Note 12 — The Tenth New Year’s Festival after my auspicious Accession.

At the end of this month news came that the ruler of Iran had executed his eldest son Ṣafī Mīrzā. This was a cause of great bewilderment. When I enquired into it they said that at Daras͟h,12 which is one of the noted cities of Gīlān, he ordered a slave of the name of Bihbūd to kill Ṣafī Mīrzā. The slave found an opportunity, early in the morning on the 5th of Muḥarram, in the year 1024 (25th January, 1615), when the Mīrzā was returning from the baths towards his house, and finished his affair for him with two wounds from a sword (sīk͟hakī).13 After a great part of the day had passed, while his body lay between the water and the mud, S͟haik͟h Bahāʾu-d-dīn Muḥammad, who was the best known man in the country for learning and holiness, and on whom the Shah had full reliance, reported the affair, and, obtaining leave to lift him up, took his corpse and sent it to Ardabīl, where was the burial-ground of his ancestors. Although much enquiry was made of travellers from Iran, no one would say a word of this affair that satisfied my mind with regard to it. The killing of a son must have some powerful motive in order to do away with the disgrace of it.