Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/209

PHILANTHROPIC MEASURES 169 to holy men and learned men. May they remember those ancient benefactors and me in their prayers! I was enabled by God's help to build a Dar-ash- shifa, or hospital, for the benefit of every one of high or low degree who was suddenly attacked by illness and overcome by suffering. Physicians attend there to diagnose the disease, to look after the cure, to regu- late the diet, and to give medicine. The cost of the medicines and the food is defrayed from my endow- ments. All sick persons, residents and travellers, gentle and simple, bond and free, resort thither; their mala- dies are treated, and, under God's blessing, they are cured. Under the guidance of the Almighty I arranged that the heirs of those persons who had been put to death in the reign of my late lord and patron Sultan Moham- mad Taghlak Shah, and those who themselves had been deprived of a limb, nose, eye, hand, or foot, should be reconciled to the late Sultan and be appeased with gifts, so that they executed deeds declaring their satis- faction, duly attested by witnesses. These deeds were put into a chest, which w r as placed in the Dar-al-aman at the head of the tomb of the late Sultan, in the hope that God, in his great clemency, would show mercy to my late friend and patron and make those persons feel reconciled to him. Another instance of divine guidance was this. Vil- lages, lands, and ancient patrimonies of every kind had been wrested from the hands of their owners in former reigns and had been brought under the ex-