Note 31 — The Thirteenth New Year’s Feast

Now, I do not know whether to call it Samūmistān (the place of the samūm or simoom) or Bīmāristān (abode of sickness), or Zaqqūm-zār (the thorn-bed), or Jahannamābād (the house of Hell), for it contains all these varieties. If the rainy season had not prevented me, I would not have delayed one day in this abode of trouble, but, like Solomon, would have seated myself on the throne of the wind, and hastened out, and released the people of God from this pain and trouble. As the men of this city are exceedingly weak-hearted and wretched, in order to guard against any of the men from the camp entering their houses with a view to oppress them, or interfering with the affairs of the poor and miserable: and lest the Qāẓī and Mīr ʿAdl (judge) should, from fear of the face of men (rū-dīdagī), temporize and not stop such oppression, I, from the date on which I entered the city, notwithstanding the heat of the air, every day, after completing the midday prayer, went and sat in the Jharoka. It was towards the river, and had no impediment in the shape of gate, or wall, or watch-men (yasāwul), or chobdārs (mace-bearers). For the sake of administering justice, I sat there for two or three sidereal hours and listened to the cries for redress, and ordered punishments on the oppressors according to their faults and crimes. Even in the time of weakness I have gone every day to the jharoka, though in great pain and sorrow, according to my fixed custom, and have looked on ease of body as something unlawful31 (ḥarām) for me.