The Mughal period was pre-eminently an age of official histories or Nama.

This type of
history was inspired and stimulated by the influence of Persian in a cosmopolitan court.
The practice of having the official history of the empire, written by the royal historiographer,
was started by Akbar and it continued till the reign of Aurangzeb who stopped it. The official
histories were based on an accumulated mass of contemporary records, official (waqai)
records of provinces and the akhbarat-i-darbar-i-mualla or court bulletins corrected
under royal direction. Often the presentation of history tended to reflect the bias of the court,
social, political and religious as official or court historians could not afford to be independent
in their attitude or critical of the actions of the ruler or ministers. The court chronicles tended
to indulge in nauseating flattery of their patrons as well as in verbosity.

Akbar’s reign (1556-1605) was prolific in historical literature. Three important chronicles
were written in this period- Abul Fazl’s AkbarNama, Abdul Qadir Badauni’s
Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh and Nizam-ud-din Ahmad’s Tabaqat-i-Akbari. The works of Fazl
and Badauni’s are much more complex and interesting than Tabaqat-i-Akbari. Fazl and
Badauni’s work mark a definite advancement in medieval historiographical traditions.
Although Abul Fazl’s work is seen as the main source of information for Akbar’s period,
Badauni’s Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh together with Jesuit accounts strengthens Fazl’s work.
Badauni’s work is unique and valuable in terms that he wrote it in secret and without any
patron/ official sponsorship.

Abul Fazl’s Early life

Abul Fazl was close to Akbar and gives an insight into the mind of Akbar. Fazl was born in
1551 and was the second son of Shaikh Mubarak. Shaikh Mubarak’s family technically
belonging to orthodoxy was liberal and believed that there could be innovations in Islam, just
as there are innovations in other religions. He was severely criticized by Shaikh Abd-un-Nabi
and Abdullah Sultanpuri (makhdum-ul-mulk) who were the Ulema of the imperial court
during the early years of Akbar’s reign. The reason for the conflict between the Ulema and
Fazl was the association of Shaikh Mubarak’s family with the Mahadawi movement. The
Mahadawi sect were severely attacked by the orthodoxy who were at that time of period
dominated the court and were supported by Akbar. Later Akbar began to understand that in
order to continue his rule, he needs the support of Indian elements and other religion and not
just the orthodoxy. Soon Akbar started changing the composition of nobility and found the
Ibadat khana (just when fazl entered his court) in 1574-75. Akbar appointed Fazl to the court
and gave him a mansabs of 20 and gradually raised it to 2000. Apart from the role in the
discussions at the Ibadat Khana, Fazl also rendered his services to Akbar on more or less
personal nature rather than political or military.

AKBARNAMA
This is Abul Fazl’s monumental work. Initially he intended to write five volumes, but about
able to write only three ( two of the narrative part and Ain). the first volume covers “the
history of mankind” from Adam to the first 17 years of Akbar’s reign. The second volume
bring the narrative to the close of 46th regnal year of Akbar. The third volume Ain-I-Akbari
written at the end of 42nd regnal year with a small addition pertaining to the conquest of
Berar which took place in the 43rd year. After him Akbar Nama was continued by Muhibb
Ali Khan, who brought narrative to the end of Akbar’s reign.
Abul fazl’s plan of dividing the work he had finished into three volumes came to be modified
some time after his death. The first volume spilt into two - one covering history up to
Humayun’s death and the second from Akbar’s enthronement to the first 17 regnal years. The
second volume in the original plan thus came to be regarded as the third. This modified form
of the plan has been adopted by the editors of the published text. The text of the Ain, which
has originally consisted of only one volume, was also divided by Blochman into two, and by
Munshi Nawal Kishore and the Bib.Ind. translators into three volumes.

The division of the Akbar Nama is regnal - each reign is treated as a unit. Within the
framework of a reign, however, each event forms an individual entity. Within the year events
are described strictly in the sequences of their happenings. In order to maintain this sequence,
Abul Fazl even breaks the continuity of an event. If the occurrence of an event is prolonged
in time, and if meanwhile other events have also taken place, Abul Fazl would begin with
describing the first event, snap the thread of its description where other events intervene in
point of sequence, narrate those others and then resume his narrative of the first.

AIN-I-AKBARI
Divided into 5 books - first of these deals with imperial establishment. The account
includes the descriptions of the various departments of the imperial household, the imperial
mint and prices of foodstuffs and manufactures.it also deals with art of calligraphy and
painting, the royal arsenal, guns, and the royal stables. It gives in some detail the prices of
building materials and wages of labourers.

Book 2 deals with the institution of army, its various divisions, the rules of payments, etc.
There is one section on the sayurghals or grants of land and allowances in charity, another on
the regulations regarding marriage and a third regarding education.

Book 3 opens with an account of 20 different eras which were operative in different parts of
the world at different times. It then describes the qualities required of men appointed to
some of the posts of the empire like the faujdar, the mir adl and qazi, the kotwal, etc. and
the functions associated with these posts. There is the description of the four categories of
land officially recognized for the purpose of the assessment of revenue, followed by the
tables of revenue rates of crops of the spring and autumn harvest in different provinces for 19
years. The second of the Ain-i-Dahsala is followed by the revenue rates promulgated for
different areas after the 24th year.
Account of “the twelve” subahs, Mahal-wise revenue tables for each provinces are
prfaced, in each case, by geographical and economic account of the province.

Book 4 is mainly concerned with the various concepts of the Hindus-astronomical,

medicinal, philosophical, etc.- and their customs and manners. This is the weakest part of
the entire work. This weakness arises on two accounts- the author has merely copied, at times
from defective secondary sources, his information on various schools of Hindu philosophy,
science, manners and customs, etc. He has not tried to evaluate this information by discussing
it with his contemporary scholars.

Book 5 consists of a chapter comprising the wise sayings of Akbar, a conclusion and a short
autobiographical sketch of Abul Fazl.

The Akbar Nama, the Ain contains detailed information related to the field of battle, tactics
employed therein, persons in command of forces,etc. At times there are brief notices on the
history of other countries or territories. Apart from battles and similar events, the author
appends incidental notes on subjects such as topography of an area or elephants or astrology.
This kind of information is given only on occasions when Abul Fazl is describing an event of
which it forms an element.

ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE SOURCE OF INFORMATION

Abul Fazl has the habit of rarely acknowledging the source from which he derives a specific
piece of information. Considerable portion of information for both Akbar Nama and
Ain-i-Akbari have been derives from the sources which have not been specifically
unacknowledged. It is impossible to analyze the entire Akbar Nama passage by passage and
trace the source of information for each. A few examples, however, would show that the
author made great efforts to secure information and has seldom acknowledge the source.
Interesting element in Abul Fazl’ss use of his sources is the alterations he makes in either the
words or the nuances of the evidence. He does not spare even official documents. In the
process of copying, he makes some alterations and even omits some words.

Whenever Abul Fazl was uncertain of the authenticity of evidence for any piece of
information, he submitted it all to Akbar and thus absolved himself of responsibility. This use
of official sources and the rigorous investigation of the authenticity of every piece of
information makes Akbar Nama a genuine research work within its frame of reference and in
the context of the time it was written. The main contribution of Abul Fazl in writing the
Akbar Nama is the history of reign of Akbar, including the information contained in the Ain,
and at best a history of the Mughal dynasty from Babur to Akbar up to the year of writing.
Abul Fazl treats history as a collection of individual events, and indirectly of matters
relating to individual persons or institutions involved in these events. Abul Fazl does not
formulate any general principles to explain causation in history. He does generalize. But
this generalizations are mostly derived from individual events and hence are not
comprehensive enough to explain total causation or causal relationship between two or more
events or between the structure of state or society and the nature of events in relation to that
structure.

Fazl followed a different style of writing. Unlike works that start with the origin of Islam, he
began from Adam and traced it down to the birth of Akbar which is shown as a divine event
and it was also intended to show that his patron stood at the “pinnacle of the progress” of
humanity. History for Abul Fazl was “the events of the world recorded in a chronological
order”. Though he adhered to it only in parts except in sense that AkbarNama is not a record
of the events of the world, its commencement from the fall of Adam does not entitle it to
being called a world history because before coming to the history of Mughal, Fazl picks up
some crude notions and presents them as historical facts and the account prior to that of
Akbar’s reign has been written with the specific objective of setting Akbar’s supremacy
against a partly imagined and largely distorted historical background.

The picture of perfection painted by Abul Fazl for Akbar is an incomplete one and Badauni’s
work is extremely valuable as an alternate perspective in this regard. Being free from official
pressures, Badauni’s work serves to provide a critical, albeit a slightly prejudices
account of Akbar’s reign and his policies. Although it might not be appropriate to term
Badauni’s work as a corrective to Abul Fazl since he suffers from many limitations too. Thus
we see that neither Abul Fazl nor Badauni can give us a whole picture of Akbar’s reign, since
both were motivated equally strong and contrasting emotions, which colored their
narratives. Yet the subjective element apart, both the historians supply the same data and
thus complement each other.

BADAUNI
Mullah Abdul Qadir Badauni was born in 1540 at Badauni was a very learned man, excelled
in music, history and astronomy. He cherished a great love of history from his childhood and
spent his hours in reading or writing some history. Badauni was introduced to Akbar In
1573-74 who was deeply impressed by the extent of his theological learning and ability to
humble the mullahs, and appointed him as court imam for his voice and gave him a
maad-i-maash of 1000 bighas of land. He was also appointed by Akbar to translate Arabic
and Sanskrit works such as Mahabharata into Persian. But he grew to be a hostile critic
of Akbar, envious of Faizi and Fazl and dissatisfied with Akbar for his free thinking and
eclectic religious views, administrative reforms and for his patronage of non Muslims.
Unable to get the expected preference and advancement in imperial service and with his mind
against the emperor, he wrote his book in a spirit of frustration and expressed his glee at
Akbar’s troubles. His book is a check on the turgid panegyric of Abul Fazl. Though it was
really an interesting work, it contained so much hostile criticism of Akbar that was kept hid
during Akbar’s lifetime and could not be published until the accession of Jahangir.
Badauni’s book provided an index to the mind of the orthodoxy Sunni Muslims of
Akbar’s reign. According to Prof. r.s. Sharma, it is not very valuable except for the account
of events in which Badauni himself took part. Moreland describes his work as reminiscences
of journalism rather than history. Topics were selected less for their intrinsic
importance than for their interest to the author, who presented the facts colored by his
personal feelings and prejudices in bitter epigrammatic language, which has to be
discounted. The author not only uses uncommon words, but indulges in religious
controversies, invectives, eulogium dreams, biographies and details of personal and family
history which interrupts the unity of the narrative, yet these digressions are the most
interesting portion of the work. Badauni’s work is divided into three volumes. The first
volume deals with the history of the Muslims rulers up to Humayan. In the preface of
“Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh '', Badauni acknowledges his sources and admits that he had
occasionally added “something of his own” to the work. The second volume of the
Muntakhab deals with the reign of Akbar. It is an annual chronicle where events have been
narrated under the head of the year of their occurrence. If the occurrence of certain events
extended to more than one year, then their narration is spilt into as many places as the number
of years involved. Badauni’s originality in his work lies in the way in which he analyses
the personalities involved and takes into account the impact of Akbar’s policies upon
people in general. The third volume is in form of a tazkira in which he gives biographies
sketches of the mashaikh and ulema of Akbar’s age, as well as the physicians and poets of
Akbar’s court.

The basic form of Badauni’s history is similar to that of Abul Fazl’s work, although the
treatment of history is different. The significance of Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh as a source of
historical study is immense. Apart from the information on wars, rebellions, conquests
etc., Badauni gives detailed information on the administrative organization of Akbar’s
empire. He also gives information on his policies, his religious experiments and even the
architecture of cities like Fatehpur Skiri. However it should be noted that his account is
somewhat biased as it seeks to prove the failure of Akbar. For instance, the mansabdari
system is seen by him as a complete failure, in which lower groups like tradesmen, weavers,
cotton cleaners and carpenters, including Hindus without any distinguished abilities, received
mansabs. Badauni also mentions in his book that the Dagh system broke the neck of the
soldiers, and it is in the context of these measures that he sees the rebellions in Bengal and
Bihar. Badauni also gives a detailed account of kakori system. He writes that the officers
were highly corrupt and selfish. According to him many cultivators were ruined and the
experiment ended in a disaster. He corroborates such information by accounts of famines and
earthquakes during Akbar’s reign. Although he writes that Akbar had governed the
empire well and was liberal and kind, he says that the constant quarrels of the ulema
puzzled Akbar and he lost faith in Islam. Also, Badauni argues that Akbar believed that
since 1000 years of Islam were almost complete, Akbar could now replace Islam.

Being an orthodox man, Badauni did not endorse many of Akbar’s liberal policies and was
severely critical of many of his actions. He wrote that Akbar could not tolerate opposition
from any mullah and would banish anyone whom he was dissatisfied with and replace him
with more compliant people. He was very critical of the Mahzar as he believed that it gave
Akbar the legal power to undermine Islam. However this was an incorrect assumption as the
Mahzar merely empowered Akbar to exercise his power only in the event of a difference
of opinion among the ulema. It did not curtail the legitimate powers of the ulema but
only stopped their indiscreet use of authority. Badauni is critical of most of Akbar’s
innovations or Bidat. He noted a clear distinction between the principles of Din-i-Ilahi
and those in the Najat-ur-Rashid, which strengthened his belief that Akbar was a
heretic who had established a new religion. He further adds that Akbar replaced the Hijra
era with Tarikh-i-Ilahi or divine era. This kind of an outlook blinds Badauni from
understanding Akbar’s actions in an unbiased light, and he was unable to understand the
significance of such policies in their totality. The introduction of Tarikh-i-Ilahi was done in
order to serve the needs of the cultivator and meet demands of revenue administration.
Similarly for Badauni, the promotion of rational sciences, instead of being a practical
measure, appears to be an undermining of traditional sciences. He is also unable to see that
discouragement of Islamic names was done by Akbar out of respect to the prophet and saints.
This blinkered understanding is a serious limitation of Badauni. It is due to such inherent
biases present in Badauni’s works that in order to effectively use them for historical purposes,
it is essential to compare and corroborate them with the work of Abul Fazl.

NIZAMUDDIN AHMAD
Khwaja Nizamuddin Ahmad author of Tabaqat-i-Akbari was the son of a favourite of Babur
named Khwaja Muhammad Muqim Harawi, whom Babur had appointed his
diwan-i-buyutat.
Nizamuddin was well educated, and interested in scholars of all shades of opinion.He
took part in a large number of Akbar’s expeditions, served as bakhshi in Gujarat, and held
several other offices in Ajmer and Malwa. Through his official position, he had detailed
personal knowledge of all phases of Akbar’s history. He served on the board of the
compilers of the Tarikh-i-Alfi, and was a recognised historian. He died at the age of 45 in
1003/1594.

The work is a detailed general history of India. It divided into nine sections, of which the first
two comprise the history of the Delhi Sultans and the Mughals and the rest deal with the
Deccan, Gujarat, Malwa, Bengal,Jaunpur,Kashmir,Sind and Multan. Nizamuddin intended to
assess geographical account of India, but was not able to complete it.

He unhesitatingly acknowledges his indebtedness to the Akbar Nama and the Ain-i-Akbari,
which although not formally presented to Akbar were available to him in draft. He mentions
twenty-eight other works upon which he drew, a few of these survive no longer. The
history of Babur is based mainly on the BaburNama but is greatly enriched by an account,
derived from his father, of the conspiracy hatched by Babur’s wazir Nizamuddin Ali Khalifa,
to deprive Humayun of the throne. Nizamuddin makes much use of the Tarikh-i-Alfi taking
most of his account of Humayun from it, and some of Akbar’s history. Himself a pious
Muslim, he was loyal to Akbar, and his relations with all nobles were cordial. His history of
Akbar’s reign is a careful summary, neatly arranged, of important political events.

Tarikh i akbari- arif qandahari

Arif qandhari was patronised by muzaffar khan a former diwan i buyutat of bairam khan. Arif
seems to have drawn upon nafaisul maasir, copies of letters, orders and other papers in hands
of muzafafr khan, makhdumu’l mulk and other important dignitaries. These sources
combined with the authors personal knowledge of events of teh later years of humayu and
reign of akbar make the work exceedingly valuable.

It is divided into 2 parts fiqra i awwal (first phrase) and fiqra i akhiri (32 paras each dealing
with acievements of akbar). He seeks to present a comprehensive image of akbar’s reforms
and the literary and cultural activities of his reign. Like all contemporary authors arif
eulogises the political unity the country achieved because of akbar’s conquest. The work
highlights Akbars belief taht his subjects should reside in a state of affluence becaus ethey
were the objects of bounty for god.
Arif repeatedly calls akbar a promoter of sharia and offers prayers for the badshah i islam
each chapter starts and ends with duaa for the emperor. He notes approvingly Akbar’s
adoption of the title Amiru’ l-muminin(commander of faithful).

The author attempts to copy the ornate and artificial literary style of hasan nizami.

Teh frequent insertion of teh quranic verses is incompatible with teh nature and spirit of teh
narrative.

Tarikh-i alfi
Akbar oredred tarikh i alfi compiled to evaluate the history of one thousand years of islam.
He took two important steps to demonstrate that tahe completion of islamic ilenium was a
historical phenomenon with no religious or spiritual significance. Firsrly he issued coins with
date 1000 stamped on them expressed by arabic word alf, secondly he appointed a board of
scholars to compile the tarikh i alfi. Initially board of 7 scholars was constituted to compile
the work and the account of each year was assigned to one particular author. Akbar
supervised compilation as far as his leisure permitted.

The work was planned in annalistic form for general histories histories adopted by arab
historians depicting that akbar did not despise arabic studies as such.

The board of compilers brought the work down to 36th year but tehy seemd to have worked
too slowly for akbars taste. He therefore ordered Mulla Ahmad of Thatta to write
independently who brought the account down to 693 and after his murder asaf jafar beg
completed it.

Badauni was ordered to revise and remove discrepancies in dates, he worked for year with
mulla mustafa katib and revised first two volumes written by mulla ahmad. The third volume
by asaf khan wasn’t revised.

Asaf khan says that akbar had orders taht the style should be free from the burdens of both
proxiliy and artificiality and extracts from arabic.

The account of each year stands as an independent unit and continuity of narration is
invariably broken.

The authors have drawn upon vast collections of source material in arabic and persian.

The authors were deeply consciousof religious tensions of their own times and sought to
impress upon their readers the adverse consequences of narrow mindedness. Tarikh i alfi’s
presentation of first 4 calips and ummayads and abbasids dynasties emphasises on the glory
of islam’s expansion as a political power rather than a religious phenomenon. Although no
injustices have been done to histories of other countries rhe GAZNAVIDS, DELHI
SULTANS AND CHINGIZ KHAN AND HIS SUCCESSORS are highlighted.

Like all previous histories this work too seeks to present Akbar as badshah i islam.

Writing about the wealth of India author says that immigrants in short time rise to the status
of nobles.

Books written as a source to feed into Akbarnama but also available to us as an

independent source

Tufa i akbar shahi of abbas khan sarwani

Extols the achievements of sher shah suri , brooding over vanished days of glory. chose n
their respective styles of presenting historical truth in a deliberate effort to make their works
inoffensive to the mughal sentiments.

It is dedicated to akbar. Abbas khan’s principal source of info was khan i azam muzaffar
khan who was a nephew of isa khan and whose daughter abbas has married.

The tufa i akbar shahi begins with an account of sultan bahlol’s efforts to consolidate the
afgan rule in india. Dealing with immigration of sher shah’s grandfather and his father but
offers no date.

The flight of mughals and sher shah’s pursuit have been dealt very briefly but the account of
sher shah’s administration of trans indus region is lively and detailed.

He concludes by saying that from the beginning of creation it was ordained by god that the
stage be set for affluent rule of akbar hence god decreed humayun a temporary exile and
allowed sher shah his short hour of triumph.

He further offers details of sher sha’s liberality towards afgans . sher shah believed that
prosperity of the towns and the kingdom depended upon giving patronage to holy men but
recognising their fraudulent practices ijn appropriating madad i maash he used to send the
frmans direct to shiqdars

The monolougues in it need not be taken as an actual reproduction of the views of the
speakers: in many cases they seem to reflect the author’s own judgemnet on the currents and
cross currents of contemporary events and on the policies and programmes of sher shah.

Abbas khan has planned to divide tufa i akbar shahi into three sections:
1. History of reign of sher shah
2. 2. History of reign of islam shah
 3. Account of the nobles of sher shah, the struggle of throne after islam shah his
successors and their successive defeats.

Tazkiratu’l Waqi’at by juhar aftabachi

Writing merely from memory
It does not appear frm the preface that the impulse to write it came from the command of
akbar but the impulse to write it came from the Emperor’s intrest in the history of his father’s
reign n was intended to provide the compilers of tarikh i alfii with authentic info of
humayun’s reign

It is divided into 34 chapters

1-4: humayun’s reign down to his fight at Chausa
5-6: humayun’s defeat in battle of bilgram, his flight frm agra and his arrival in sind
7-19: humayuns wanderings in the sind, his stay in iran, conquest of qandhar and kabul
Last six: humayun’s departure to india, his conquest, his death and the accession of akbar to
the throne.

Thus the major portion iof the work covers period when jauhar was closely associated with
humayun.
Humayunnama
Gulbadan begum wrote humayunnama at akbar’s order. Only one incomplete manuscript of
the work exists: its first section which deals with babur is brief but the second describing
humayun’s reign is detailed. It ends abruptly at blinding of mirza kamran.

Her memoirs are lucid and informal. Her brief account of babur unfolds some very interesting
aspects ohis personality, endowed with a sense of humor, loving, affectionate and
undemanding. She loved humayun and shared his somewhhat squeamish reluctance to face
the consequences of her brother’s habitual disloyalty. She gives detailed acc of the
circumstances of humayus marriage with hamida banu begum and the role of her own mother
in surmounting the difficulties in its way.

She gives vivid account of sentiments and feelings of different classes of women in the
mughal harem.

Tazkira i humayun wa akbar

Bayazid Biyat the author of tazkira was commissioned to dictate his reminiscences primarily
to fill in the lacunae in the history of humayun left by the memoirs of jauhar and gulbadan
begum. He admits that the entire account was based on his memory which was beginning to
fail due to old age and illness. The sequence of events is not properly maintained and some
facts are repeated. His paralytic attack is responsible for his not writing down the account
himself.

Despite being dictated by a man with no literary pretensions it offers an interesting specimen
of persian as spoken by the new masters of india and includes colloquial expressions.

The work commences with n account of humayuns departure to iran and gives list of nobles
who accompanied him. Bayazids account of humayuns struggle to reconquer kabul is full of
important detail and reveals interesting detail of emperor’s characters: his broad mindedness,
interest in astronomy and painting patronage to artists and scholars,

Akbar is shown to have been interested fro the very beginning of his reign in making new
regulations. Bayazid describes some of his reckless enterprises but does not neglect setails
showing him as a far sighted ruler.

CONCLUSION
Akbar’s age was one of richness and variety, where culture flourished, therefore to Nizami, it calls for
different principles for the study of history, for it has to be interpreted according to backgrounds,
motivations and ideals. From the fathnamas, to the different sources available to us, the patronage of
Persian showed a distinct increase in the body of Persian literature, but as students of history, we have
to deal with these sources with sensitivity and understand the socio-political context.
Akbar was interested in history and was keen on following Islamic history. He wanted “an indelible
stamp of the contribution of his own and his family” to be remembered by history. He was conscious
of his own nature and impact on contemporary sources and knew about the importance of delineating
his own achievements in the background of the past. History thus, according to him was the
instrument of the pragmatic and important to influence social outlook and political behaviour. He was
anxious to evolve a national culture and outlook and sought to broaden the behaviours and infuse the
consciousness of belonging to one culture. Thus, by pursuing Persian, he not only created a language
which everybody could learn and use, but he created a rich imperial culture that could be used by the
new elements being inducted into court, and this widely read language would be the one where he
would reinforce his supremacy.