Many years ago, when we shepherded our father’s flocks of goats, ate the bread of humility and slept on a couch of sand, we had a dream. We dreamt that from a shepherd we had turned into a fisherman and in our net we had trapped a fish with four horns. A fish, we knew, was the emblem of royalty. We also knew that it was in the nature of an empty stomach to produce illusions of grandeur. Nature provides that a man who slaves all day should spend the hours of the night in a palace full of houris whereas a king who wields the sceptre by day should have his sleep disturbed by nightmares of rebellion and assassination. Thus does Allah dispense justice; to one man He gives pleasure by day, misery by night; to another He gives travail from sunrise to sunset, the joys of paradise from sunset to sunrise.

However, the dream remained embedded in our memory. When we became ruler of Isphahan we consulted a seer who had mastered the science of interpreting dreams. A fish, he confirmed, was indeed the emblem of royalty, and its four horns symbolized four kingdoms. In short, Allah had destined us to rule over four domains. We were ruler of Isphahan and had become Padishah (Emperor) of Iran. Afghanistan would soon yield to us. What could the fourth kingdom be save Hindustan?

We were besieging the city of Kandahar when we had a second dream. We dreamt that Hazrat Ali Murtaza came to us and with his own blessed hands girdled our waist with the all-conquering sword, Zulfiqar. We pondered this dream. We recalled that when someone had asked him: ‘How far is it from the east to the west?’ The Blessed One had replied: ‘A day’s journey by the sun.’

‘Tahmas Quli Khan.’ we said to ourselves, ‘the road to Delhi beckons you!’ And so it came to pass. A few days later we received an invitation to come to Delhi. It was not from Nasiruddin Mohammed Shah, who was then seated on the throne of the Mughals, but from two noblemen of his court—Asaf Jah Nizam ul-Mulk, who was governor of the Deccan, and Saadath Khan, who was governor of an equally important province eastward of Delhi known as Avadh. The secret manner in which the invitation was delivered to us, and the way it was worded, convinced us that its authors knew the art of impregnating sentences with more than one meaning. We said to ourselves: ‘Nadir Shah, you have ruled over men long enough to know the art of striking the heads of serpents with the hand of your foe!’