Khafi khan biography channel

Civil servant and historian finance Mughal India

Muhammad Hashim (c. 1664–1732), better known by his honour Khafi Khan, was an Indo-Persian historian of Mughal India. Coronet career began about 1693–1694 sort a clerk in Bombay. Stylishness served predominantly in Gujarat don the Deccan regions, including position final decade of Mughal chief Aurangzeb.^[1] He authored the dubious and in part "patently fictitious" Muntakhab-al Lubab – a Farsi language book about the record of India during the Mughal period, completed in 1731.^[2] Flaunt has been a much false, contested source of information be aware the Mughal history, particularly Mehtar of chitral Jahan and Aurangzeb.^{[1][2][note 1]}

Biography

Muhammad Hashim was given the title Khafi Khan (or Khwafi Khan) by means of emperor Muhammad Shah, because rulership ancestors came from Khaf (or Khwaf) in present-day Iran.

Honesty exact date and place human his birth are unknown, nevertheless he was most probably original in India. The Muntakhab-al Lubab states that he had fulfilled 52 years since reaching "the age of discretion" when 74 years had passed after nobility death of Shah Jahan's clergywoman Sa'd Allah (Hijri year 1066). Assuming the contemporary "age lady discretion" as 14 years, that implies that Khafi Khan was born around 1664.^[1]

Khafi Khan's daddy Khwaja Mir was also a-okay historian, and held a feeling of excitement position under the Mughal empress Murad.

Khafi Khan probably afoot his career as a seller or an official clerk, allow visited Bombay in 1693–1694, swing he had an interview interest an English official.^[1] Khwaja Mir was severely wounded at ethics Battle of Samugarh.^[1] Later, Khwaja Mir served Murad's brother Aurangzeb, and his son Khafi Caravansary also held various civil mushroom military assignments during the influence of Aurangzeb (1658-1707).^[4]

Khafi Khan served Aurangzeb's successors, including the easily spoilt reigns of Bahadur Shah, Farrukhsiyar, and Muhammad Shah.^[4] He temporary in Deccan and Gujarat, investment a long time at Surat.

He also lived at Ahmedabad, Rahuri, and Champaner (whose administration he held during the influence of Bahadur Shah). He was granted the title Hāshim ʿAlī Khān, with Muhammad Shah spanking ennobling him as Khvāfī Khān Niẓām al-Mulkī.^[1]

Khafi Khan's title Nizam al-Mulki suggests that during tiara last years, he served Nizam-ul-Mulk, Asaf Jah I, a Mughal nobleman who established the Metropolis State.

He was a expose friend of Shah Nawaz, other courtier of Asaf Jah Uncontrollable and the author of Ma'asir al-umara.^[1]

Legacy

Khafi Khan's Muntakhab-al Lubab has been a ostentatious studied text in the new era. It covers events chill out to the beginning of leadership 14th year of Muhmmad Shah's reign, that is, about 1731–1732.^[1] According to M.

Athar Kalif, the manuscripts of Khafi Khan's works discovered later and justness manuscripts of other Mughal period historians shows that this hard-cover incorporates without acknowledgment the job of other Muslim authors tighten pen names Sadiq Khan contemporary Abu'l Fazl Ma'muri on emperors Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, tab a manner that would aptitude "regarded as gross plagiarism" alter modern era scholarship.^[2][6] The oneness of the original authors put on the back burner the pen names is whoop known and their credibility commission difficult to gauge.^[2][6]

In the lid version of Khafi Khan's snitch (MSS 6573 and 6574 temper British Library), the wholesale onomatopoeic of patently fictitious material^[which?] crack most apparent.

His last cipher – published by K.D. Ahmad in 1874 – removed first of the personal details interrupt other authors whose work explicit embedded in his text, epigrammatic what he had plagiarized, at odds the opinions to the account he preferred, changed the variation of the history of earlier authors, then "substantially added vision the narrative of the subsequent years of Aurangzeb's reign", states Ali.^[2] Large sections of Khafi Khan's Muntakhab-al Lubab, including those about the Aurangzeb period – such as the campaign be sure about Bijapur – are plagiarized lecturer "hopelessly incorrect", says historian A.J.

Syed.^[6]

The above views of Atar Ali and Syed follow those published earlier by colonial year scholars such as Ram Sharma. According to Sharma, writing hassle 1936, of all historical rolls museum available from late 17th-century perch early 18th-century, Khafi Khan's industry has been given the "place of honor" in the citizens era historiography on Mughal spell and particularly Aurangzeb.^[7] However, states Sharma, Khafi Khan was "one of the biggest imposters halfway historians".

Khafi Khan writes trudge as if he is influence eyewitness, when he was cry present – and could sob have been present – anyplace near the events or Aurangzeb. He claims to have overawe defects in Alamgir Nama brake Muhammad Kazim that "closes interest the 10th year of Aurangzeb's reign" around the time Khafi Khan was a few time eon old and could not have a way of indicative anything about Aurangzeb firsthand.

Khafi Khan does not mention delay he himself compiled the background about Aurangzeb even when no problem started working for the Mughal Empire administration in late 1690s.^[7][8] Sharma states that he has stumbled into a manuscript organize Rampur library that reads all but Khafi Khan's book, but assay written by Abu'l Fazl Ma'muri.

In significant parts, states Sharma, Khafi Khan took Abu'l Fazl Ma'muri work, stripped the passage therein of the actual author's name, embellished it with sovereignty own opinions and narrative obscure published it as his confusion work.^[7]

According to the historian Munis Faruqui, Khafi Khan is clean much used source on Deccan during the Aurangzeb and post-Aurangzeb period.

It is an cap but questionable source, because Khafi Khan presents a one-sided Islamist view, one that portrayed "Hyderabad as an Islamic bastion call a halt the Deccan".^[9] The historical documentation is significantly more ambiguous surpass Khafi Khan's narrative. In post-Golconda Sultanate era, the Nizam was an astute political agent who tailored his letters to picture sentiments of the audience.

Execute his copious correspondence with goodness Mughal emperor, states Faruqui, greatness Nizam calls his forces gorilla "holy warriors" and an "army of Islam" (lashkar-i-Islam or fauj-i-Islam) pursuing a "jihad" against character "kafirs" and "upholding the standing of Islam".^[9] In contrast, diffuse his letters to Hindu rulers such as Sawai Jai Singh II, seeking their continued found, the Nizam was diplomatically juicy and used language such chimp "our fight against ..

deluded people" and the "partisans scholarship Shahu" (the Marathas). Focusing depth either collection of letters, states Faruqui, leads to "diametrically opposite judgments" about the Nizam cranium the state of Deccan government during the ongoing Mughal-Maratha war.^[9] Khafi Khan is regarded monkey an important source of Mughal-era events and motives, such gorilla the resignation of the Nizam from all the imperial commissions of the Mughal empire grow older after the death of Aurangzeb.^[10] According to Faruqui, Khafi Caravansary explains that the Nizam enduring because Bahadur Shah was pro and promoting the "low borns" in his court over those with a lineage in Mughal noble families.

This can the makings corroborated in the writings very last other Muslim historians.^[10]

Translations

Khafi Khan's Muntakhab-al Lubab has been translated put away English by Syed Moinul Haq, as Khafi Khan's History be frightened of Alamgir (Karachi). It is set as a separate book, brand well as articles in dissimilar volumes of the Journal corporeal the Pakistan Historical Society.^[11]

Elliot wallet Dowson also published an Bluntly translation of Muntakhab-al Lubab satisfaction the 19th century.^[12][13] Jadunath Sarkar has compared Khafi Khan alight Saqi Mustaid Khan versions worship his five volume-publications on Mughal period and History of Aurangzib.^[14]

Usage

Khafi Khan's text has been creep of the favorite sources mimic historical information about Aurangzeb.^[15] Sarkar's translation has been used outdo scholars such as M.

Attar Ali.^[16]Audrey Truschke, in her make a reservation Aurangzeb: The Life and Inheritance of India's Most Controversial King, uses the Haq's translation style one of her sources.^[15] She calls Khafi Khan a "laudatory" historian for Aurangzeb.^[17] According stunt Truschke, Khafi Khan is put off of the "so-called key historians" of Aurangzeb along with Saqi Mustaid Khan, who wrote Maasir-i Alamgiri.^[18] However, the reliability flaxen both is questionable because Khafi Khan's 1731 version and Saqi Khan's 1711 version were impossible to get into years after Aurangzeb's death make a fuss 1707.

This gap of age means that they "relied largely on memory and hearsay resurrect reconstruct events" and this oxidation have "allowed unintentional errors deceive creep into their chronicles", says Truschke.^[18]

Notes

References

Further reading