Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi of Shams Siraj Afif

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The Rampur Raza Library is one of the important libraries of the World. Besides works relating to different religions, traditions, it is a treasure house of Indo-Islamic learning and arts. This library was founded by Nawab Faizullah Khan in 1774. The Nawabs of Rampur were great patrons of learning and the learned ulema, poets, painters, calligraphers and musicians- enjoyed their patronage. After the independence of India and merger of the state in the union of India, the library was brought under the management of a trust, which was created on 6th April, 1951. Professor Saiyid Nurul Hasan, former Minister of Education, Government of India, brought this library under an Act of Parliament on 1st. July, 1975. The Chairman of the board is Honourable Governor of Uttar Pradesh. It is having around 17000 manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi and Turkish languages. Moreover, it possesses a good collection of paintings and palm leaves in various Indian languages. A collection of around 60,000 printed books in various Indian and foreign languages are also available.

When I joined as Director of Raza Library on 3rd. April, 2012, so I decided to pay special attention for the compilation and publication of the descriptive catalogues of manuscripts and publication of rare manuscripts available in Raza Library. I have published Hazrat Ali's Nahjul Balagha, Ziauddin Barani's Naat-i-Muhammadi, Ziauddin Barani's Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, Saiyid Muhammad Kamal Wasti's Asrariya Kashf-i-Sufia, Mughal Emperor Babur's Diwan, Diwan-i-Hafiz Shirazi, Jauhar Aftabchi's Tazkiratul Waqiat, Mohtashim Kashani's Dawazdeh Band and Fatahaullah Antaki's Al-Hind Kama Raitah. I have also published the Descriptive Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts; three volumes; Persian manuscripts, three volumes, Sanskrit manuscripts, two volumes, Turkish manuscripts, one volume, Pashto manuscripts, one volume, Urdu manuscripts, one volume, Proceedings of International seminar on "Sources of Indian History & Culture" held in 2012, is also published in two volumes, one in Urdu and the other in English in 2014. Now we are publishing the Catalogue of Tibbi manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Urdu preserved in Raza Library.

It is a matter of great pleasure that on the instruction of Nawab Saiyid Raza Ali Khan, Saiyid Moinuddin Nadvi prepared the text of Muhammed Arif Qandhari's Tarikh-i-Akbari. Then Dr. Saiyid Azhar Ali worked on this text. Finally it was assigned to Maulana Imtiyaz Ali Khan Arshi, former Mudeer of Kitab Khana-i-Raza, who prepared the edited text of Tarikh-i-Akbari which was published in 1962 which is now out of print. It was in great demand by the scholars and I have arranged the reprint of Tarikh-i-Akbari, so that scholars can use the Persian text of Tarikh-i-Akbari. We also published Rasheeduddin Fazlullah Hamedani's Jamiut Tawarikh in 2015. Hindi translations of following Persian chronicles are published by Raza Library in 2015. Gulbadan Begum's - Humayun Nama, Jauhar Aftabchi's - Tazkiratul Waqiat, Jalaluddin Mohammad's - Nadirat-i-Shahi and Ziauddin Barani's -Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi.

I am highly grateful to Shri Ram Naik, Honourable Governor of Uttar Pradesh and Chairman, Rampur Raza Library for his patronage. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Honourable Minister of Culture, Government of India and Mr. N.K. Sinha, Secretary, Ministry of Culture for their financial support. I am thankful to Ms. Juthika Patankar, Principal Secretary to Honourable Governor of Uttar Pradesh for her kind help and support. I am equally indebted to Ms. Sreya Guha, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi for giving me all the help.

I am highly thankful to Dr. Ishrat Ansari for translating Shams Siraj Afifs-Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi. I am grateful to my colleagues Dr. Abusad Islahi, Library and Information Officer, Mr. A. K. Saxena, Ms. Mohini Rani, Ms. Bilqis Farooqi, Mr. Faisal Khan and Er. Shujauddin Khan also whose valuable help and hard work has made this work possible.

With the advent of the Turks in India during the 13th century, the tradition of Persian historiography was introduced by the ulema in India. The science of historiography had already been developed in the Muslim world and a good number of histories were already written. There were two schools of historiography among Muslims, that of Arab historiography and that of Persian. This historiography was based on usul-i-isnad, whereby a narrative can be traced to the original eye-witness who narrated it. Ahadis became part of the thinking of the ulema in their treatment of all historical subjects. The relationship which medieval Indian historians established between hadis and history is clear from the opinion of Barani, "In the science of hadis all the words and deeds of the Holy Prophet and the most precious form of knowledge after Quranic commentary, the discovery and confrontation of narration, and the events recorded in tradition, the defensive activities of the Holy Prophet, the establishment of chronology, the abrogation of traditions are connected with history. It is on this account that the science of history is actively bound up with the science of tradition. The great Imams of traditions have said that history and traditions are twins, and if the traditionalist is not a historian, he will not be aware of the activities of the Holy Prophet".

The process of history-writing based on Persian historiography started in India, when we find outstanding historical accounts during the 13th century. Hasan Nizami's Tajul Maasir; Fakhr-e-Mudabbir's Adabul Harb wash Shujaat; Minhaj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri. Ziauddin Barani's Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, throws considerable light on the political and religious trends of the period. Barani's other work, Fatawa-i-Jahandari, is extremely valuable for the study of medieval political thought. Shams Siraj Afif's Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, deals with the reign of Sultan Firoz Shah Tughluq (1351-88 AD).

Most modern historians hold the opinion that Arab historians had a very wide concept of history, including in it almost everything related to society and culture. They wrote the history of an age. Then the Arabic language was given up and the Arab method of writing history was also dispensed with. The history of the age was converted into the history of kings. After the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632, the Khilafat came into existence, which continued upto 661 A.D. In 661, with the rise of Mulukiyat, there was open opposition to the promotion of the un-Islamic government, but gradually Muslims started making the necessary adjustments with the new political structure. Credit goes to Peter Hardy who for the first time took up the study of Persian historiography as a new field of exploration, Then Indian historians of medieval Indian history drew inspiration from Peter Hardy.

I think that translators are like ambassadors representing and exchanging the best of their world. As translation prompts us to peep into the diversified lingual, cultural and literary content of a source language, it helps us in appreciating the essence and niceties of the literature of that translated language. But at the same time translation is a challenging innovation and vast discipline of study that demands specialized knowledge with utmost proficiency, command over languages is to take on a world, a culture.

Translation can never merely be a play of balancing the equivalent words in the 'target' language to render the meaning of 'source'. Rather a translator must add to the context (a world, a culture), from which these words arise.

Thus, it would be appropriate to say that culture is something to be studied before the translation of a work can proceed. As Ranking had rightly observed, while translating Abdul Qadir Badauni's work - Muntakhabut Tawarikh, "for this reason, the poetical portions of Badauni's work have, in the present translation, almost without expectation been rendered, not in verse but in prose, thus preserving the substance while sacrificing the form. To render poetry satisfactory a translator must be both linguistic and poet, if he be only a linguistic he should not temper with the finished work of the poet. He can, at best, only hope to outline the subject, leaving the colour scheme untouched". We have to agree with Johnson when he opines that, "The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any written language except that in which it was originally written". But see the talent of Babur that he did a beautiful poetic translation of Risala-i-Walidiya from Persian to Turkish. Because we see that the language of poetry and the language of tasawwuf quite often collimate; the quality of poetry becomes high due to its refined language. To a certain level, the encounter between poetry and tasawwuf seems inevitable.