Note 96 — The Twelfth New Year’s Feast after my auspicious accession.

As at this stage the tomb of S͟hāh ʿĀlam was by the roadside, I recited the fātiḥa in passing by it. About 100,000 rupees had been spent in building this mausoleum. S͟hāh ʿĀlam was the son of Qut̤b ʿĀlam, and their family goes back to Mak͟hdūm-i-Jahāniyān96 (a saint). The people of this country, high and low, have a wonderful belief in him, and they say that S͟hāh ʿĀlam used to raise the dead. After he had raised several dead men, his father became aware of this and sent him a prohibition, saying it was presumption in him to meddle with the workshop of God, and was contrary to true obedience. It happened that S͟hāh ʿĀlam had an attendant (female) who had no children, but at S͟hāh ʿĀlam’s prayer God Almighty bestowed a son on her. When he reached his 27th97 year he died, and that slave came weeping and wailing into his presence, saying, “My son has died, and he was my only son; since God Almighty gave him to me by your favour, I am hopeful that through your prayer he may become alive.” S͟hāh ʿĀlam fell into thought for a time and went into his cell, and the attendant went to his son, who greatly loved her, and besought him to ask the S͟hāh to make his son alive. The son, who was of tender years, went into his cell, and used much entreaty. S͟hāh ʿĀlam said, “If you are content to give up your life for him, perhaps my petition may be accepted.” He represented “I am perfectly contented with what may be your wish and the desire of God.” S͟hāh ʿĀlam took his son’s hands, and lifting him up from the ground turned his face towards heaven and said, “O God, take this kid in place of that one.” Instantaneously the boy surrendered his soul to God, and S͟hāh ʿĀlam laid him down on his own bed and covered his face with a sheet, and coming out of the house said to that attendant, “Go home, and get news of thy son; perhaps he may have been in a trance and not have died.” When she arrived at her house she saw her son alive. In short, in the country of Gujarat they say many things of this sort of S͟hāh ʿĀlam. I myself asked Sayyid Muḥammad, who is lord of his prayer carpet (in charge of the mausoleum), and who is not wanting in excellence and reasonableness, what was the real state of the case. He said, “I have also heard the same from my father and grandfather, and it has come down in succession, and wisdom is from Allah.” Although this affair is beyond the laws of understanding, yet, as it has attained great notoriety among men, it has been recorded as a strange occurrence. His departure from this perishable mansion to the eternal world took place in 880 (1475), in the time of the reign of Sult̤ān Maḥmūd Bīgara, and the buildings of this mausoleum are the memorial of Tāj K͟hān Tariyānī,98 who was one of the Amirs of Sult̤ān Muzaffar, the son of Maḥmūd.