The Growth of Persian Tawarikh Traditions

during the Delhi Sultanate with Special

Reference to Zia’uddin Barani

Shagnick Bhattacharya

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, two changes in literary

traditions came about1. Firstly, there was a dramatic increase in the volume of
source material becoming available in all forms – literary, numismatic,
epigraphic, and architectural. Secondly, the Persian texts of the time become
self-reflectively historical in character. The texts adopt a chronological
sequence and depict continuity and a focussed attempt at retelling the past.
Yet the historical character of these texts was not uniform – historians have
distinguished them into ‘historical’ accounts dealing with political history,
‘religious/hagiological’ accounts, and ‘literary sources’. It should be kept in
mind that medieval historians did not write in a way which modern historians
would recognise as their own2. Muzaffar Alam argues in favour of the absence
of any continuity or singularity of meaning(s) of the terms used in the medieval
texts3. Peter hardy states in this regard that, “…what they write can be
considered to be the raw material, requiring manufacture into the finished
product, having its greatest value only in the sphere of political history.”
Since the historical character of the Persian literary traditions was not a
uniform one, the texts had to be put under four distinct categories. In each of
these texts, the choice of narrative style was indeed influenced by the stylistic
mode favoured by the author. But the genre of a text also depended on the
objectives that the authors had in mind, since these texts were not written to
be read by individuals in their private enclosures, but rather were public
statements made by individuals holding or desiring a place of prominence in
the world they lived.

1
Sunil Kumar, The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, pg. 362
2
Peter Hardy, Historians of Medieval India: Studies in Indo-Muslim Historical Writing, pg. 122
3
Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam in India, pg. 2
THE FOUR BROAD GENERES OF PERSIAN LITERATURE
 Tawarikh

These were the texts written with the aim of providing a historical
account and are obviously the most read by modern historians for the
reconstruction of the medieval past. These were written in the form of
long narratives of human experience, and their accounts show
significant variation in some cases (since however careful their authors
might have been, they were ultimately dependant only upon oral
sources). Some authors and their works deserve mention here. Shajara-i
Ansab was a text containing the early history of the Muslim community
in brief and some genealogical tables, written by Fakhr-i Mudabbir. The
text is dedicated to Qutbuddin Aibak. Minhaj al-Din Siraj Juzjani, who
served as a jurist, preacher and a litterateur in his lifetime, wrote the
Tabaqat-i Nasiri which was a far more detailed and chronologically
organised historical account. It provides the histories of various
important personalities and regions of the Shansabanid and Delhi
Sultanates, with its main objective being glorifying and showing the
might of the Delhi Sultanate. This text is dedicated to Sultan Nasiruddin
Mahmud and in memory of his ancestors. Interestingly, Juzjani also
received support from Ulugh Khan (the future Sultan Ghiyasuddin
Balban) for his enterprise, and for the same reason Balban receives a
favourable mention in the book4. Of course, the greatest writer in this
genre is Ziauddin Barani and his Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, which would be
discussed in detail a little later.
It must here be noted that however great a medieval historian might
have been, the plane on which his account rests are not a purely
historical one, due to sources being meagre and limited mostly to oral
ones, even in case of Barani.

 Manaqib
Panegyrical and stylised accounts in prose and verse were put under this
category. Obviously, these texts are appreciated as works of literature
more than they are for their usability in finding historical evidence. The
Delhi Sultans commissioned a large number of such texts written either

4
Sunil Kumar, The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, pp. 367-369
 in verse or extremely elaborate prose with stylistic use of grammar,
which came in an enormous range of subject matter. The best text in the
genre closest to providing a historical account is Isami’s Futuh al-Salatin.
As a historical account in verse form, it covers the reigns of Ghaznavid,
Ghurid and Delhi Sultans from tenth to fourteenth centuries.

 Adab5
This genre consisted of didactic texts which dealt with ideal norms of
conduct. Ziauddin Barani’s Fatawa-i Jahandari is an important work here,
a normative text written on the principles of government. In contrast to
his Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, this one was a much less popular and a
somewhat ignored text. But the moral conduct established here was
used as the basis for the latter text.

 Malfuz
The texts of this genre deal with instructional literature concerning
spiritual beliefs and conduct. A major part of texts under this category
are the hagiographies and discourses and teachings of sufi saints. There
were no similarities with the writing style of tawarikhs at all. Under this
genre, Amir Hasan Sijzi wrote the Fawa’id al-Fu’ad 6 in 1322, which
contains an interactive record of Shaikh Nizamuddin Awliya’s
conversations. The account was an extremely intimate one and was very
popular as well. Another text worth mentioning was Khair al-Majlis,
written by Hamid Qalandar around 1350, which similarly contained the
discourses of Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dihli, who was a spiritual descendant
of Nizamuddin Awliya. This text differed from the former in being more
conventional in its pedagogical and juridical content.

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF ZIA’UDDIN BARANI

It is known that on the sudden death of Muhammad bin Tughluq, most of the
nobles placed Firoz Shah Tughluq on the throne and his accession marked the
beginning of the reversal of many of the late Sultan’s policies. As a result, many
5
Lit., “Mirrors for Princes”
6
Lit. “Morals of the Hearts”
former courtiers were either killed or imprisoned. Barani was one such
courtier, who was imprisoned. He was accused of leading the old Sultan astray
from Islam, as well as for the losses and sufferings of the people due to the
Sultan’s being lured by his rationalist and radical ideas formulated in Fatawa-i
Jahandari. Barani’s only mistake was that his loyalty to the new Sultan was
quite dubious. Obviously frustrated with his fate, his accounts of self-
lamentation form a recurring part of his Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, and K.A. Nizami
has pointed out the presence of irremediable subjectivity embedded in the
text due to Barani’s state of mind at the time of writing it 7.
Barani describes his plight of his life after the death of his patron in detail in his
Sahifa-i-Nat-i-Muhammadi. However, Mir Khurd, a contemporary writer, gives
a veiled and incorrect account of the treatment of Barani by Firoz Shah
Tughluq, due to the fear of the wrath of the latter 8. He claimed that Barani
retired from service at his own request and received pension from the state
afterwards.
Barani’s initial attempt at flattering the Sultan crystallised in the translation of
the Arabic history entitled Tarikh-i-Ali-i-Baramkah, but the Sultan was not
impressed. Thus, to impress the Sultan, Barani embarked upon writing the
history of the Sultans of Delhi since the reign of Balban to a brief account the
first four years of Firoz Shah’s rule. It was named the Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi. The
book came out in 1355 but failed to achieve its objective of impressing the
Sultan, or even members of the nobility. This led him to revise the existing
edition and write a second edition with an enlarged account of the six years of
Firoz Shah Tughluq’s reign, which came out in 1357. There were some very
significant differences between the contents of the two editions, specifically in
his treatment of the Sultans that he mentioned. This was obviously done in
order to make Firoz Shah Tughluq appear greater than all his predecessors in
the second edition, in which the new and much detailed chapters on his rule
read like a panegyric. Through the Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, Barani pleads not guilty
of misleading Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq, but rather puts the blame on
nobles of obscure origin and the temperament of the Sultan for the suffering
of the people9. According to him, an era of prosperity was ushered in since the
accession of Firoz Shah Tughluq.

7
K.A. Nizami, Ziya-ud-din Barani, Historians of Medieval India (ed. Mohibbul Hasan), pp. 35-36
8
I.H. Siddiqui, Indo-Persian Historiography up to the Fourteenth Century, p.208
9
Ibid, pp. 217-218
It is interesting to note that in his Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, Barani gives an
assessment of his own text10, claiming the diversity of themes discussed about
in the text and that the history written by him is both “true and correct” as
well as exemplary. Although like most modern ulema, he traces the origin of
every science back to the Quran, there is not much impact of this principle on
his general image of history.
The Fatawa-i Jahandari is probably Barani’s first written work, written in his
early forties11. The book throws an important light on his rationalist self (before
the death of Muhammad bin Tughluq), and a few of his principles on the
physical and academic world are seen. Firstly, he considered deviation from
standard Islamic principles justifiable for the promulgation of new legislation.
Secondly, he was opposed to the free operation of a market economy. The
Sultan, in his view, should not leave the market to the mercy of economic
forces, but instead should ensure social and political stability through price
control. He warns against the deterioration of the material condition of the
people in case of absence of government control from the economy, and also
illustrates how such a deterioration would take place 12. Thirdly, his class bias is
revealed. He was opposed to the appointment of non-aristocratic people to
important positions in the service of the state. According to him, only the
noble families were chosen by the god to rule over all mankind, and that their
existence was necessary for the maintenance of justice and stability in the
society.
To Barani, the external problems of the Sultanate throughout the period of his
narrative remained of secondary importance in comparison to internal
tensions13. Although Peter Hardy criticises him for not providing a detailed
account/list of Mongol invasions, it was possibly because Barani was more
concerned with the effects of such invasions on the internal affairs of the
Sultanate more than he was with the actual invasions itself. Hence, he
mentions the political vacuum created due to the death of Prince Muhammad
at the hands of the Mongols but does not mention the actual encounter which
led to it. Barani in this context has also written about the territory of the
Sultanate that it was easy for the state to expand its territories, but the state
faced a problem with the consolidation of the newly acquired territories into

10
K.A. Nizami, Ziya-ud-din Barani, Historians of Medieval India (ed. Mohibbul Hasan), pp. 28-29
11
I.H. Siddiqui, Indo-Persian Historiography up to the Fourteenth Century, pp. 206-207
12
Ibid, pg. 207
13
Irfan Habib, “Barani's Theory of the History of the Delhi Sultanate”, pp. 103-104
the Sultanate, which is why expansionary activities were relatively rare with
respect to the available scope and infrastructure available for it.
His views on the position of the Sultan and his authority are equally
interesting. He says that “the terror of absolute authority is the only means of
regulation and arrangement, and the cause of upholding government and
administration”. He believes that the ideal Sultan is the one who has a
combination of opposite qualities, like cruelty and benevolence. That is
because the good ruler would be aware of when and to which persons should
he apply what appropriate qualities”. Yet, he criticises Muhammad bin Tughluq
even though he mentions the monarch having the ideal opposite qualities
since he states that the latter could not effectively and correctly use his gifts 14.
However, the historian Isami’s portrait of the same Mohammad bin Tughluq,
though hostile, is very different from the one given by Barani.
Barani’s secular approach to history and politics are evident from the absence
of didactic elements in Fatawa-i Jahandari and the first version of the Tarikh-i
Firoz Shahi. However, Barani’s orthodoxy is revealed when he sets the
scholarship in Islamic law, history, and other traditional sciences as a
prerequisite for a historian. Probably his most meritorious contribution,
besides giving us a distinct kind of political history, has been his analysis of the
economy of the Sultanate and its basis, especially in regard to his account of
Alauddin Khalji’s market reforms. In his view, the Sultanate possessed an urban
polity sustained by the efficient exploitation of a large agrarian society.
A variety of opinions exist on Barani’s writings, as pointed out by Irfan Habib 15.
H.M. Elliot holds him as an “unfair narrator”; J. Dawson thinks him to be
“sparing and inaccurate in dates”, “wanting in arrangement” and being
“narrow-minded and bigoted like Muslims in general”, although he himself
states that out of all other medieval historians, Barani’s work approaches more
nearly to the modern European idea of history than anyone else; Peter Hardy is
of the opinion that Barani treats “history as a branch of (Muslim) theology”
and as “a battleground between good and evil”; and yet scholars like
Mohammad Habib considers his books to be “the greatest books to have
survived from the Sultanate period”.

14
Peter Hardy, Historians of Medieval India: Studies in Indo-Muslim Historical Writing, pp. 124-125
15
Irfan Habib, “Barani's Theory of the History of the Delhi Sultanate”, pg. 99
CONCLUSION
It needs to be emphasised that the writing of a history of this period requires a
historian to not just simply write history, but also be aware of the political
processes that produced the source materials available to us as well as those
of the modern world that restricts the reading of this past 16.
There is no dearth of historians and their written texts in the thirteenth
century. The texts of the Tawarikh tradition existed on the patronage of
powerful and influential people and were essentially a eulogy of their patrons.
Barani’s eminence in this regard lies precisely in his scorn for mere annalistic
narration; he has a theory of writing history, and he abides by it. He had given
a statement of his historical philosophy in the preface to his Tarikh-i Firoz
Shahi, which is in favour of the interests of the ruling class. His principles of
history include a bias and scorn towards the lower classes, encompassing on all
aspects of history – good or bad, and viewing his audience as the ideal ruling
class. Barani presented his Tawarikh as truthfully as possible, never distorting
any fact for his own use. He simply either hid the facts that did not serve hi
purpose or recounted it in the same way he knew them to be – which account
for some of his errors in historical details. His work, no doubt, gave a huge
impetus to the growth of Tawarikh-writing as an important Persian literary
tradition.

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