Amir Mohammad Suri

Amir Mohammad Suri was the sultan of Ferozkoh of Ghor. Yaqub Lais Safari (254-265 H./867-878 A.D.) took the slopes of the Ghor mountains from Zamindawar, Zawalistan, Rukhaj and Tagin Abad (c. 252 H./866 A,D.) but the Suris and the people of Ghor took refuge in the heights of the Ghor mountains. and stayed in safety.[1]

When Amir Subuktagin bin Jawq (qara bijkum-black yak) ascended to the throne of sultanate on 27 Shaban, 366 H./976 A.D. in Ghazna, he ordered his armies to march on Zamindawar, Qusdar, Bamian, and Takharistan and seized these places.[2] He organized several expeditions from Bust to seize the mountains of Ghor and killed many people.[3] When after his death his son, Sultan Mahmud, ascended the throne, Amir Mohammad Suri had attained the emirate of Ghor and having seized the territories of that region, he sometimes obeyed the Sultan and sometimes defied his authority, denying to pay the assigned tribute. At last, accompanied by a large force, Sultan Mahmud went toward Ghor and surrounded Mohammad in the Ahangaran fort, a place which exists to this day by the same name.

Mohammad put up a strong resistance, but came out of the fort only after a long interval of time to make peace with the Sultan and begin to serve him. The Sultan took him and his son, Keesh, to Ghazna in captivity. When he was taken prisoner, he could not endure the abjectness of imprisonment and by using the poison he had packed under the stone of his signet ring, he died in Gelan (between Muqur and Ghazna).[4] According to Baihaqi, this struggle and resistance, and finally his captivity, ended in the year 405 H./1014 A.D.[5]

Aside from Tabaqat-e Nasiri, the acounts of the battles of Sultan Mahmud with Malik Mohammad Suri have been written by other historians also such as Ibn-e Aseer (Alkamil v. 9, p. 61), Hamdullah Mastawfi (Tarikh-e Guzidah p. 406, 767), Baihaqi, Utabi, Firishta, Rawzatussafa etc. Unsuri, the poet of Sultan Mahmud's court, also alludes to this event in his ode of the Sultan's conqnests:

The capture of Suri's son and the conquest of Ghor,

Cannot be contained in the poems every moment.

But what we have in Pashto literature regarding this courageous ruler of Ghor cannot be found in any of the Arabic or Persian history books. In the biography of Pashto poets i.e. Pata Khazana, there is a description of Shaikh Asad Suri, one of the early Pashto poets, as follows:

In his book Larghuni Pashtana, Shaikh Kata has an account from Tarikh-e Suri according to which Asad Suri lived in Ghor. There he enjoyed great respect during the reign of the Suri family. Shaikh Asad was the son of Mohammad, who died in 425 H./1033 A.D. in Baghnain.[6] Shaikh Asad (May God have mercy on him) wrote very good poetry. It is related that Sultan Mahmud engaged in a battle with Amir Mohammad Suri in Ghor and surrounded him in the fort of Ahangaran. At this time Shaikh Asad was also in the Ahangaran fort. When Sultan Mahmud captured Amir Mohammad Suri and took him as a prisoner to Ghazni, because Amir Mohammad Suri was a courageous, just, and resolute ruler he took his life instead of being taken a prisoner. And Shaikh Asad who was a close friend of Amir Mohammad Suri, lamented his death in a bolala[7] the Arabic word for which is qasida (elegy).[8]

The elegy that Asad Suri has composed to lament the death of Amir Mohammad Suri will be presented below so readers may get acquainted with the poet's style of ode writing, his imaginative expression, his beginning and ending of the elegy together with some of the laudable qualities of his deceased sultan and, following that we will take an analytical look at the literary characteristics of this ancient Pashto poem.

What can I complain about heaven's power

That wilts the smiling spring flower,

Every tulip that blooms in the desert plain

Is stripped of its petals and left to wane.

Many a cheeks has his slap blue turned,

And countless piteous heads under the soil spurned.

Kings lose their crown and lie dead,

And the blood of the weak is shed.

Afraid is the lion from his might,

Every oppressor fears his fearsome sight.

His arrows pierce the warrior's shield

Brave men run from him in fear and yield.

See the powerful deprived of their strength,

Oh, how the heavens prevail at length;

See the mighty subdued with one blow

Deprived of their armor and glow.

O heaven the cloak of cruelty you have worn

That not a flower stalk is without a thorn.

On the afflicted mercy you do not show,

And grief on the bereaved you sow.

From your cruelty my heart is afflicted,

Many lovers, from love's nest you have evicted,

From your transgression the clouds cry

Your inauspiciousness make springs go dry.

Your limitless cruelty has no end,

And the poor you do not befriend.

To no one you are kind

A cruel course you always find;

Nor true lovers do you entwine

But the cruel you enshrine.

See the injured cry in pain

And the afflicted call in vain.

Many a hearts you have seen stop beating,

And you deceive the witty while they are cheating.

The pampered you kill with a lightening flash,

And rip holy garments of the saints in a dash.

Great kings do you dethrone,

And from your vengeance the lords groan.

Your arrows have pierced our hearts again,

And thousands have been injured in vain.

Affliction on the people of Sur befell,

When Mohammad, our king, elsewhere did dwell.

First he was imprisoned by the foe

And then put on death's row.

With his fortitude Ahangaran lived in peace,

And his justice was known as far as Greece.

When a captive of Mahmud's army he became

And sent expeditiously to Ghazna to defame.

As imprisonment to the brave is like death,

To heaven did transpire his breath.

As dark soil obliterated his shrine,

He resembled a lion with chains around its spine.

From grievance the Ghorids wore garments black

Darkness befell in every cirque and crack.

See the mountains are all crying,

In bereavement the waterfalls are drying,

The verdant greenery of the mountains is gone

Nor do the partridges sing among the herds of mouflon.

See the tulips blossom no more in the valleys

Nor does the bami[9] smile in the alleys.

From Gharj[10] come not the caravans of musk,

Nor do the caravans of Shar[11] reach Ghor at dusk.

With warm tears the spring clouds unfurls

And April may not rain down its pearls.

Because Mohammad from this world has gone

And all Ghor is grieving in his memory thereon

In Sur's surroundings dark is the skyline

And on these lands, the sun does not shine,

Where young maidens laughed and danced,

Where virgins tiptoed and pranced.

Silent is Ghor, bereaved of their king

Like hell, burns there every thing.

O heaven, curse on you for taking Mohammad away

And not letting this lion, among us stay,

O stone hearted heavens, why are you still intact,

O mountains of Ghor, why don't you contract,

O earth why with trembling do not you crumble

Turn upside down so that these words are lost in the rumble.

A chivalrous lion among us is dead,

All Suris are in agony, and tears they shed.

Mohammad, on Ghor you illuminated light,

Your justice was inviolate and right;

A brave warrior you were and so you did die,

Upholding dignity, you did not lie.

With your departure the Suri are sad today

Remember will they, your name with pride and say:

O king, may heaven be your resting place[12]

And forever be with you God's grace.

References

[1] Ibid. p. 327.

[2] Ibid, p. 328.

[3] Ibid, p. 329.

[4] Ibid, p. 329.

[5] Tarekh-e Baihaqi, p. 117.

[6] Baghnain is the Baghni of today connected with Zamindawar and the southern mountains of Ghor.

[7] Bolala in old Pashto meant ode from the infinitive bolal meaning to call and mention.

[8] Pata Khazana, p. 7, Kabul 1944.

[9] Bami is the name of a flower which was also used as a masculine proper name.

[10] Gharj is Gharistan=Gharshistan=Gharjistan, located between Heart, Ghor, and Mervrod (see Ma’said p. 129).

[11] The governor of Gharjistan was called shar whose capital was Bsheen (see Hudud-ul-Alam, p. 58).

[12] Pata Khazana, p. 48.