The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c5: Preface to the First Edition
The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c5
- Language
- English
Preface to the First Edition
c5.1
This book is primarily intended for the under-graduates in our universities. The author has kept in view the requirements of the students preparing for the B.A. Examination, but it is hoped that it will prove equally useful to higher students, to those intending to appear at Competitive Examinations and to the teachers in our colleges.
c5.2
It is a text-book and not a research production; but not a text-book of the usual variety found in the market, for it is based on a close study of the original contemporary sources in Persian and other languages with which the author is intimately acquainted. This work discusses for the first time the how and the why of the important problems of the period, such as, (1) the quick and easy over-running of our country by the foreign Arab and Turkish invaders; (2) their failure to exterminate us as a people and a culture-unit, as they had successfully blotted out the other peoples of Asia and Africa that they had invaded; (3) the impact of Islam on us; (4) our inability to absorb the new-comers, though we had successfully assimilated the Greeks, the Sakas and the Huns; and (5) the adjustment of our relations with the Indian Muslims, a problem which baffles our leaders and statesmen even today. Unfortunately, all previous works on the subject are so designed as to give the history of the progress of Islam in India. In the present book an attempt has been made to write the history of the country. Not only the text-books but even specialised monographs have called our Arab and Turko-Afghan rulers by the misleading term ‘Muslim’. This has been responsible for two wrong notions—(i) Indian converts to Islam and their descendants have wrongly imagined that they were the ruling class in Medieval India, and, unhappily, this absolutely wrong notion prevails in certain quarters even today; and (ii) most of our people have, for generations, held the ancestors of Indian Muslims responsible for the wrongs, particularly religious persecution, perpetrated chiefly by our foreign Arab, Turk and Afghan rulers. All such errors have been avoided in this volume. Besides, an attempt has been made to emphasise and give everything relevant and important regarding our administrative, social, cultural and economic achievements, though not at the cost of the political history of the period. The book is illustrated with twelve specially drawn and accurate maps which are a definite improvement upon all existing ones.
c5.3
The author is well aware of the imperfections of this volume, as the entire work was dictated to a stenographer. The plan of the book being what it is, repetitions could not be avoided. In fact, the concluding chapters, discussing in a connected manner the evolution of our medieval administrative, social and cultural institutions, could not but be summaries of the measures undertaken during the various reigns. In order to help the students to picture in their minds the evolution of institutions or the culmination of a career, it has been thought desirable to provide matter, as far as possible, in one place. The book is written in the simplest possible language so as to make it intelligible to our under-graduate students.
c5.4
My thanks are due to my friend Dr. Birjadish Prasad, D. Phil., for going through the MS before it was sent to the press. My sons, Dharma Bhanu, M.A., and Daya Bhanu, have laboriously read the proofs and Dharma Bhanu has prepared the maps with care and devotion. I am thankful to my publishers and to Pt. Dharma Chand Bhargava of the Amrit Electric Press for the interest they have taken in the printing and publication of the book.
c5.5
Agra College, Agra. *September* 1, 1950.