THIS work contains a brief general history of Muhammadan India, from the time of the slave-kings of Dehlí to that of Akbar, in the forty-second year of whose reign it was composed, i.e. A.H. 1005 (A.D. 1596-7). The name of the author is Shaikh 'Abdu-l Hakk bin Saifu-d dín of Dehlí. From a quatrain in the preface of his history, it would appear that Hakkí, “the true,” while it contains a play upon his own name, is a mere literary appellation, assumed according to a practice common in the east, and by which name he seems to wish that his history should be known, though it is most frequently styled Táríkh-i 'Abdu-l Hakk.
The ancestors of 'Abdu-l Hakk came into India from Bokhárá, and settled in Dehlí, but the authorities vary in the details they give in respect of him. According to the Bádsháh-náma, 'Abdu-l Hakk was a descendant of one of Tímúr's followers, who remained behind, together with some other foreign chiefs, at Dehlí, after the return of that conqueror to his native land. But the writer himself, in his Akhbáru-l Akhyár, says that his great ancestor, Ághá Turk, came to Dehlí in 'Aláu-d dín's reign, and that this Ághá's grandson, Malik Músá, returned to Máwaráu-n nahr, and came back from thence to Dehlí in Tímúr's time. In Sir T. Metcalfe's MS. History of Dehlí it is stated that his ancestor was a native of Bokhárá, who, on visiting Dehlí, was ennobled and attached to the Royal Court. There can be no doubt that Bokhárá was the place from which they sprang, as 'Abdu-l Hakk's son was known as “al Dehlawí al Bokhárí.” 'Abdu-l Hakk's father obtained a reputation for sanctity, and the son praises him in his Literary History of Dehlí.
Shaikh 'Abdu-l Hakk early applied himself to the cultivation of knowledge. At twenty years of age he had mastered most of the customary branches of education, and had learnt the whole of the Kurán by heart.* At the time he was prosecuting his studies, the author* tells us that he used to go twice a day to college, morning and evening, during the heat of one season and the cold of another, returning for a short time for a meal to his own house. As he informs us that his dwelling was two miles from the college, this statement, if true, shows that he travelled eight miles a day, which, it must be confessed, exhibited unusual ardour in the acquisition of knowledge. His father observed that he did not enjoy pastimes like other boys, and endeavoured to dissuade him from his intense application.
Upon leaving Dehlí, he associated for a long time with 'Abdu-l Kádir, Shaikh Faizí, and Nizámu-d dín, at Fathpúr,* but left them upon some slight misunderstanding. Nevertheless, through the interest of the latter, he obtained a passage on a vessel proceeding to Arabia, whither he went on a pilgrimage.* He dwelt for a long time in the holy cities of Mecca and Medína, and derived much instruction from the learned men of those cities. He wrote works upon many subjects, of which he himself gives a list,—commentaries, travels, Súfí doctrines, religion and history, and his different treatises amount altogether to more than one hundred. The best known are the Madína Sakína, the Madáriju-n Nubúwat, the Jazbu-l Kulúb,* and the Akhbáru-l Akhyár. He was born in the year 958 H., and in the year 1047 H., although he was then ninety years old, he is said* to have been in full possession of his faculties, and to have employed himself in religious duties, in instruction, and composition, as vigorously as if he had still been a young man. He died in 1052 H. (1642 A.D.), and was buried in the sepulchre built by himself in Dehlí on the margin of the Hauz-i Shamshí. The building still exists in good preservation, and is a handsome solid structure.
The author, who now holds a high rank among the saints of Hindústán, informs us that his desire to write history arose from a perusal of the Táríkh-i Fíroz-sháhí, by which he alludes to that of Zíáu-d dín Barní, as he mentions that the lives of several kings are contained in it, which is not the case with the other histories of that name. But as that work concludes with the beginning of Fíroz Sháh's reign, he sought to obtain information respecting the kings who succeeded him, and lighted upon the Táríkh-i Bahádur-sháhí, written by Sám Sultán Bahádur Gujarátí, from which he has extracted down to the reign of Bahlol Lodí. He then thought it would be advisable to complete the reigns previous to those noticed in the Táríkh-i Fíroz-sháhí, and therefore abstracted from the Tabakát-i Násirí the reigns from Mu'izzú-d dín Sám (Muhammad Ghorí) to Násiru-d dín Mahmúd bin Sultán Shamsu-d dín. He has been judicious in his small selection, as these three are the best authorities for their respective periods.* From Bahlol Lodí to his own time he has depended on verbal information, and upon what came under his own observation, all the rest of his work being taken, as he candidly confesses, verbatim from the three authors above quoted.
After carrying, in the first chapter, the general history of Dehlí down to Akbar's time, he gives, in the second, a compendious account of the rulers of Bengal, Jaunpúr, Mándú, Dakhin, Multán, Sind and Kashmír, but the narrative is much too brief to be of any use.
As this time-serving saint was prepared to speak of his reforming patron in the preposterous strain of adulation adopted in the following Extract, we have little reason to regret that he never fulfilled the purpose of writing an account of his reign.
The best copy of this little history which I have seen belongs to Nawáb Násiru-d dín Ahmad of Pánípat, in whose collection it is improperly called Táríkh-i Salátín Ghorí. Nizámu-d dín, a physician resident at Banda, also possesses a good copy. There are two copies (Addit. MSS. 6596 and 16701) in the British Museum, and one in the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society, which Morley has described in his Catalogue (No. xlvii.).
In a Manuscript belonging to a native gentleman at Dehlí, the first chapter closes with these words, “Thus ends the first chapter of the Tazkiratu-s Salátín,” which would imply that this work is known by that name; but, if so, it cannot be the work generally* known as the Tazkiratu-s Salátín, for that is devoted to an account of the Hindú dynasties, and upon that compilation Colonel Wilford, in his essay on Vikramáditya and Śáliváhana, makes the following just observations: “This treatise is a most perfect specimen of the manner of writing history in India; for, excepting the above list, almost everything else is the production of the fertile genius of the compiler. In all these lists the compilers and revisers seem to have had no other object in view, but to adjust a certain number of remarkable epochs. This being once effected, the intermediate spaces are filled up with names of kings not to be found anywhere else, and most probably fanciful. Otherwise they leave out the names of those kings of whom nothing is recorded, and attribute the years of their reign to some among them better known, and of greater fame. They often do not scruple to transpose some of those kings, and even whole dynasties; either in consequence of some preconceived opinion, or owing to their mistaking a famous king for another of the same name. It was not uncommon with ancient writers, to pass from a remote ancestor to a remote descendant; or from a remote predecessor to a remote successor, by leaving out the intermediate generations or successions, and sometimes ascribing the years of their reigns to a remote successor or predecessor. In this manner the lists of the ancient kings of Persia, both by Oriental writers, and others in the west, have been compiled: and some instances of this nature might be produced from Scripture. I was acquainted lately, at Benares, with a chronicler of that sort, and in the several conversations I had with him, he candidly acknowledged that he filled up the intermediate spaces between the reigns of famous kings with names at a venture; that he shortened or lengthened their reigns at pleasure; and that it was understood that his predecessors had taken the same liberties. Through their emendations and corrections, you see plainly a total want of historical knowledge and criticism; and sometimes some disingenuity is but too obvious. This is, however, the case with the sections on futurity in the Bhagavat, Váyu, Vishnu, and Brahmánda Puránas; which with the above lists constitute the whole stock of historical knowledge among the Hindús; and the whole might be comprised in a few quarto pages of print.”*
The Táríkh-i Hakkí opens with a passage from the Kurán.
The conclusion varies. The most perfect closes with a chronogram, which would seem to show that the author wished his work to be styled Zikr-i Mulúk, and from another passage this appears to be the true name, though the preface, as before observed, authorizes the name of Táríkh-i Hakkí.
The copy used is a small 8vo., containing 142 pages, of 18 lines each.