 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Firishta" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(July 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Firishta | |
|---|---|
| Born | Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Astarabadi c. 1570[1] |
| Died | 1611–1623 |
| Occupation(s) | Historian, poet, novelist |
| Academic work | |
| Era | Medieval Islamic period |
| Main interests | Indo-Muslim history, Deccan history |
| Notable works | Tārīkh-i Firishta (Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī) |
Firishta orFerešte (Persian:فرشته), full nameMuhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Astarabadi[1][a] (Persian:محمدقاسم هندوشاہ استرابادی), was aPersian[2] historian, who later settled in India and served theDeccan Sultans as their court historian. He was born in 1570[3] and died between 1611[4] and 1623.[5][1]
Firishta was bornc. 1570 atAstarabad on the shores of theCaspian Sea to Gholam Ali Hindu Shah.[1] While Firishta was still a child, his father was summoned away from his native country toAhmednagar, India, to teachPersian to the young prince Miran Husain Nizam Shah, with whom Firishta studied.[6]
In 1587 Firishta was serving as the captain of guards of KingMurtaza Nizam Shah I when Prince Miran overthrew his father and claimed the throne ofAhmednagar. At this time, the SunniDeccani Muslims committed a general massacre of the foreign population, especially Shias of Iranian origin,[7][8] of which Firishta was one of. However, Prince Miran spared the life of his former friend, who then left forBijapur to enter the service of KingIbrahim Adil II in 1589.[6]
Having been in military positions until then, Firishta was not immediately successful inBijapur. Further exacerbating matters was the fact that Firishta was of Shia origin and therefore did not have much chance of attaining a high position in the dominantly Sunni courts of theDeccan sultanates.[6] Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur had also begun following the policy of bringing Sunni Muslim Deccanis to power and ending Shia domination by dismissing them from their posts.[9][10] In 1593 Ibrahim Shah II ultimately implored Firishta to write a history of India with equal emphasis on the history of Deccan dynasties as no work thus far had given equal treatment to all regions of the subcontinent.[6][1]
The work was variously known as theTārīkh-i Firishta (The History of Firishta) and theGulshan-i Ibrāhīmī (The Rose-Garden of Ibrahim [Shah II]). In the introduction, a resume of the history of Hindustan prior to the times of theMuslim conquest is given, and also the victorious progress ofArabs through the East. The first ten books are each occupied with a history of the kings of one of the provinces; the eleventh book gives an account of the Muslims ofMalabar; the twelfth a history of the Muslimsaints of India; and the conclusion treats of thegeography andclimate of India.[11]
Tārīkh-i Firishta consists primarily of the following chapter's (maqāla), with some, like "The Kings of Dakhin" having subchapters (rawza):[6]
Contemporary scholars and historians variously write that the works of Firishta drew fromTabaqāt-i-Akbarī by Nizamuddin,[12]Tarīkh-i-Rāshidī by Mirza Haidar[12][full citation needed] and Barani'sTārīkh.[13][full citation needed] At least one historian,Peter Jackson, explicitly states that Firishta relied upon the works of Barani and Sarhindi, and that his work cannot be relied upon as a first hand account of events, and that at places in theTarīkh he is suspected of having relied upon legends and his own imagination.[14][full citation needed]
According to T. N. Devare, Firishta's account is the most widely quoted history of theAdil Shahi, but it is the only source for asserting theOttoman origin ofYusuf Adil Shah, the founder of theAdil Shahi dynasty. Devare believes that to be a fabricated story. Other sources for Deccani history mentioned by Devare are those of Mir Rafiuddin Ibrahim-i Shirazi, or "Rafi'", Mir Ibrahim Lari-e Asadkhani, and Ibrahim Zubayri, the author of the Basatin as-Salatin (67, fn 2). Devare observed that the work is "a general history ofIndia from the earliest period up to Firishta's time written at the behest ofIbrahim Adil Shah II and presented to him in 1015 AH/1606 CE. It seems, however, that it was supplemented by the author himself as it records events up to AH 1033 (1626 CE)" (Devare 272).[citation needed]
On the other hand,Tārīkh-i Firishta is said to be independent and reliable on the topic of north Indian politics of the period, ostensibly that of EmperorJahangir where Firishta's accounts are held credible because of his affiliation with the south Indian kingdom ofBijapur.[15]
Despite his fabricated story of Yusuf'sOttoman origin, Firishta's account continues to be a very popular story and has found wide acceptance inBijapur today.[citation needed]
In 1768, when theEast India Company officer and OrientalistAlexander Dow translated Firishta's text into English language, it came to be seen as an authoritative source of historical information by the English.[16]
Firishta's work still maintains a high place and is considered reliable in many respects. Several portions of it have been translated into English; but the best as well as the most complete translation is that published by GeneralJ. Briggs under the title ofThe History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India (London, 1829, 4 vols. 8vo). Several additions were made by Briggs to the original work of Firishta, but he omitted the whole of the twelfth book, and various other passages which had been omitted in the copy from which he translated.[11]
Another tendency of Firishta (a Persian of Astarabad) is to underline (...)
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ferishta, Mahommed Kasim".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 274.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
