Twilight of the Sultanate c16.s4: Arabic Works
Twilight of the Sultanate c16.s4
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Arabic Works
c16.s4.1
Most of the Arabic works of the period were confined to commentaries on the Quran and Hadīs. Saiyyad Muhammad, better known as Gīsū-darāz (1321-1422), was a very popular Sūfī saint of his times and wrote the *Ar-Risalātu fī Masā'ili Ruyati'ul-Bārī Ta'alā*. The Shafi'ite savant, 'Alī bin Ahmad Mahā'imī (d. 1431), of Arab extraction, wrote a commentary on the Quran and another on Fiqh entitled *Fiqh-i-Makhdūmī*. He also wrote several works on various Sūfī themes. Sa'aduddīn Khairābādī (d. 1477) also wrote on Fiqh and Tasawwuf. Qāzī Shihābuddīn, entitled Malikul 'Ulema (d. 1445)⁹⁷ lived at Jaunpur in Ibrāhīm Sharqī's reign and wrote many books on Islam. Another scholar of Jaunpur of the same period was Shaikh Ilah Diya Jaunpurī, the author of many excellent works like *Hedaya-i-Fiqh*, a commentary on Kāfiya, and notes on the *Tafsīr-i-Madārik*.⁹⁸ Similarly Badruddīn Muhammad, who was born in Egypt in 1424, but migrated to Gujarat in 1517, also wrote a number of treatises on the Islamic religion. In the words of M. Ishaque, "... the authors who made any contribution to Arabic literature in India were Arabs or Persians or persons of Arab and Persian lineage.... Generally speaking, the works produced in India are on religious subjects, *tasawwuf* and grammar. They mostly comprise commentaries on the Quran, Hadīs, Fiqh and grammar."⁹⁹
c16.s4.2
⁹⁷ *Ferishta*, II, 595; *Encyclopaedia of Islam*, I, 932.
c16.s4.3
⁹⁸ Badaonī, Ranking, I, 428-29.
c16.s4.4
⁹⁹ *The Delhi Sultanate*, 533.