________________
188
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(OCTOBER, 1920
"O lords of error and insolence. Know that we, in our search after the truth, have set asido all obstinacy and bigotry and have followed the way of truth in sincerity and faith, and but now, by way of proof, we decreed that Shah Tahir should hold a controversy with you in order that you might be convinced, and that the people might not say that we have without good grounds and sufficient proof abandoned the faith of our fathers. Now that you have been overcome in argument and are in that respect helpless, you take up a new line, and say that it is not right to forsake the faith of our fathers. But this is unreasonablo, and is merely the speech of fools whom God has refuted in the Qur'an. The excuse that a particular religion was the religion of one's ancestors will never be accepted on the day of resurrection. Now, if you wish for prosperity in this world and salvation in the next, abandon your errors and accept the true Shi'ah faith, or the punishment that we shall decree for you will ompty the cage of the birds of your souls, and the sword of our wrath shall remove your heads to & distance from your bodies."
Notwithstanding the king's efforts to guide these men into the way of truth, fato had decreed that they should obstinately adhere to error, and Qazi Abrar, the most obstinato bigot of all, was beheaded. Maulana Abdul Awwal was punished with torture and with every species of affliction and was compelled to eat the flesh of dogs, and the others wera punished in various ways. The power of the sword in a short time established the true religion of the infallible Imams in the remotest part of the country of the Dakan, and love for the family of the prophet was established in the hearts of both enemies and friends, so that the other Sultans of that land, that is to say 'Adil Shah and Qutb Shah, followed the king's oxample and accepted the Shi'ah religion.85 Thus the Shi'ah religion became the religion of the land: the titles of the Imams were heard from the pulpits, and adversaries of the faith were rooted out from the land. After this the king's power and prosperity grew and increased.
(To be continued.)
* Seyyid 'Alin Mont inaccurate hero. Bulgan Qult Qutb Shah and all his successors in Goloonda wa Shi'cha. Yawuf Adil ShAh, founder of the Bijapur dynasty, was so zealous a Shi'ah that bo nearly lont his throne by prematurely establishing that religion in his kingdom. His son Isma'il was also Sht'sh, but Ibrahim 'Adil Shah I, IsmA'li's son, who had lately succeeded to the throne of Bijapar, was a Sunns, but all other kings of this dynasty wero Shi'aha. Thus, after the conversion of BurhAn, the three principal dynasties in the Dakan, those of Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and Golconds were Shi'ahs, while the ruler of the two small kingdoms of Berar and Bidar Were Sunnis. But Berar w annexed by Ahmadnagar in 1674 and Bidar by Bijapur in 1619, so that the Shi'ah faith became the established religion of the Dekan. This fumished the bigot Aurangzib with a scarcely needed pretext for the annexation of Bijapur and Goloonda.
# FiriahtA's noount of Burhan's conversion to the Shi'ah religion is similar to this but contains somo Additional particulars. According to him, ShAh Tahir first took advantage of a dangerous illness of 'Abdul Qadir, Burhan's favourite son, to broach the subject of the Shi'ah religion, suggesting that if the king scoeptod it, the prince would recover. It was while watching by his son's bed that the King fell asloop and dreamed dream, in which he saw, according to Firishta, Muhammad surrounded by the twelve Imams. Muhammad promised him that his son should recover and bade him follow the teaching of Shah Tahir. The king's conversion followed as a matter of course. Firishta, who was & Sunni, does not relate the story of the conversion so sympathetically tho Shi'ah, Sayyid 'Ali.
