BARANI

 Give an assessment of Ziauddin Barani as a historian:

The first great historian of the period is Ziauddin Barani, whose famous work, Tarikh-e-Firoz Shahi was written in about 1358 AD. He begins his history from Balban to Mohammed-bin-Tughlaq with six years of Firoz Shah, and hence most of the events covered in his history were fresh during his time.

Barani had a high conception of History and considered it to be an essential duty to record honestly the whole truth. As he had ample opportunity of knowing the details, his history is the most important source of information for the period.

Prof. Dawson says that Barani freely criticizes the action and character of kings and great men of the time, doling out his praises and censures in accordance with their needs.

For Prof. Ishwari Prasad, Dr. Mahdi Husain and Prof. Habibullah he is invaluable because he is the main, if not the only authority for the history of the period.

Even W. H. Moreland and Dr. I. H. Qureshi found him to be very useful for the agrarian, economic and administrative history of the period. Hasan Barani and Prof. Sheikh Abdur Rashid also regard him as a great historian who is not merely informative but critical. It is only Prof. Peter Hardy of London University who thinks that Barani does not rise to the stature of a great historian, but Prof Hardy measures a historian of the fourteenth century with the yardstick of the twentieth century. To be fair to Barani one has to say that he elevated the chronicle type of history to a higher level and infused in it a substantial philosophy of history with which Dr. Hardy is in disagreement. Barani took the writing of history seriously and aimed at contributing some inspired literature based upon reality and experience. He felt sincerely that history had a significant purpose to serve, namely to guide humanity on the right path. He was inclined towards didactic history.

Barani was well connected with the Delhi ruling circles. His father was a secretary to the second son of Jalaluddin Khilji. His uncle, Malik Alam-ul-Mulk, was the Kotwal of Delhi under Allauddin Khilji and a prominent royal counsellor. His maternal uncle had been appointed a governor of Lakhnauti by Sultan Balban.  Barani himself was appointed a companion of Muhammad bin Tughlaq for seventeen years. After the death of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, Barani tried to gain the favor of Firoz Shah Tughlaq. Thus, both from his personal experience, his family position, his wide contacts and his link with the court he was ideally suited to write history. Moreover, a reflective mood, an inquisitive mind, a fearless temperament, and a critical faculty added further qualification to his gift of good style, lucid exposition, and clarity of thought. His motives in writing history were practical because he believed that he was offering to God something which would open the eyes of mankind to god, and the Sultan something which would benefit him in this world and in the next. He was quite proficient in the theological studies of his time. To Barani, History was true religion. It was an indispensable study for a good life in the world. It warns the readers to avoid the base and prompts them to adopt the noble. He lists seven benefits in the study of history:

1.    It introduces us to the lives of great men, prophets, saints, thinkers and sultan.

2.    It opens us to the wisdom of the past.

3.    It excites in us reason and judgment by the study of the experiences of the past.

4.    It comforts us in our misfortune and adversity; it prevents us from worrying about hypothetical dangers, it offers us warnings of dangers ahead; and it offers us warnings of dangers ahead; and it prompts us to be sober at times of success and glory.

5.    It encourages patience and resignation.

6.    It provokes respect for the righteous and contempt for the wicked.

7.    It is the strongest foundation of truth. It is the depiction of the drama of right and wrong, justice and oppression, obedience and rebellion and virtue and vice.

Thus Barani is a didactic and fearless historian who writes as if he had a mission in life. He insists that a true historian must speak the truth without fear or favor. He aims at achieving this goal in History through the depiction of his characters in their role of rise and fall. His history is a record not merely of events, episodes, and personalities but also of rules, regulation, precepts, principles and prescriptions. Although he did not deal with causes, conditions, and processes he has dealt at length on events and consequences. He calls History ‘the Queen of Sciences’.

Barani had a technique of his own in the treatment of history. He puts his ideas into the mouth of some of the historical personages. Secondly, Barani has fixed in his mind certain concepts for an ideal monarch and he found them in Firoz Shah, who was, according to him, a personification of those concepts. He is harsh on Mohammed bin Tughlaq, obviously for his inconsistent policies. Even today Mohammed bin Tughlaq appears to be a puzzle to us, a bundle of contradictions and a mixture of opposites. Barani rages in fury at some of the suicidal policies of this Sultan.

In Firoz Shah, he finds a divine redemption and creates an impression that the affairs in this world are conditioned by laws of nature which justly offer rewards to the good and retribution to the bad. In short, Barani had a profound philosophy of his own, which merely said that actions of men cannot escape divine judgment. He sees the past as the battleground between good and evil and men are combatants who are destined to get what they deserve. Having treated history scientifically, he leans in the end towards philosophy which prompts Dr. Hardy to remark that Barani treats history as a branch of theology.