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An Emissary from Akbar to ‘Abbās I: Inscriptions, Texts, and the Career of Amīr Muḥammad Ma‘ṣ;ūm al-Bhakkaī

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Jamsheed K. Choksy  and
M. Usman Hasan
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Extract

It has been suggested that all historical sources are subjective from their inception and that authors' styles, commitments and views determine the bases of historical writings. Claude Lévi-Strauss has ventured so far as to claim: “Besides, historical fact has no objective reality. It only exists as a result of a retrospective construction undertaken by people who have lived the events they speak of in a purely arbitrative sense.” Indeed, historical narratives are fraught with danger when used as sources of actual information, for factual accuracy often does not extend to validity in representation of events. Formal histories such as dynastic chronicles were particularly vulnerable to misrepresentation. They usually were composed either with the intent of flattering the rulers who served as patrons of the author's efforts - and, hence, reflect royal ideology and imperial propaganda - or as a means of disparaging and vilifying the royal house

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 1991 , pp. 19 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1991

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References

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The Amīr's nisba, although written as al-Bakkarī in the inscriptions, is more correctly al-Bhakkarī as given in the Tārīkh-i Sind.

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52 Akbar nāma, iii, p. 831Google Scholar. See also Tripathi, , Mughal Empire, pp. 338–9.Google Scholar

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59 Tārīkh-i Sind, pp. 131–2.Google Scholar

60 Compare the classification of inscriptions in Bendrey, V. S., A Study of Muslim Inscriptions (Bombay, 1944; rpt. Karachi, n.d.), pp. 55–8Google Scholar; and Humphreys, , Islamic History, pp. 59–60, 141.Google Scholar

61 For alternate routes see Farooque, Abul Khair M., Roads and Communications in Mughal India (Delhi, 1977), pp. 216–7, 220–5.Google Scholar