Najaf haider biography of william

D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula.

Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language. Najaf Haider. School of Social Sciences. Room No. Personal Webpage. The shoe sellers' riot exposed fissures based on religion, class and politics and posed a challenge to the authority of the Mughal state during the twilight of the Empire.

The article is a study of the riot and the riot narratives preserved in three unpublished contemporary works. Together with a discussion of the Ahmedabad riot of ad, the article examines the nature of conflicts involving civilian population in the cities of Mughal India in the early eighteenth century and the response of political and religious authorities.

An important aspect of the incidents studied in the article is the role of religion in organizing group violence even when the cause of the conflict was not necessarily najaf haider biography of william. Conversely, cross-community support arising from patronage, class and notions of pride and honour demonstrated that religion was one among many possible forms of identity in Mughal India.

The Moneychangers Sarrafs in Mughal India. The Mughal exchange economy can be visualised as comprising twin circles of cash and credit. In the first, transactions were conducted in currency money metallic and non-metallic consisting of fresh imports and pre-existing stocks. In the second, payments were deferred to prefixed dates using credit instruments.

The circles of cash and credit grew in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, possibly more in the latter. They were essentially assayers and moneychangers who operated in the market or worked for a client state, village community, members of the ruling class, merchantsor carried out both functions at the same time. The possession and handling of cash enabled them to diversify their operations, the most important being banking.

Foreign Trade of India Manuscript Production and Preservation in Medieval India. Minting Technology in Mughal India. Between Two Worlds. Faith and Reason in Medieval India. The Mughal Empire established a single trimetallic currency with the silver rupee as its basic co By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Mughal currency system had established itself over a large part of the country through imperial expansion and a series of administrative measures ranging from monetised taxation and serial mint production to standardisation of the circulating medium.

The Mughal government prohibited the circulation of any coin other than the one uttered by the imperial mints and the standard policy was to convert all non-Mughal coins, Indian and foreign, into coins of the current monarch. The Mughal emperors treated coinage as a symbol of sovereignty and its issuance and integrity a matter of great prestige.

Jahangir enquired anxiously whether his coins would also preserve his memory. Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, the Pashtuns, the Hindu Jats and the Sikhs, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule, which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military experience.

Najaf haider biography of william: The purpose of the article is

Abstract: Interpretation of Muslim state in India is always remaining a colonial scholarship. Muslim rule in India is narrated as "Oriental despotism" in which a large number of Hindus were the victim of genocides. Monolithic agenda of religious confrontation was introduced by commissioned historians who organized and re write the scattered past of oriental worlds.

Hindus were the custodians of the Vedic culture. Muslim conquered this land by force and ruins the temples and worshipping places. Muslims permanent hostility towards other communities was not possible in medieval times. After many shocks of conquest Muslims prepared to find a via media for those who were living around them. Muslim interacted with other communities like Hindus, Buddhist even Christian and create a congenial environment.

Muslims and Hindus had closer relation as compare to other communities. It is hardly impossible to exaggerate the extent of Muslim influences over Indian life in every sphere. From state formation to the selection of nobility- from economic life to domestic one, even in the marriages, foods, festivals and fairs, Muslim shared their cultural Influences with other communities.

This paper is an effort to dilute this image that Mughals were more orthodox towards other communities in India and developed a theocratic state. This research will also highlight the Mughals sense of "Unity in diversity". Arheologia mileniului I p. Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

Need an account? Click here to sign up. Mughal Islamic Regime In India sara chaabani. Revisiting Mughal State Rukhsana Iftikhar. Although this grand vision was often circumscribed by actual political circumstances, it remained important. One way of transmitting this vision was through the writing of dynastic histories. The Mughal kings commissioned court historians to write accounts.

In addition, their writers collected vast amounts of information from the regions of the subcontinent to help the rulers govern their domain. Modern historians writing in English have termed this genre of texts c h r o n i c l e s, as they present a continuous chronological record of events. Chronicles are an indispensable source for any scholar wishing to write a history of the Mughals.

At one level they were a repository of factual information about the institutions of the Mughal state, painstakingly collected and classified by individuals closely connected with the court. At the same time these texts were intended as conveyors of meanings that the Mughal rulers sought to impose on their domain. They therefore give us a glimpse into how imperial ideologies were created and disseminated.

This chapter will look at the workings of this rich and fascinating dimension of the Mughal Empire. Though today the term evokes the grandeur of an empire, it was not the name the rulers of the dynasty chose for themselves. They referred to themselves as Timurids, as descendants of the Turkish ruler Timur on the paternal side. He spoke Turkish and referred derisively to the Mongols as barbaric hordes.

During the sixteenth century, Europeans used the term Mughal to describe the Indian rulers of this branch of the family. The empire was carved out of a number of regional states of India through conquests and political alliances between the Mughals and local chieftains. The founder of the empire, Zahiruddin Babur, was driven from his Central Asian homeland, Farghana, by the warring Uzbeks.

He first established himself at Kabul and then in pushed further into the Indian subcontinent in search of territories and resources to satisfy the needs of the members of his clan. His successor, Nasiruddin Humayunexpanded the frontiers of the empire, but lost it to the Afghan leader Sher Shah Sur, who drove him into exile. Humayun took refuge in the court of the Safavid ruler of Iran.

In Humayun defeated the Surs, but died a year later. Many consider Jalaluddin Akbar the greatest of all the Mughal emperors, for he not only expanded but also consolidated his empire, making it the largest, strongest and richest kingdom of his time. Akbar succeeded in extending the frontiers of the empire to the Hindukush mountains, and checked the expansionist designs of the Uzbeks of Turan Central Asia and the Safavids of Iran.

Akbar had three fairly able successors in JahangirShah Jahan and Aurangzebmuch as their characters varied. Under them the territorial expansion continued, though at a much reduced pace. The three rulers maintained and consolidated the various instruments of governance. Find out whether the state in which you live formed part of the Mughal Empire.

Were there any changes in the area as a result of the establishment of the empire? If your state was not part of the najaf haider biography of william, find out more about contemporary regional rulers — their origins and policies. What kind of records did they maintain? These included effective methods of administration and taxation.

The visible centre of Mughal power was the court. Here political alliances and relationships were forged, status and hierarchies defined. The political system devised by the Mughals was based on a combination of military power and conscious policy to accommodate the different traditions they encountered in the subcontinent. Afterfollowing the death of Aurangzeb, the power of the dynasty diminished.

In place of the vast apparatus of empire controlled from Delhi, Agra or Lahore — the different capital cities — regional powers acquired greater autonomy. Yet symbolically the prestige of the Mughal ruler did not lose its aura. The Production of Chronicles Chronicles commissioned by the Mughal emperors are an important source for studying the empire and its court.

They were written in order to project a vision of an enlightened kingdom to all those who came under its umbrella. At the same time they were meant to convey to those who resisted the rule of the Mughals that all resistance was destined to fail. Also, the rulers wanted to ensure that there was an account of their rule for posterity.

The authors of Mughal chronicles were invariably courtiers. The histories they wrote focused on events centred on the ruler, his family, the court and nobles, wars and administrative arrangements. Their titles, such as the Akbar Nama, Shahjahan Nama, Alamgir Nama, that is, the story of Akbar, Shah Jahan and Alamgir a title of the Mughal ruler Aurangzebsuggest that in the eyes of their authors the history of the empire and the court was synonymous with that of the emperor.

Chaghtai Turks traced descent from the eldest son of Ghengiz Khan. Under the Sultans of Delhi it flourished as a language of the court and of literary writings, alongside north Indian languages, especially Hindavi and its regional variants. Their first ruler Babur wrote poetry and his memoirs in this language. It was Akbar who consciously set out to make Persian the leading language of the Mughal court.

Cultural and intellectual contacts with Iran, as well as a regular stream of Iranian and Central Asian migrants seeking positions at the Mughal court, might have motivated the emperor to adopt the language. Persian was elevated to a language of empire, conferring power and prestige on those who had a command of it. It was spoken by the king, the royal household and the elite at court.

Further, it became the language of administration at all levels so that accountants, clerks and other functionaries also learnt it. Even when Persian was not directly used, its vocabulary and idiom heavily influenced the language of official records in Rajasthani and Marathi and even Tamil. Since the people using Persian in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries came from many different regions of the subcontinent and spoke other Indian languages, Persian too became Indianised by absorbing local idioms.

A new language, Urdu, sprang from the interaction of Persian with Hindavi. Translations of Sanskrit texts such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana into Persian were commissioned by the Mughal emperors. The Mahabharata was translated as the Razmnama Book of Wars. The centre of manuscript production was the imperial kitabkhana. The creation of a manuscript involved a number of people performing a variety of tasks.

The spoken word goes to the heart of those who are najaf haider biography of william to hear it. The written word gives wisdom to those who are near and far. If it was not for the written word, the spoken word would soon die, and no keepsake would be left us from those who are passed away. Superficial observers see in the letter a dark figure, but the deepsighted see in it a lamp of wisdom chirag-i shinasai.

The written word looks black, notwithstanding the thousand rays within it, or it is a light with a mole on it that wards off the evil eye. A letter khat is the portrait of wisdom; a rough sketch from the realm of ideas; a dark light ushering in day; a black cloud pregnant with knowledge; speaking though dumb; stationary yet travelling; stretched on the sheet, and yet soaring upwards.

The finished manuscript was seen as a precious object, a work of intellectual wealth and beauty. It exemplified the power of its patron, the Mughal emperor, to bring such beauty into being.

Najaf haider biography of william: Biography. Najaf Haider worked as Professor,

At the same time some of the people involved in the actual production of the manuscript also got recognition in the form of titles and awards. Of these, calligraphers and painters held a high social standing while others, such as paper makers or bookbinders, have remained anonymous artisans. Calligraphy, the art of handwriting, was considered a skill of great importance.

It was practised using different styles. It is written using a piece of trimmed reed with a tip of five to 10 mm called qalam, dipped in carbon ink siyahi. The nib of the qalam is usually split in the middle to facilitate the absorption of ink. In what ways do you think the production of books today is similar to or different from the ways in which Mughal chronicles were produced?

The Painted Image Fig. As we read in the previous section, painters too were involved in the production of Mughal manuscripts. When scenes or themes in a book were to be given visual expression, the scribe left blank spaces on nearby pages; paintings, executed separately by artists, were inserted to accompany what was described in words.

These paintings were miniatures, and could therefore be passed around for viewing and mounting on the pages of manuscripts. Paintings served not only to enhance the beauty of a book, but were believed to possess special powers of communicating ideas about the kingdom and the power of kings in ways that the written medium could not.

Here the Prophet is cited as having forbidden the depiction of living beings in a naturalistic manner as it would suggest that the artist was seeking to appropriate the power of creation. This was a function that was believed to belong exclusively to God. His Majesty from his earliest youth, has shown a great predilection for this art, and gives it every encouragement, as he looks upon it as a means both of study and amusement.

A very large number of painters have been set to work. Each week, several supervisors and clerks of the imperial workshop submit before the emperor the work done by each artist, and His Majesty gives a reward and increases the monthly salaries of the artists according to the excellence displayed. The minuteness in detail, the general finish and the boldness of execution now observed in pictures are incomparable; even inanimate objects look as if they have life.

More than a hundred painters have become famous masters of the art.

Najaf haider biography of william: A lost city of Delhi

This is especially true of the Hindu artists. Their pictures surpass our conception of things. Few, indeed, in the whole world are found equal to them. How did he seek to legitimise this art? The body of Islamic tradition was interpreted in different ways by various social groups. Frequently each group put forward an understanding of tradition that would best suit their political needs.

Muslim rulers in many Asian regions during centuries of empire building regularly commissioned artists to paint their portraits and scenes of life in their kingdoms. The Safavid kings of Iran, for example, patronised the finest artists, who were trained in workshops set up at court. The names of painters — such as that of Bihzad — contributed to spreading the cultural fame of the Safavid court far and wide.

Artists from Iran also made their way to Mughal India. Others migrated in search of opportunities to win patronage and prestige. A conflict between the emperor and the spokesmen of orthodox Muslim opinion on the question of visual representations of living beings was a source of tension at the Mughal court. It appears to me that an artist has a unique way of recognising God when he must come to feel that he cannot bestow life on his work Each manuscript contained an average of full- or double-page paintings of battles, sieges, hunts, building construction, court scenes, etc.

He was widely read in Arabic, Persian, Greek philosophy and Sufism. Moreover, he was a forceful debater and independent thinker who consistently opposed the views of the conservative ulama. The chronicle is based on a range of sources, including actual records of events waqaiofficial documents and oral testimonies of knowledgeable persons. The Akbar Nama is divided into three books of which the first two are chronicles.

The third najaf haider biography of william is the Ain-i Akbari. The second volume closes in the fortysixth regnal year of Akbar. In the Ain-i Akbari the Mughal Empire is presented as having a diverse population consisting of Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists and Muslims and a composite culture. Emperor Shah Jahan, hearing of his talents, commissioned him to write a history of his reign modelled on the Akbar Nama.

The Badshah Nama is this official history in three volumes daftars of ten lunar years each. Infirmities of old age prevented Lahori from proceeding with the third decade which was then chronicled by the historian Waris. Travels of the Badshah Nama Gifting of precious manuscripts was an established diplomatic custom under the Mughals. Inconservation work required the bound manuscript to be taken apart.

This made it possible to exhibit the paintings, and in for the first time, the Badshah Nama paintings were shown in exhibitions in New Delhi, London and Washington. The Asiatic Society of Bengal, founded by Sir William Jones inundertook the editing, printing and translation of many Indian manuscripts. Edited versions of the Akbar Nama and Badshah Nama were first published by the Asiatic Society in the nineteenth century.

In the early twentieth century the Akbar Nama was translated into English by Henry Beveridge after years of hard labour. Only excerpts of the Badshah Nama have been translated into English to date; the text in its entirety still awaits translation. Find out whether there was a tradition of illustrating manuscripts in your town or village.

Who prepared these manuscripts? What were the subjects that they dealt with? How were these manuscripts preserved? One of the legends they narrated was that of the Mongol queen Alanqua, who was impregnated by a ray of sunshine while resting in her tent. The offspring she bore carried this Divine Light and passed it on from generation to generation.

Here he was inspired by a famous Iranian sufi, Shihabuddin Suhrawardi d.