[No 1, 
56 H Beveridge— JVfl Khan. 
nephews and brought them back to Bengal. One would like to think 
that this good uncle was the Qutbu-d-din who left Sher Shah and be¬ 
came a recluse in disgust of the king’s breach of faith towards Put an 
Mai. 4 Isa was remarkable for ability and prudence and rose to be at 
the head of the twelve zamindars of Bengal. Abul Fazl’s language, if 
construed strictly, meaus that there were 12 zamindars exclusive of 
‘ Isa. but this is not Pimenta’s statement. According to a tradition 
preserved by the Jaugalbarl family he married Fatima a daughter of one 
Saiyid Ibrahim. Another tradition, Wise 202, is that he married a 
daughter of Cand Rai of Bikrampur. Abul Fazl calls him the ruler 
( marzban ) of Bhati and says that though he always professed to be sub¬ 
missive to the rulers of Bengal, t.e., Sulaiman Kararani and Daud, he 
had the good sense not to visit them. On the same page he gives the 
boundaries of Bhati, and does so in a way which has puzzled Professor 
Dowson (Elliott VI, 73) and -myself. For he talks of Bhati being a 
tract which has Tanda on the south, and the ocean and the termination 
of the mountains of Thibet on the north S There surely must be some 
copyist’s mistake, but all the MSS. tell the same story. A possible 
interpretation is that the words mean South of Tanda and North of the 
ocean and the terminations of the hills of Tipperah. Blochmann 342 
n.I. has “ from N.S., from Thibet to the ocean.” Abul Fazl goes on at 
pp. 433 and 433 to describe Shahbaz Khan’s campaigns against ‘ Isa 
in 1584. At pp. 433 he says that Shahbaz took the two forts which 
had been erected on each side of the Granges at Khizrpur “ as this was 
the thoroughfare to and from Bhati.” Then he took Sonargaon, and 
the populous city of Karabuh which was 1 Isa’s residence. After that 
he hastened to Bara Sindur, which is a great city, and obtained much 
booty. Then he emerged into the Brahmaputra. He was nearly 
catching the rebel Ma’sum Kabuli, when ‘ Isa came back from Cuch 
Bihar with a large army. The imperialists had now to act on the 
defensive and took up their quarters in Toke (Totak in text) which is 
on the bank of the Brahmaputra, and opposite Agara Sindur (Kinara 
Sindur in text) and built a fort there. Then Shahbaz sent for Tarsan 
Khan to march from Bhowal (N. of Dacca and also kno^n as Nagari) 
towards Khizrpur and disconcert the enemy by attacking them on 
another side. Unfortunately Tarsan was rash and was cut off by 
Ma'sum who had taken refuge in the islands, (or more probably, the 
peninsula, Jazira) between the Lakhia and the Brahmaputra. 
It will be seen from the above that ‘ Isa’s residence was at Kara¬ 
buh and not at Khizrpur, and the question is where was this town. 
The Bib. Ind. gives the variant Katrabuh and the Lucknow ed. has 
also this form. The name occurs again at p. 733 in connection with 
