The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c7.47

c7.47

باملاء شاه جهان شد کتابت طریق سلاطین و آداب شاهی . . . . . ز تاریخ هفتاد و دو بود و مقصد که اتمام این شد بفضل الهی gives a good insight into the political and social conditions under Quṭb-u’d-dīn Mubārak Shāh. Amīr Khusraw’s exceedingly tedious exercise in rhetoric, the Ijāz-i-Khusrawī throws important sidelights on the administration, for the model epistles addressed to officials refer to their functions. The Maṭla‘-u’l-anwār and Afḍal-u’l-fawā’id are useful to students of social history, for they portray contemporary manners and customs. The prefaces to the collections of his lyrical odes are also valuable for the same reason. The other writings have little historical significance. Amīr Ḥasan ‘Alā Sajzī’s Fawā’id-u’l-fawā’id like Khusraw’s Afḍal-u’l-fawā’id contains the table-talk of the saint Niẓām-u’d-dīn. The odes of Ḥasan, who was Khusraw’s contemporary, and the qaṣā’id of Badr-i-Chāch who flourished under Muḥammad bin Tughluq refer to political events and their chronograms are particularly valuable. Of great interest is ‘Iṣāmī’s Futūḥ-u’s-salāṭīn which is a chronicle of medieval India in verse; it is important in so far as it voices the feelings of the malcontents against Muḥammad bin Tughluq and justifies the rise of the Bahmanī kingdom. It also implements our knowledge regarding certain other events. Great importance has been attached by some recent writers to the Muḥammad bin Tughluq fragment consisting of four pages attached to a manuscript of the Ṭabaqāt-i-Nāṣirī (Add. 25785 in the British Museum) since it has been claimed as a part of the sultan’s autobiography.¹ The work is too concise in style to be an autobiography; no contemporary or later authority mentions the existence of such a document. A careful perusal will convince the reader that it is in fact part of a Persian version of the sultan’s application to the Egyptian caliph for recognition. The Basātīn-u’l-uns was composed in the beginning of Muḥammad bin Tughluq’s reign and contains some historical matter. Of great importance is the Inshā-i-Māhrū, being a collection of letters by ‘Ain-u’l-mulk, one of Fīrūz Shāh’s ministers. As they mostly deal with administrative affairs, they give a good insight into the working of the machinery of the government. ‘Abd-u’l-Ḥaqq Dehlawī’s Risālah dar taṣānīf-i-khud contains a brief outline of literary history. Of great social and cultural value are the poems and books by Hindu reformers, also Malik Muḥammad Jāisī’s Padmāvat and Akhrāvat.