27

In the llalnameh, a true work from Bayezid's pen,
it is stated that the lord Miydn Bdyezid Ansdri was
the son of Shaikh Abdullah, who descended in the
seven ill generation from Shaikh Sirdj-eddin Ansdri,
and that, in the latter time of the dominion of the
Afghans, he was born in the town of Jalendher in
the Panjab.1 A year after this event, the blessed
lord Zahir-eddin Bdber Pddshdh, having obtained a
victory over the Afghans, conquered Hind. In the
history of the Moghiils it is recorded that, in- the
year of the Hejira 932 (A. D. 1525)2 the blessed lord

supposed to have been taken up to heaven. One of his concubines, who
by concealment had escaped destruction, and had seen every thing, re-
vealed what had taken place; but many of his followers continued to
believe in his divinity and future reappearance.

I shall here remark, that destroying human bodies by means of aqua
fortis is an ancient practice, mentioned in the Desatir (Engl. transl., p.
29), and accounts for the fact of so many funeral urns being found in
Asia without ashes in them.

1 Ans'ar signifies " protectors, defenders," and is a word particularly
applied to the citizens of Madina who assisted Muharnmed when he was
obliged to fly from Mecca. Herbelot mentions as one of the most illus-
trious who bore this surname Abul Abbas Ahmed ben Abdullah, without
the date of his birth or death, a Spaniard who wrote a Commentary upon
the Modllakat, or poems suspended in the temple of Mecca ; another
who wrote upon physiognomy; and a third who composed a treatise upon
coffee. The last was, according to Silvestre de Sacy (see Chrestom. ar.,
t. I. p. 441), originally from Madina, a native of Jejireh, and wrote iu the
year of the Hejira 966 or 996 (A. D. 1558 or 1587). The family and native
place of the above-mentioned Ansari, were in the Panjab, although his
ancestors might have come from Arabia.

2 This was in 1526.— See vol. II. p. 249.)