[OF this writer very little is known, except what we gather from the work before us. His father was Mullá 'Alí Sher, a learned man, among whose pupils was Nizámu-d dín Ahmad, the author of the Tabakát-i Akbarí. Shaikh Illahdád was a native of Sirhind, and held a madad-ma'ásh village in that district. He was attached to the service of Shaikh Faríd Bokhárí, who held the office of Bakhshíu-l Mulk, and he seems to have accompanied that nobleman on his various services. He tells us that it was by the express command of Shaikh Faríd that this history was written. He began it in the thirty-sixth year of his age, having up to that time “been greatly devoted to social pleasures and delights.” This same Shaikh Faríd was also patron of another historian, Shaikh Núru-l Hakk, whose work, the Zubdatu-t Tawáríkh, will be noticed soon after this.
The Akbar-náma of Shaikh Illahdád is a plain unambitious work, and has no pretensions to originality. It is based on the Tabakát-i Akbarí; but the author sometimes prefers the narrative of Abú-l Fazl, and adapts that writer's florid and somewhat prolix descriptions to his sober and straightforward style. Thus the accounts of the murder of Atka Khán and the conquest of Garha-katanka are taken from Abú-l Fazl. On one subject only does he enter into more particular details—the services rendered by his patron, Shaikh Faríd Bokhárí. With this exception, and the addition of scraps of poetry and some wonderful stories, the work is nothing more than a compilation from the Tabakát-i Akbarí and the Akbar-náma of Abú-l Fazl. It ends with the latter work in 1010 H. (1602 A.D.).
The author claims to have taken part in the compilation of the “Humáyún Sháhí* of Mihtar Jauhar,” and upon the Emperor Akbar being informed of this fact, he expressed his approval, and his intention of employing him to turn some Hindí work into Persian.
A few Extracts have been translated. The first one by Ensign F. Mackenzie, the remainder by the Editor.
Sir H. Elliot's copy of the Akbar-náma is an octavo volume of 453 pages, 15 lines to a page.]