Nahavandi’s Persian chronicle records the world of Abd al-Rahim Khan-i Khanan. Its manuscript history, patronage and disputed biographical dates explain how historians use it.

Geometric stars, interlaced lines and floral patterns cover a pale ceiling with visible worn patches inside Abd al-Rahim Khan-i Khanan’s tomb in Delhi
Ceiling decoration in the Delhi tomb of Nahavandi’s patron, Abd al-Rahim Khan-i Khanan, photographed by Pinakpani on 20 August 2018. This is not Nahavandi’s tomb or a portrait of the historian. CC BY-SA 4.0. [5] © Pinakpani · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons.

A family in Safavid administration

Abd-al-Baqi Nahavandi was a Persian-writing historian and administrator who moved from Safavid Iran to Mughal India. Hameed ud-Din’s biographical study places his birth at Julak near Nahavand and identifies his father, Aqa Baba, as a Kurdish poet using the pen name Modreki. Father and brother held provincial offices. [1] This family identification supplies the specific Kurdish connection. His place-name by itself should not be used to assign one ethnic identity to an entire city across all historical periods.

Migration and a new patron

After provincial and revenue work in Iran, Nahavandi entered Abd al-Rahim Khan-i Khanan’s service in Khandesh in 1614. He received a revenue assignment and a commission that produced the Maʾasir-i Rahimi in 1616. [1] Corinne Lefèvre situates this move within networks of administrators and literary people connecting Iran with South Asia. She links the commission to the patron’s political position in the Deccan. [3] Employment, literary reputation and the resources of a powerful household therefore all shaped the work.

What the chronicle contains

The work combines history, biography and a record of patronage. The manuscript contents described in Elliot and Dowson’s nineteenth-century account include earlier Indian history and Bairam Khan; Abd al-Rahim’s achievements and documents; his buildings, gardens and ships; his sons; and a concluding collection of learned men, poets and officers. [2] These divisions are broader than the label “memoirs” may suggest. The account describes a particular manuscript’s organization; page totals and physical volumes need to be tied to a specified copy or edition.

Reading praise as historical evidence

The translated extract in Elliot and Dowson shows how the author organizes a narrative around the Khan-i Khanan’s Deccan campaigns. It also preserves his acknowledgment that he used Nizam al-Din Ahmad’s Tabaqat-i Akbari for an earlier portion of Akbar’s reign and lacked information to complete the rest. [2] This distinguishes compilation from personal observation. Lefèvre likewise cautions that inclusion among the patron’s poets does not prove permanent employment at his court; comparison with other literary and visual records can change that picture. Her study also draws attention to the uneven representation of Persian- and Hindavi-speaking literary activity. [3] The chronicle’s selections and praise are evidence about a patron’s public image as well as sources for events.

Dates, manuscripts and printed editions

The biographical dates remain disputed. Hameed ud-Din gives 1570 and considers 1632 the probable death year, discussing conflicting readings of later manuscript notes. [1] Lefèvre instead gives 1573 and a death sometime after 1636. [3] These alternatives should remain attributed. The CiNii library record separately identifies Hidayat Husain’s Persian-text edition published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1924–31 as three volumes in four physical parts. [4] Composition date, manuscript annotation and modern publication date are different pieces of the record.

Sources and further reading

  1. Hameed ud-Din, ʿAbd-al-Bāqī Nahāvandī, Encyclopaedia Iranica I/1 (1982), pp. 104–105, updated 2018; biography and discussion of disputed dates.
  2. Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson, The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians, vol. VI (1875), chapter LII, pp. 237–243; manuscript description and translated extract from Nahavandi, digital transcription at Packard Humanities Institute.
  3. Corinne Lefèvre, The Court of ʿAbd-ur-Raḥīm Khān-i Khānān as a Bridge between Iranian and Indian Cultural Traditions, in Culture and Circulation (2014), pp. 75–106, especially pp. 77–81; biography, patronage and source criticism.
  4. National Institute of Informatics, CiNii Books record BB03635892, Maʾasir-i Rahimi, Persian text edited by M. Hidayat Husain, Calcutta, 1924–31; edition and physical-volume description.
  5. Pinakpani, Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khanan.jpg 14, own photograph of tomb ceiling, Delhi, 20 August 2018, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.