Writing the past, writing the present: Abd al-Qadir Badauni’s narrative of the history of the Delhi Sultanate

Abstract

This article examines the historiographical practices of Abd al-Qadir Badauni, a sixteenth-century historian and intellectual who served in Akbar’s court. Badauni’s secret Persian chronicle, Muntaḵẖab al-tawārīḵẖ, compiled in three volumes in 1595–96, is regarded as one of the most important sources on the history of Akbar’s reign. The present article, however, is concerned with only the first volume, which narrates the history of the Delhi Sultanate. Unfortunately, the first volume did not receive much attention from scholars, because it was assumed to be offering no significant historical value as it was entirely based on the T̤abaqāt-i Akbarī of Niz̤ām al-Dīn Aḥmad and the Ta’rīḵẖ-i Mubārakshāhī of Yaḥyā Aḥmad Sirhindī. Scholars ignored the fact that Badauni also claimed to have ‘added something of his own’ to his narrative. This article analyses the ways in which Badauni narrated a history of the pre-Mughal past and what it can tell us about his historiographical practices as well as his views on kingship. A closer scrutiny of his narrative of the Delhi Sultanate along with his representation of Humāyūn, in comparison with that of his sources, suggests that his re-telling of the story was guided by his belief in a medieval Perso-Islamic theory of kingship that upheld the separation of power between the rulers as temporal sovereigns and the ‘ulamā as custodians of religion.