At the moment when the holy warriors were heedlessly flinging away their lives, they heard a secret voice say, Be not dismayed, neither be grieved, for, if ye believe, ye shall be exalted above the unbelievers? and from the infallible Informer heard the joyful words, Assistance is from God, and a speedy victory ! A fid do thou bear glad tidings to true believers? Then they fought with such delight that the plaudits of the saints of the Holy Assembly reached them and the angels from near the Throne, fluttered round their heads like moths. Between the first and second Prayers, there was such blaze of combat that the flames thereof raised standards above the heavens, and the right and left of the army of Islam rolled back the left and right of the doomed infidels in one mass upon their centre.
When signs were manifest of the victory of the Strivers and of the up-rearing of the standards of Islam, those accursed infidels and wicked unbelievers remained for one hour confounded. At length, their hearts abandoning life, they fell upon the right and left of our centre. Their attack on the left was the more vigorous and there they approached furthest, but the holy warriors, their minds set on the reward, planted shoots (nihdl) of arrows in the field of the breast of each one of them, and, such being their gloomy fate, overthrew them. In this state of affairs, the breezes of victory and fortune blew over the meadow of our happy Nawab, and brought the good news, Verily we have granted thee a manifest victory? And Victory the beautiful woman (shdhid) whose world-adornment of waving tresses was embellished by God will aid you with a mighty aid,* bestowed on us the good fortune that had been hidden behind a veil, and made it a reality. The absurd (bdtil) Hindus, knowing their position perilous, dispersed like carded wool before the wind, and likemoths scattered abroad.1'3- Many fell dead on the field of battle; others, desisting from fighting, fled to the desert of exile and
Earth's seven climes one rose to Heaven in dust, thus giving Heaven eight. The verse is from Firdausi's Shah-nama, [Turner-Macan's ed. i, 222]. The translation of it is Warner's, [ii, 15 and n.]. I am indebted for the information given in this note to my husband's long search in the Shah-nama.
1 Qoran, cap. 3, v. 133.
* Qoran, cap. 61, v. 13.
3 Qoran, cap. 48, v. I.
4 Qoran, cap. 48, v. 3.
