Mughal Administration c17.s1.5

c17.s1.5

On the other hand, the Arab intellect is dry, methodical and matter of fact, like that of the Jews, Phoenicians and other Semitic races. All their records contain a chronological framework, and their letters almost always give the day and month of writing. Whatever the historical literature of the Muhammadans may miss out, it seldom fails to give a wealth of dates. We thus get a solid basis for our historical study. The use of one era, viz., that dating from the Prophet's flight, and calculated according to the lunar year, was a great advantage to the Muslims, as it gave to the entire world under Muhammadan sway a common system for dating events,— which affords a striking contrast to the bewildering variety of eras, length of months and length of the year that we find in Hindu inscriptions and books. To take one example only, the Hindu luni-solar year, in which each month is divided into the dark and bright fortnights (badi and sudi), was not the same in Northern India and Southern as regards the day of commencement and the intercalary month. Hence it is next to impossible to convert such dates in the old Marathi records of the 17th century into the Christian era with any certainty of correctness. The Muslim dates follow one uniform* and well-known system.