seized and 

 imprisoned. This system of seizing upon the wives and children for 

 the fault of the men dates its commencement from this period ; for 

 previous to this at Delhi, they never laid hands on Avomen and 

 children on account of the crimes of their male relatives, nor used 

 they to seize and incarcerate the families of any delinquents. 



Besides this tyrannical system of seizing women aud children, a 

 still more glaring piece of injustice was committed in those days by 

 Nucrat Khan, who was the originator of numerous acts of oppression 

 at Delhi ; for it was publicly witnessed that in revenge for his 

 brother's death, he brought infamy and dishonour on the wives of 

 those who had pierced his brother with arrows, by delivering them 

 over to sweepers to be violated like helpless victims, while the infant 

 children were ordered to be cut in pieces in presence of their mothers.* 



Such cruelty as this that he was guilty of, has never been allowed 

 by any code of religion ; and at every fresh act of this description 



* Historians call this wholesale slaughter of women and children r/harib- 

 khushi, or killing of the poor. Badabni (p. 190) says that many historians 

 relate, the event before mentioning the return of Ulugh Khan from Gujrat, 

 ' without paying regard to proper chronological order ; but God knows best.' 



