[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [Twilight of the Sultanate](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963) › c3.6 # Twilight of the Sultanate c3.6 Twilight of the Sultanate c3.6 - **Language:** English ### [c3.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c3.6) Tīmūr's Memoirs or \*Malfūzāt\* are considered to be apocryphal by many eminent authorities like Ethe,² Rieu,³ Beveridge,⁴ Browne,⁵ and M. Bouyat.⁶ No original copy of this work in Turki exists, while about its translation rendered in Persian by Abu Tālib Husainī in the reign of Shāhjahān, E. G. Browne says: "It appears much more likely that he (Abu Tālib) himself compiled the Persian work... with the aid of \*Zafar Nāmā\* and other histories of Tīmūr''.⁷ But this assertion is very unfair to the author who claims to have obtained an original copy of the \*Mulfūzāt\* in Turki in the library of the ruler of Yemen when he was in Haramen (Ka'abā) on pilgrimage.⁸ Moreover the narrative of the \*Mulfūzāt\* is so corroborative of the other histories of Tīmūr that its substance proves its authenticity. However, Sharafuddīn Yazdī's \*Zafar Nāmā\* is perhaps the best source of Tīmūr's history. Although Yazdī wrote twenty years after the conqueror's death during the time of his grandson Ibrāhīm, and although his work is "prolix, tedious, florid and fulsome", yet he was present with the conqueror on some of his last campaigns. Besides, he bases his narrative probably on Nizām Shāmī's history of the same name.⁹ Nizām-i-Shāmī of Baghdād, who joined Tīmūr's court at the end of 1400, kept a daily record of the events of his reign,¹⁰ and this compilation in all probability provided source-material for Yazdī's work. Ahmad bin 'Arabshāh, the author of '\*Ajāibul Maqdūr fi Akhbār-i-Tīmūr\*, was carried a prisoner to Samarqand by Tīmūr. Therefore he is not a flatterer. Better still he is a truthful narrator of events. - [Previous: c3.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c3.5) - [Next: c3.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c3.7) - [Up: c3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c3) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c3.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c3.6) · Pramāṇa