The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c7.44.1

c7.44.1

For the Ghaznavids, a knowledge of whose institutions is essential, there are two main sources; the Tārīkh-i-Yamīnī by 'Utbī is not so rich in administrative details and anecdotes as Abū-'l-Faḍl Baihaqī's Tārīkh-i-Baihaqī which is only a fragment of his greater work, the *Tārīkh-i-āl-i-Sabuktigīn*, now unfortunately lost. Baihaqī was a member of the *dīwān-i-inshā* under Mas‘ūd and had opportunities of personal contact with the sultan; he was acquainted with most of the state secrets. He writes in a gossiping style and gives the reader a rare insight into court life as well as into the working of the central government. *Al-Kardīzī’s Zain-u’l-akhbār* is a brief and dry chronicle. For the earlier period of the sultanate (587-614 A.H. ; 1191-1217 A.C.). Ḥasan Niẓāmī’s *Tāj-u’l-ma’āthir* is the primary authority. The author has a most tedious and flowery style, but his facts are correct and sometimes he records matters of administrative interest. The *Tārīkh-i-Fakhr-u’d-dīn Mubārakshāh* is valuable as a contemporary record, though the author was not the famous poet Fakhr-u’d-dīn Mubārakshāh Marw-a’r-rūdī as Sir Denison Ross calls him, but Fakhr-u’d-dīn Mubārakshāh alias Fakhr-i-Mudabbir who usually resided at Lāhor and Dehlī and was attached to the court.¹ This book deals with Quṭb-u’d-dīn Aibak only. Minhāj-u’d-dīn bin Sirāj-u’d-dīn’s *Ṭabaqāt-i-Nāṣirī* is a compendium of Muslim history;