regions, dynasties or rulers.
Main Demerits The Persian chronicles suffer from two principal defects.
As the authors were generally connected with the court and dependent upon
royal favour, they could not give an objective version of historical events.
Moreover, they were sometimes swayed by religious orthodoxy, not only in
the case of the Hindus but also in the case of unorthodox Muslim rulers like
Muhammad Tughluq. Secondly, their attention was concentrated upon the
court and the camp; they took little interest in the condition of the people and
in socio-economic developments.
Minhaj-us-Siraj Minhaj-us-Siraj, author of the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, was born
in 1193. He entered government service in the reign of Iltutmish, and served
as the Chief Qazi of Delhi in the middle of the thirteenth century. He was a
judicial officer as also a courtier and necessarily exercised political discretion
in writing his history.
• The Tabaqat is a compendium of Islamic history from the days Adam
to the year 1260 when it was completed. It was named after the
reigning Sultan, Nasiruddin Mahmud.
• That portion which deals with the history of the Sultanate is important
because the author was a contemporary in close contact with the
events of the period and took pains to collect information from
different quarters.
• What he has left is valuable as a work on purely political history. It
describes the careers of most of the prominent nobles of Muhammad
of Ghur and Iltutmish.
• He praises those from whom he received favours, suppressing or
misrepresenting facts to suit his own point of view. He excludes
details about the careers of those against whom he was prejudiced. He
exposes the worst side of the character of the ulema—their selfish
intrigue for worldly success.
Isami Isami’s family lost royal favour during the Tughluq regime and
migrated to the Deccan at the time of the transfer of capital to Devagiri. This
fact introduced an element of personal bias into Isami’s account of
Muhammad Tughluq’s reign.
• His Futuh-us-Salatin is a work in Persian verse, on the model of