Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c5.s1.7

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Thus there is sufficient source material in the Persian language for the period eleventh to eighteenth century. Still from the sixteenth century onwards Persian historians tend to become more informative and provide very valuable information helping demographic study. Abul Fazl's first volume of the *Ain-i-Akbari*, for example, gives prices of commodities of daily use, and the second statistics of troops who could be called to duty in field from each and every parganah of Akbar's empire. Even other sixteenth and seventeenth century writers are better equipped with information and statistics on population. In the eighteenth century the position improves still further, and Marathi and Persian works give detailed description of casualties consequent upon Aurangzeb's wars in the Deccan, Nadir Shah's invasion, Abdali's raids on the Punjab and the Third Battle of Panipat. In addition, Muslim writers many times give figures and names of those who converted to Islam from time to time, helping in the assessment of the growth of Muslim population in medieval India.