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AUGUST, 1874.)
GEOGRAPHY OF IBN BATUTA'S INDIAN TRAVELS.
211
uddin Tabrizi. These Kåmrû highlands were towards the borders of China and Tibet, and a month's journey from Sudkâwân. The Sheikh was a very old man indeed, for he told Ibn Batuta that he had seen the Khalif Mosta'sim Billah (who had been put to death by Huláků the Mongol 88 years before). He had fasted for forty years, breaking his fast only once in ten days with a little milk of a cow that he kept. The inhabitants of the hill-country were like Turks i.e. Tartars), and made excellent slaves, for they were strong to labour. The Sheikh had converted many of them, and for this object lived among them. His residence was in a cave. After a very curious interview with this remarkable person, Ibn Batuta went to the city of H a bank, a large and fine place, by which a great river flowed, descending from the moun. tains of Kamrû and called Al Nahr-a 1 Azraķ (the Blue River). This stream maintained a great traffic of boats, and its banks were crowded with villages, gardens, and water-wheels, re- minding the traveller of the Nile. Descending this river, in fifteen days Ibn Batata reached the city of Sunur Kåwan.
Kamra is of course Kâ mrûp, a term of somewhat wide application, but which anciently included SILHET, which can be shown to have been the scene of the Moor's excursion.
The wonder-working ascetic, Sheikh Jalalud- dîn, was, I doubt not (as I pointed out in Oathay and the Way Thither, 1856, pp. 515 seqq.) the patron saint of Silhet, now known as Shah Jalal, the subject of many legends, to whom is ascribed the conversion of the people of that country to Islâm, and whose shrine at Silhet, flanked by four mosques, is still famous.
Some account of the legendary history of Shah Jalál, as now accepted, is given by Dr. J. Wise of Dhaka (in the Jour. As. S. Ben. for 1873, Part I. p. 278), and Dr. Wise is stated to have drawn Mr. Blochmann's attention to Ibn Batuta and his visit to the saint, both being apparently unaware of what had been said on the subject in the work just
• Like the holy Gelasius of Armagh, who never tasted anything but milk, and always took about with him a white Cow to supply him! So Giraldus Cambrongis, quoted in Saturday Revieu.
+ i.e. of course, the complete work as published and translated by MM. Defréméry and Sanguinetti.
1 That of Shah Jual is given as Al-Kandys in an inscription which Mr. Blochmann gives in the Jour. As. S. Ben., as above, p. 293.
6 As, for instance, his visit to a saint at Dehli known to have died in A.D. 1324.
referred to, and both doubtful, because of certain discrepancies, of the identity of Ibn Batuta's saint with Shah Jalal. The discrepancies referred to by Dr. Wise and Mr. Blochmann are : (1) that the local legend puts the death of Shah Jalal in A.H. 591, i.e. A.D. 1194; (2) that it brings him, not from Tabriz, but from Arabia; (3) that the real Jalaluddîn Tabrizi was a famous saint whose life is in the biographical collections (which Shah Jalal's is not), who is known to have died A.H. 642 (A.D. 1244), and whose shrine is at Gaur.
The last difficulty is certainly puzzling. Bat on examining Ion Batuta's bookt by the help of the excellent index, I find that an agnomen is given to the Sheikh in only two places, and that though in one of these indeed he is called AlTabrizi, in the other he is called Al-Shirazi. If there had been only the former, occurring as it does but once, and that at the end of a broken line, we might have supposed it to be an interpolation by some one who had heard of the real Jalaluddin Tabrizi. But the occurrence of two different names, each once, suggests as the most probable explanation that Ibn Batuta himself had forgotten the real affix. And it i an odd fact that in another place (II. 72) he speaks of another Jalaluddin Al-Tabrizi (there written Tavrizi) who was one of the grandees of Shiraz. If this be so, Ibn Batuta's saint may have come from Arabia or anywhere else ; and the discrepancy as to date is of little moment, for the date, in one form of the local legend, unsupported by monumental or other contemporary evidence, and contredicted by other items in the legend itself, can have little weight.
The city of Habank is, I doubt not, Sil. het or its medieval representative. The name still survives, attached to one of the numerous mamelons, or tilrs as they are locally called, to the north of that city,-Habang Tila, || a spot still associated with the traditions of Shah Jalâl and the Pirs who were his companions. Ibn Batuta's description of the people as of
|| I believe that these T11a 8, which are such a singular feature in Silhet soenery, and cover so extensive an area, probably gave their name to the Tilados of this region, the Mongoloid people ("dwarfish, stampy, and platter-faced") whom Ptolemy locates here to the north of M. Maeandrus.
T I see by the new Indian Atlas quarter-sheet 125 S.E. that the spot in question appears therein, under the name of Abanshi Tila, as a trigonometrical station. The map is dated 1870. My information was derived in 1861 or 1865 from the late Mr. Pryse, a missionary at Silhet, through my friend Mr. F. Slipwith, B.C.S. Mr. Pryse's communi.
