History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c14.40

c14.40

Barani's old age was one of gloom and sorrow. Poor and forlorn, when he sat down to write his history, he had not a spark of optimism left in him. He had lost his appointment, it seems, after the death of Muhammad and was passing his days in poverty. As he looked back, he saw nothing but the disastrous effects of what he considered a thoroughly misconceived policy. The splendour and success of the early years of Muhammad's reign contrasted with the failure of his subsequent years filled him with gloom, and though now and then he admires the Sultan's zeal for reform, the thought of ruin is so deeply rooted in his mind that he finds himself unable to trace events to their proper causes. Is it true that Barani indulged in deliberate falsehood? In fairness to that mediæval chronicler it must be said that it is impossible to make such an affirmation. Very probably he was sincere in his condemnation of the Sultan's measures. He is rather frank, for he confesses that he acquiesced owing to fear and love of money in what Sultan Muhammad did against the *Shariāt* and expresses his regret for it. He is doubtless guilty of *suppressio veri* as in the matter of the death of Sultan Ghiyās-al-Din and the ameliorative reforms of the Sultān like the suppression of Satī. He was obsessed by the idea that Islam was being ruined by the Sultan's policy, and it was this mental obsession which prevented him from seeing things in their proper perspective. His attitude is precisely that of an orthodox Brāhmana Pandit attempting to write a history of modern India with its multifarious problems. The ideas of the educated Indian—his condemnation of caste, untouchability and the inviolability of the Brahmanical order and his faith in widow remarriage and foreign travel—will be described as so many disasters to religion. Barani could not get rid of such a mentality. Opportunism was not unknown to him for he writes in one place: ‘I did not speak what was right and true on account of fear and greed. I do not know what will happen to me in future.’ The observations of such a writer must be accepted with caution particularly when he is writing the history of a man whose ideas and ideals were wholly different to his own.