Twilight of the Sultanate: A Political, Social and Cultural History of the Sultanate of Delhi from the Invasion of Timur to the Conquest of Babur 1398-1526 (An Old and Rare Book)

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AS I SAID in my History of the Khaljis, the history of Pre-Mughal India has not received the attention it deserves, so that until now no monograph on the history of fifteenth century India has been brought out. The present work is an attempt to fill this long-felt gap in India's history.

However, while writing on the history of the Sultanate from Timur to Babur, one has to tread on difficult ground faced as one is with the glaring paucity of contemporary historical literature. The con- temporary and nearly contemporary sources are indeed so few that it is necessary to study, howsoever briefly, their merits and defects to appreciate the difficulties of one who attempts to write on this period.

There are three works on the history of Timur-all written out- side India-while Indian annalists deal with his invasion in a very casual manner. The three chronicles forming the chief sources of Timur's history are:

(1) Mulfuzut-i-Timuri, also called Tuzuk-i-Timuri or Memoirs of Timur, (2) Zafar Nama of Sharafuddin Yazdi, and

(3) Ajaibul Maqdur fi Akhbar-i-Timur of Ahmad bin Arabshah.

Timur's Memoirs or Mulfuzat are considered to be apocryphal by many eminent authorities like Ethe, Rieu, Beveridge, Browne, and M. Bouyat. No original copy of this work in Turki exists, while about its translation rendered in Persian by Abu Talib Husaini in the reign of Shahjahan, E. G. Browne says: "It appears much more likely that he (Abu Talib) himself compiled the Persian work...with the aid of Zafar Nama and other histories of timur.