Note 92 — The Fifteenth New Year’s Feast after the Auspicious Accession

One of the events (that now took place) was the martyrdom of Sayyid ʿIzzat92 K. and of Jalāl K. Gakhar in the army of Bangash. The particulars of this are that when the season for the collection of revenue arrived, Mahābat K. appointed a force to go into the hill-country to eat up the crops of the Afghans, and not omit one tittle of raiding and plundering, and killing and binding. When the servants of the Court arrived at the foot of the Pass the ill-fated Afghans attacked them from all sides, and took the head of the Pass, and fortified it. Jalāl K., who was an experienced man, and an old man that had undergone labours, thought it better to delay for a few days, so that the Afghans might expend the few days’ provisions they had brought with them on their backs, and necessarily disperse of their own accord; that then his men would be able to cross with ease over the head of the difficult Pass. When he once passed the head of the defile they would be unable to do any more, and would be punished. ʿIzzat K., who was a battle-lighting flame and a foe-burning lightning, did not fall in with Jalāl K.’s idea, and excited the steed of courage of some of the Sayyids of Bārha. The Afghans, swarming round on all sides, like ants and locusts, attacked him, and caught him in their midst. Though the battlefield was not fit for cavalry, yet wherever the forehead of his wrath shone, he consumed many with the fire of his sword. In the midst of the fighting they hamstringed his horse, but he fought on foot and as long as he had breath, and at last fell bravely. At the time when ʿIzzat K. made his attack, Jalāl K. Gakhar93 and Masʿūd, s. Aḥmad Beg K., and Bīzan (or Bīzhan), s. Nād ʿAlī Maidānī, and other servants, lost restraint, and rushed on from all sides of the pass, and the rebels seized the tops of the hills, and fought with stones and arrows. The devoted young men, both of the servants of the Court and the retainers of Mahābat K., performed the duties of valour, and slaughtered many of the Afghans. In this contest Jalāl K. and Masʿūd, with many other brave men, sacrificed their lives. Owing to the rashness of ʿIzzat K. such a disaster as this befell the Imperial army.