80 
G. H. Raverty —Memoir of the Author 
[No. 1, 
sway o£ the Khwarazmis. These events most, in some way, have been the 
cause of his sojourn in Sijistan for seven months, but he is quite silent on 
the causes which led him there. See page 195. 
In 617 H., during the first inroad of the Mughals into Ghur and 
Khurasan, before the Chingiz Khan himself crossed the Oxus with his 
main army, our author was living at Tulak ; and, shortly after, in the 
same year, took part in the defence of that fortified town against the 
invaders, who kept prowling about it for about eight months. During a 
period of four years, from the above mentioned year up to the close of 
620 H., during which the Mughals made several attempts upon it, he helped 
to defend it. 
In 618 H., the year in which he says the Chingiz Khan crossed the 
Jihun into Khurasan, and he was in his thirtieth year, he married the 
daughter of a kinsman of his own ; and, in 620 H., he determined, as soon 
as circumstances permitted, to leave his native country, and proceed into 
Hindustan, not liking, apparently, to dwell in a country overrun by the 
Mughal infidels. In 621 H. he was despatched from Tulak, where he was 
then living, and in the defence of which against the Mughals he had just 
taken part, by Malik Taj-ud-Din Hasan-i-Khar-post to Isfizar, after 
Khurasan had become clear of Mughals, and from thence into the Kuhis¬ 
tan—the Chingiz Khan had, at that time, returned homewards—to endea¬ 
vour to arrange for the re-opening of the Jcarwan routes, which, during the 
Mughal invasion, had been closed, and the traffic suspended. 
On a second occasion, in 622 H., he again j)roceeded from Tulak into 
the Kuhistan for the same purpose, at the request of Malik Rukn-ud-Din 
Muhammad, son of ’Usman, the Maraghani, of Khaesar of Ghur, the 
father of Malik Shams-ud-Din Muhammad, the first of the Kurat dynasty, 
as the Tajzik—not Afghan, I beg leave to say—rulers of the fiefs of Hirat 
and Ghur and their dependencies, who were the vassals of the Mughals, 
were styled. The following year he again set out on a journey into the 
Kuhistan, on the part of Malik Rukn-ud-Din Muhammad, that the 
kdrwdn route might be re-opened. From Khaesar he first went to Farah* 
and from thence proceeded by way of Sijistan into the territory referred to, 
and returned to Khaesar again. 
In 623 H., our author, who appears to have left Tulak and was resid¬ 
ing at Khaesar, with the permission of Malik Rukn-ud-Din Muhammad 
went to Farah in order to purchase a little silk required by him for his 
journey into Hindustan. Having arrived in the neighbourhood of Farah, 
Malik Taj-ud-Din Binal-Tigin the Khwarazmi, who then ruled over 
Sijistan, and was engaged in war with the Mulahidah of the Kuhistan, 
induced him to undertake a journey into the latter territory, to endeavour 
to bring about an accommodation between himself and the Mulahidah 
