[THE first part of this work gives a general description of Hindústán, of its provinces, cities, products and people. It also gives a summary of the ancient history as derived from the Sanskrit works translated by Faizí and others. It then notices the rise of the Muhammadan power, and adds a succinct history of the reigns of the various sovereigns down to the death of Aurangzeb. This constitutes the first volume of the work, and its contents are generally identical with those of the Khulásatu-t Tawáríkh. The author has been severely condemned by Col. Lees* for glaring plagiarism in having stated that he derived his matter from the work of an old munshí, without ever mentioning the name of the author of the Khulásatu-t Tawáríkh. It has been shown by Sir H. M. Elliot, in No. LXXXIV., that the Khulásatu-t Tawáríkh itself is a gross piracy of an anonymous work called Mukhtasiru-t Tawáríkh, and it may have been this very work that Ghulám Husain used and referred to as the production of “some old munshí.”]
[It is the second volume of the work that has become famous, and to which the title Siyaru-l Muta-akhkhirín,* “Review of Modern Times,” is particularly applicable.] This consists of a general history of India from 1700 to 1786 A.D. It contains the reigns of the last seven Emperors of Hindústán, an account of the progress of the English in Bengal up to 1781 A.D., and a critical examination of their government and policy in Bengal. The author treats these important subjects with a freedom and spirit, and with a force, clearness and simplicity of style very unusual in an Asiatic writer, and which justly entitles him to pre-eminence among Muhammadan historians. [“It is written,” says General Briggs, “in the style of private memoirs, the most useful and engaging shape which history can assume; nor, excepting in the peculiarities which belong to the Muhammadan character and creed, do we perceive throughout its pages any inferiority to the historical memoirs of Europe. The Duc de Sully, Lord Clarendon or Bishop Burnet need not have been ashamed to be the authors of such a production.”]
The testimony which Ghulám Husain bears to the merits of the English is on the whole creditable to them. Dr. Tennant observes that “of injustice and corruption, as judges, the author entirely acquits our countrymen; and of cruelty and oppression, as rulers, he brings not the slightest imputation. From his intimate acquaintance with this subject, and his bias, if he felt any, being wholly against us, we may applaud our early adventurers for having obtained this honourable testimony to their character. From want of knowledge in the language, he does accuse them of sometimes having suffered themselves to be imposed on by their banians and sarkárs; nor does he conceal that injustice was sometimes committed through their interference. Persian writings and books are not committed to the press and disseminated by publication as in Europe. This author's MSS., for many years, were handed about privately among the natives. He could, therefore, have no fear of giving offence to the English by what he brought forward. This is indeed apparent from many strictures he has written abundantly severe; nor does there seem any intention to please by flattery in a work that was never submitted to the perusal of the English. The praises of General Goddard, and of many other individuals, to be found in the Siyaru-l Muta-akhkhirín, are no exception to this remark, since they are evidently the effusions of sincerity and gratitude, and some of them, as that of Mr. Fullarton, were written long after the parties concerned had left the country. Without having any knowledge of civil liberty in the abstract, this author possessed the fullest enjoyment of it, and from this circumstance his testimony has become of great importance.”*
The Siyaru-l Muta-akhkhirín, or “Manners of the Moderns,”
was completed in the year 1783 by Saiyid Ghulám 'Alí Khán
Tabátabá, a relation of Nawáb 'Alivardí Khán. His father,
Hidáyat 'Alí Khán, held the Government of Bihár in the
súbadárship of Mahábat Jang, as the náib, or deputy, of his
nephew and son-in-law Haibat Jang. He was afterwards
Faujdár, or military governor, of Sonpat and Pánípat, in the
reign of Muhammad Sháh. On the flight of Sháh 'Álam from
Dehlí to avoid the persecution of Gházíu-d dín Khán, he accompanied
him as his Mír-bakhshí or chief paymaster; having
obtained for his eldest son Ghulám Husain, the post of Mír-
His son, Ghulám Haidar, afterwards acted as representative of Kásim 'Alí Khán in Calcutta, till his suspected attachment to the English occasioned his removal. He was then engaged in various services under our own Government, and received many marks of favour from General Goddard, whom he attended on several enterprises. In a short Preface he says, “No one apparently having stood forth to write an account of the nobles of Hind since the death of Aurangzeb, I will briefly record what I know on the subject, or have heard from trustworthy and esteemed narrators, to the end that if hereafter any intelligent historian should be inclined to write the events of former times, the thread of successive occurrences might not be entirely broken. Relying, therefore, on the Divine aid, I proceed to the execution of my task, and will put down in clear language, free from abstruseness, whatsoever I have heard related by persons considered worthy of credit. If any mistakes occur, my apology is evident: those who have furnished the information must be answerable.”
Some further particulars of the author may be found in volumes i. and iii. of the Asiatic Annual Register, in which Extracts are given from his autobiography, which is said to have been prefixed to his History, but it does not appear there in the printed edition by 'Abdu-l Majíd.
This work was translated into English by Mustafá, a French renegade, and published at Calcutta in 1789 in three quarto volumes. The history of the translator is not very well known, but it appears from his Preface that he was in English employ, that he was a Muhammadan, and that he was plundered during a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was a French, Italian, Turkish, and apparently a classical scholar, also a perfect master of Persian and Hindústání. But although he prided himself upon his knowledge of English, he was not thoroughly versed in our tongue, and it is to be regretted that his translation was made into a language of which he was not a master, for his version is full of Gallicisms, although he says that he “could not write in any other language so fluently.” A large portion of the impression of his work was lost on its way to England, [and it has long been a rare book, only to be found here and there in public libraries.]
General Briggs undertook to bring out a new translation, [but he published only one volume, containing about one-sixth of the whole work, and this was more an amended version of the original translator's English than a revision of his translation.] A portion of the work relating to the transactions in Bengal has been translated in the second volume of Scott's History of the Deccan
The Siyaru-l Muta-akhkhirín has been printed more than once at Calcutta. An excellent edition of the first volume was brought out there in 1836 by Hakím 'Abdu-l Majíd, in a quarto volume of 534 pages.
The work is well known to English readers from the many quotations and abstracts which Mill has made from it in his History of India; [and Ghulám Husain is “the Musulmán historian of those times” whom Macaulay has quoted and spoken of with approval.* In fact, the native side of the history of Ghulám Husain's days, as it appears in the works of English writers, rests almost entirely upon his authority. The limits of the present volume will not allow of such lengthy extracts as the merits of the work require, and it seems preferable to bring forward the views and statements of other writers, most of whom are entirely unknown to the European reader. For these reasons no Extracts from the work are here given; but it is greatly to be desired that a complete translation of this history should be accessible to the students of Indian history.]