Ziauddin Barani

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Ziauddin Barani (

Sassanid Iran, which promoted an idea of aristocracy through birth and which was claimed by Persians to be "fully in accordance with the main thrust of Islamic thought as it had developed by that time", including in the works of his near-contemporary Ibn Khaldun.[4]

Life

Barani was born in 1285, to an Indian Muslim family native to

Firuz Shah Tughluq. He was not rewarded for his works and died poor in 1357.[8]

Tombstone of Barani

His gravestone lies in the courtyard of Nizamuddin Auliya's

Khusrau
.

Works

Fatwa-i-Jahandari

The Fatwa-i-Jahandari is a work containing the political ideals to be pursued by a Muslim ruler in order to earn religious merit and the gratitude of his subjects.[7] It is written as nasihat(advices) for the Muslim kings. [9]

His fatwa would condone segregation of the Muslim ashraf upper castes and ajlaf low castes, in addition to the azral under-castes or the converted Muslims who are regarded as "ritually polluted" by the ashraf.[10][11][12] Muzaffar Alam argues that, contrarily to what many think, through this aristocratic view of power he doesn't follow secular models (Iranian or Indian), "rather, the interests of the Muslim community define the contours of his ideas on the heredity question", as he saw that during times of political troubles "frequent changes within ruling classes lead to the ruination of illustrious Muslim families", and thus preserving these upper class families, themselves at such place for diverse administrative or military qualities, would lead to the advent of more capable rulers and in the longer run help Muslim interests, Alam to conclude that this hierarchization "was a conscious choice exercised by Barani to serve the narrowly sectarian interests of the early Islamic regime in India".[13]

The work delves into aspects of religion and government and the meeting of those two, as well as political philosophy. He notes:

Religion and temporal government are twins; that is, head of religion and the head of government are twin brothers.[8][14]

Barani's Fatwa-i-Jahandari provides an example of his views on religion. He states that there is no difference between a Muslim king and a Hindu ruler, if the Muslim king is content in collecting jizya (poll-tax) and khiraj (tribute) from the Hindus. Instead, he recommends that a Muslim king should concentrate all his power on holy wars and completely uproot the "false creeds". According to him, a Muslim king could establish the supremacy of Islam in India only by slaughtering the Brahmins. He recommends that a Muslim king "should make a firm resolve to overpower, capture, enslave and degrade the infidels."[15]

At the same time, the book makes it clear that the kings of the Delhi Sultanate did not hold similar views. Barani rues that they honoured and favoured the Hindus, and had granted them the status of dhimmis (protected persons). The Muslim kings appointed Hindus to high posts, including governorships. Barani further laments that the Muslim kings were pleased with the prosperity of Hindus in their capital Delhi, even when poor Muslims worked for them and begged at their doors.[16]

Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi

The Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi or Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi (Firuz Shah's History) (1357) was an interpretation of the history of the

Nemesis.[8]

But, though Barani refers many times to the sources of information, he did not consult his contemporary works. This resulted in the sketchy description of Ala-ud-Din Khalji’s wars in Chittor, Ranthambhor and Malwa and the Deccan campaigns of

Ferishta and Haji-ud-Dabir depended upon the Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi for their account of history of the period covered in this work. Abdul Haq Dehlvi in his Akhbar-ul-Akhyar depended upon the work for the biographical sketches of Nizam-ud-Din Auliya and the other Sufi saints.[7]

Zawabit

Barani categorized the law into two kinds , the Shariat and the Zawabit. The Zawabit were the state laws formulated by the monarch in consultation with the nobility in the changed circumstances to cater to the new requirements which the Shariat was unable to fulfill.[17]

The Zawabit, he said must be in the spirit of the Shariat and enumerated four conditions for its formulation as guidelines. They are-

  • The Zawabit should not negate the Shariat.
  • It must increase the loyalty and hope among the nobles and common people towards the Sultan
  • Its sources and inspiration should be the Shariat and pious Caliphs
  • If at all it had to negate the Shariat out of exigencies, it must follow charities and compensation in lieu of that negation

Other works

  • Salvat-i-Kabir (The Great Prayer)
  • Sana-i-Muhammadi (Praises of Mohammad)
  • Hasratnama (Book of Regrets)
  • Tarikh-i-Barmaki
  • Inayat Nama-i-Ilahi (Book of Gods Gifts)
  • Maasìr Saadat (Good Deeds of the Sayyids)
  • Lubbatul Tarikh.
  • Fatawa-i-Dindari

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Arbind Das · (1996). Arthashastra of Kautilya and Fatawa-i-Jahandari of Ziauddin Barani. p. 144. Barani never called himself Turk for one intention that he wanted to be an Indian than anything else
  2. ^ Mohammad Habib (1950). Medieval India Quarterly: Volumes 1-5. p. 244. His ignorance of the geography of Central Asia and Persia is surprising...in his modes of thought and feeling he is hundred per cent Indian
  3. . Żiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī (ca. 1285–1357) ... was a native of Baran, a town just east of Delhi, known today as Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, India.
  4. ^ M. Athat Ali, "Elements of Social Justice in Medieval Islamic Thought" in Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri, Recording the Progress of Indian History: Symposia Papers of the Indian History Congress, 1992–2010, Primus Books, 2012, p. 197.
  5. ^ Auer B. (2018) Baranī, Żiyāʾ al-Dīn. In: Kassam Z.R., Greenberg Y.K., Bagli J. (eds) Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Encyclopedia of Indian Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1267-3_790.
  6. ^ Siba Pada Sen (1978). Sources of the History of India: Rajasthan. Haryana. Meghalaya. Uttar Pradesh. Jammu and Kashmir. p. 129. The ancestors of this noted historian originally hailed from Kaithal . When the family shifted to Baran
  7. ^ , pp.174-6
  8. ^ a b c A. L. Basham 1958, p. 458.
  9. .
  10. ^ Social Stratification Among Muslims in India Archived 18 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine by Zarina Bhatty
  11. ^ Partap C. Aggarwal 1978.
  12. ^ Bhimrao Ambedkar 1945.
  13. ^ Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam in India: c. 1200-1800, The University of Chicago Press, 2004, pp. 41-42
  14. ^ Barani, Fatawa-yi-Jahandari, folios 247b-248a
  15. ^ Banarsi Prasad Saksena 1992, p. 355.
  16. ^ Banarsi Prasad Saksena 1992, p. 355-356.
  17. ISBN 978-93-325-8733-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )

References

Further reading