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212 Hayai Bakhsh Begani. Muhammad still further beautified the city by laying out gardens, but his principal work was the foundation of the magnificent Mecca masjid, one of the finest mosques in India. An interesting legend is connected with its foundation. Muhammad Qutb Shah resolved that the foundation stone of the mosque which he intended to build to the honour of God should be laid by none but a person of the highest sanctity, and the test which he proposed was sufficiently severe. He called upon all the doctors of religion at his court to select one of their number, or any other person, who, since coming to years of discretion, had never omitted the recital of the midnight prayers, one of the most wearisome of the observances of Islam, and an exercise which is not enjoined as a duty, but is regarded rather as a work of supererogation. Nobody who fulfilled this test could be found, and at length the king came forward and swore that he had never omitted the observance of this office. He then raised a selected stone, shouldered it, and laid it in its place. His example was followed by the nobles and learned men of his court, and the building of the Mecca masjid proceeded, but only for a short time. A soothsayer predicted that the completion of the mosque would be the signal for the downfall of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, and the work which had been undertaken under such auspicious conditions languished and finally ceased. The prediction, as will be seen, was falsified, for, so far from the completion of the mosque being the signal for the downfall of the dynasty, the downfall of the dynasty was the signal for the completion of the mosque.

Muhammad Qutb Shah had some idea of rivalling his predecessor as the founder of a city, as is indicated by a mosque and some inchoate buildings about four miles to the east of Haidarabad. The projected city was surrounded by a parapet and a ditch, of which traces still exist, and one historian tells us that Sultannagar, as the new city was called, was intended to rival Golconda. This can hardly have been the case, for its site possesses no natural advantages. It is far inferior to that of Golconda as a military position, and in no way superior to that of Haidarabad in respect of salubrity, beauty, or convenience. Muhammad Qutb Shah either repented of his project or died before his city could be completed, for it was never inhabited, and its very name is now forgotten. The passer-by who inquires what the buildings are is