Welcome students.

Under the initiative of the Directorate of Higher Education, Government of Goa. Digital Integrated System
for Holistic Teaching And Virtual Orientation for Developing the content, we are going to study about a B.
A General Course, S.Y.B.A Semester III in the subject of History,

History of Medieval India.

Title of the Course
Sources - Literary Sources in Persian of the Sultanate And Moghul period are going to be discussed
in this Course.
Students will be acquainted the about the prominent Muslim historians of medieval India and
familiarize the students with the development of Persian literature in Medieval India.

Sources of History of Medieval India are voluminous, as well as diverse.

No scarcity of information and no need for a scholar to depend on indirect sources.
During the Sultanate period, lot of contemporary works and writings are available.
Alberuni wrote a book titled Tarikh ulHind meaning inquiry into India.
Alberuni was a scholar at the court of Mahmud of Ghazni.
His work shed light on social,religious, cultural, and other aspects of the people of India.
Minhajus Siraj authored a work titled as Tabaqut i Nasiri.
He was a distinguished scholar of Islamic theology.The work throws light on the civil administration and
the organisation of the court. This work is of great value and significance to know about the nature
and character of the muslim aristocracy.

Ziauddin Barani authored two works Tarikh i Firoze Shahi and Fatawa i Jahandari.

He joined the court of Mohammed bin Tughluq. His work covers the period from 1239 to 1359.

Tarikh i Firoze Shahi work provides an accurate account of the rule of

Sultan Firoz Tughluq. Besides, it also shed light on the political and military

activities of Sultan Firoz Tughlug.

Amir Khusrau was popularly known as Tuti e Hind meaning “ Parrot of

India”. Tarikh i Ilahi was one of his most important works. This work

shed light on the conquests of Allauddin khalji specially his military campaigns.

When we come to the Mughal period ,historical literature is

remarkable. There are biographies, auto biographies

and Diaries. There are also official records, private letters and sonnets.

Babur, who laid the foundation of the Mughal rule in India, was a scholar, Persian and Turki languages.
He wrote a work called Tuzuk -i-Baburi Or simply known as Baburnama.

This work unfolds the social cultural conditions of his times.

Gulbadan Begam wrote a book titled Humayun Namah, which shed a light on

the social and cultural life of the people of Kashmir.

It also provides information relating to the main

events in the life of Humayun.

Abdul Fazl was a well known scholar at the Court of Akbar.

His famous work was Ain i Akbari. Work discussing the administrative system and state Mughal policy.
This work shows the inner workings of the Mughal General Administration, MilitaryAdministration,
Revenue Administration and other aspects.

Jahangir ordered his own biography titled Tuzuk i Jahangiri.

It describes the general economic conditions and it also

contains Imperial firemans, orders and regulations.

Muhammad Amin Qazwini wrote Padishahnama during the rule of Shah

Jahan. He was appointed as a court historian by Shah Jahan

This book contains official documents and records.

When we come to the rule of Aurangzeb not much historical

literature was produced simply because he did, note encourage scholars, chronicles

and poets. However.Mirza. Muhammad Kazim wrote a work Alarmgirnama.

This work shed light on some important events of Aurangzeb’s rule.
Most of these scholars enjoyed the court patronage.
Some books are biased.They often at times suppressed the misdeeds of their masters.

But still they are of great insignificance to know, to

learn and to understand the history of the medieval period.

For further references.

Students can refer to the following books. Gupta Manik Lal Sources

of Mughal History.

Meta J E Study in the History of Medieval India,vol.I.

SatishChandra Medieval India from theSultanate to the Mughals.

Students just let us summarize what we have discussed in this

module. All these sources enable us to know about the administrative and military aspect of this
Sultanate period and of the Mughall period We get to know about the various ministers, officers and the
jobs that were entrusted to them.

We also get information pertaining to the policy of taxation, foreign affairs,public welfare measures and
on and so.

Besides, much we can get on the social and cultural aspects of the people of India.

We also get to know about the religious policy of the Mughal rulers like Akbar,Jahangir, Shahjahan and
others.

It also shed light on commerce and trade

relations with other countries of the world.

Thank you.