—
BIL The
313
Araish-i-Mahfil gives the following description of Bilgram, partly J. C.
borrowed from the Ain-i-Atbari, and translated as follows in Mr. Williams' Census Report, App. E. p. vii
"
Bilgram and
a large town, the inhabitants of which are clever and of genius. In this town there is a well, and if any one drinks its water for forty days continuously, he will be able to sing excellently. Besides this, too, the people are mostly very proficient in learning. Sayad Jalil-ul-Kadar Abd-ul-Jalil Bilgrami was a great poet, and a great proficient in the Arabic and Persian languages. He flourished in the time of Farrukh Sir, and he received the appointment from the imperial court of reporter of occurrences in Sindh. After this great man came Mir Ghulam All Azad, who was unequalled among his contemporaries for his poetical composition, his eloquence, knowledge, and virtue even his Arabic poems are written with the utmost eloquence and in beautiNo other inhabitant of Hindustan ful diction, and are very voluminous. ever composed such poems before him. His book of odes is a proof of this, and the eloquent men of Arabia blush with shame as they recite his praises. He was bom in the year 1114 H. and died in the year 1202 H."
poetical
is
men
" The learning of the Mr. Williams has noted upon this (Note L) Several works on history of Bilgram has been notorious for ages. and philosophy, as well as poems, have been produced here. In Volume XXIII. of the Journal of the Asiatic Society for 1854 there is an article by Dr. Sprenger on the collection of manuscripts made by Sir Henry Elliot. Among them I find the following works mentioned No. 190, Masnavi-i-Mir Abd-ul-Jalil Bilgrami. Dr. Sprenger states that this poem celebrates the marriage of the Emperor Farrukh Sir with the daughter of Maharajah Ajit Singh in 1128 A. H. or 1724 A. D., and that the author died at Dihli nine years afterwards. No. 175, Maasir-ul-Kuram by Mir Ghulam Ali Azad. This work consists of biographies of distinguished Muhammadans in India, and is very highly thought of. The author is a descendant of the poet above mentioned, but is more famous than his ancestors. No. 180, Nasrat-un-Nazirin, a history of the famous saints of Bilgram, a copious and voluminous work of many hundreds of
men
—
pages."
may be added
the Jinddia and Shajra-e-Taibaq, family Bilgram Sayyads, the Sharaif Aswani, a history of the Bilgram Shekhs, by Ghulam Hasan Siddlqi Firshauri of Bilgram, and the
To
this list
histories of the
Sabsirat-un-Nazirin (Persian).
Among the learned men of Akbar's time Abul Fazl mentions Shekh Abdul Wahid as having been born at Bilgrdm, and as being "the author of a commentary on the Nuzhat-ul-Arw^h, and several treatises on the technical terms (istiMhat) of the Sufis, one of which goes by the name, of Blochmann's translation of the Ain-i-Akbari, (Vol. V, Fasc. VI, Blochmann notices a work of great historical value by Mr. p. Amir Haidar of Bilgram: " As long as we have no translation of all the sources for a history of Akbar's reign, European historians should make the Sawanih-i-Akbari the basis of their labours. This work is a modem compilation dedicated to William Kirkpatrick, and was compiled by Amir 'Sanahil.'"
547).
