In the month of the latter Rabī` (January 1495 AD.), Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā was confronted by violent illness and in six days, passed from the world. He was 43 (lunar) years old. _b. His birth and lineage._ He was born in 857 AH. (1453 AD.), was Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's third son and the full-brother of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā.[240] _c. His appearance and characteristics._ He was a short, stout, sparse-bearded and somewhat ill-shaped person. His manners and his qualities were good, his rules and methods of business excellent; he was well-versed in accounts, not a _dinār_ or a _dirhām_[241] of revenue was spent without his knowledge. The pay of his servants was never disallowed. His assemblies, his gifts, his open table, were all good. Everything of his was orderly and well-arranged;[242] no soldier or peasant could deviate in the slightest from any plan of his. Formerly he must have been hard set (_qātīrār_) on hawking but latterly he very frequently hunted driven game.[243] He carried violence and vice to frantic excess, was a constant wine-bibber and kept many catamites. If anywhere in his territory, there was a handsome boy, he used, by whatever means, to have him brought for a catamite; of his begs' sons and of his sons' begs' sons he made catamites; and laid command for this service on [Sidenote: Fol. 26.] his very foster brothers and on their own brothers. So common in his day was that vile practice, that no person was without his catamite; to keep one was thought a merit, not to keep one, a defect. Through his infamous violence and vice, his sons died in the day of their strength (_tamām juwān_). He had a taste for poetry and put a _dīwān_[244] together but his verse is flat and insipid,—not to compose is better than to compose verse such as his. He was not firm in the Faith and held his Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh (_Aḥrārī_) in slight esteem. He had no heart (_yūruk_) and was somewhat scant in modesty,—several of his impudent buffoons used to do their filthy and abominable acts in his full Court, in all men's sight. He spoke badly, there was no understanding him at first. _d. His battles._ He fought two battles, both with Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā (_Bāīqarā_). The first was in Astarābād; here he was defeated. The second was at Chīkman (Sarāī),[245] near Andikhūd; here also he was defeated. He went twice to Kāfiristān, on the [Sidenote: Fol. 26b.] south of Badakhshān, and made Holy War; for this reason they wrote him Sl. Maḥmūd _Ghāzī_ in the headings of his public papers. _e. His countries._