96

Zardusht's religion; and he wrote letters to Azer-
Kaivan, who was a chief of the Yezdanian and Aba-
daman, and invited him to India; Azer-Kaivan
begged to be excused from coming, but sent a book
of his own composition in praise of the self-existing
being, of reason, the soul, the heavens, the stars, and
the elements; as well as a word of advice to the King;

all this contained in fourteen sections: everv first

*j

line of each was in Persian pure deri; when read
invertedly, it was Arabic; when turned about,
Turkish; and when this was read in reversed order,
it became Hindi. The Nawab, the wise Shaikh Abu
'1 Fazil placed a full confidence in Azer Kaivan; he
called the inhabitants of Ajern and Arabia '6 infestors
" of roads,'* and the people of Islam " accursed."
The wise Shaikh Abu 1 Fazil said in Fatah piir to
Abd ul Kader Bedavani: l c I have to complain of the
" authors of books for two reasons: the first is,
4e that they have not explicitly enough written the
" account of ancient prophets, similar to that of
" their own prophet; the second is, that nothing
" remained of the industrious men whose name
" is not mentioned in the Tazkeret-ul-awlia, * the
•'* ' Story of the Saints/ * and the Nafhdt alms, ~

i Composed by Ferid eddin Attlar.

1 This is a work of the celebrated Abd-al rahmen Jami; its whole
title is: ^jJiJI o|j^=a. ^ i/^' C-A^ ^US" Kitab-u-
nafhat-i 'I uns-i, min hazarat-i 'I Kades, translated by Silvestre de