History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c11.235

c11.235

dignity in future. From that day Hasan Kāngu cherished the hope of kingship and made efforts to realise that hope until at last the desire of his heart was fulfilled.¹²³ The author of the *Tazkirat-al-Mulūk* gives an account of Hasan's origin, which is a hybrid combination of history and romance, and which has so little historical value that it is hardly worthy of reproduction.¹²⁴ Hasan is described as a youth of high descent for whom a great dignity was predicted by a Brahman called Gangū Pandit who was in the service of a certain Shaikh Muhammad Sirāj Junaidi. When Hasan attained to royalty he made Gangū Pandit his minister in accordance with the agreement into which they had entered prior to Hasan's elevation to kingly office. The *Tazkirat-al-Mulūk* is evidently a tertiary authority and need not detain us long, although it is a matter of surprise why its author failed to take notice of what had been written by previous writers on the subject, Firishta included. He did not care to check his information by a reference to such a well-known work as the *Tabqāt-i-Akbari*. Murtaza Husain better known as Allah Yār ‘Usmānī Bilgrāmī, the author of the *Hadīqat-al-Aqālīm*, which is a later compilation based upon the system of Amīn Ahmad Rāzī’s *Haft Iqlim*, writes that the person who made himself master of the Deccan towards the close of Muhammad Tughluq’s reign was Hasan Kāngū. He was one of the servants of Muhammad Tughluq and was enrolled among the *amirs sadah*. He rebelled along with the ‘Centurions’ of the Deccan and brought that country under his control. He called himself a descendant of Bahman bin Isfandiyār bin Kai Gushtāsp and for this reason his successors came to be known as Bahmani. Murtazā Husain refers also to the story of the Brahman astrologer related by Firishta and says that it is current among the people that the word Bahman is in reality Brahman which has been altered by use.¹²⁵ ‘Ali Tabātabā, Hājjī-ad-Dabīr and Firishta are very near each other in point of time, but the first two differ from Firishta as to the origin of the Bahmani dynasty. They are supported by the authorities that preceded them, which shows that from the time of Muhammad Tughluq down to the days when Firishta began his history no one had said a word about the Brahmanical origin of the dynasty. Zia Barani, Yahyā, Nizam-al-Din Ahmad, Amīn Ahmad Rāzī and Badāoni say nothing about it; on the contrary, all of them except Barani, who is silent on the point, assert that Hasan assumed the title of Bahman Shah and not of Bahmani and Nizam-al-Din Ahmad and Amīn Ahmad Rāzī positively describe him as a descendant of Bahman, the king of Persia. It is difficult to set aside the authority of such a judicious writer as the author of the Tabqāt.