Person · Mughal court historian · India
Abu’l-Fazl
Akbar's court historian, author of the official Akbarnama and, as its third volume, the Ain-i-Akbari — a gazetteer of the empire's provinces, prices, wages, castes, crops, mansab ranks, court procedure and household. It is the fullest administrative description of any pre-modern state in Asia.
- Date
- 1574–1602
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Mughal
- Condition
- historical person
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 27.180, 78.020
Worth knowing
He and his brother Faizi were sons of Shaikh Mubarak, a scholar twice in trouble with the orthodox ulama, and between them they ran the reign's literary and historical establishment. He was murdered on the road from the Deccan in 1602 by a Bundela chief acting on Prince Salim's instructions, and Salim became Jahangir three years later.
About the place
Placed at Agra, Akbar's court, where he wrote the Akbarnama and the Ain-i Akbari as official historian. He was killed on the road from the Deccan in 1602 on Prince Salim's orders.
Connections (4)
- PatronageAkbar
The Ā'īn-i Akbarī lists the revenue of every district, the price of every commodity, the wages of every trade, the ranks of the army, the customs of the provinces and the recipes of the imperial kitchen — an administrative photograph of an empire, written by the emperor's closest friend and probably his ghostwriter. Jahangir had Abu'l-Fazl murdered in 1602 for the influence he had over Akbar, which is the other thing to know about him.
- CampaignBīr Singh Deo
Abu'l-Fazl, Akbar's historian and the author of the Akbarnama and the Ain-i Akbari, was killed on the road from the Deccan in 1602 by Bir Singh Deo of Orchha, acting for Prince Salim, who wanted him out of the way and was afraid of his influence with the emperor. Akbar is said to have grieved for him more than for anyone. When Salim became Jahangir, the reward paid for Orchha's and Datia's palaces.
- In the same set asAbu'l-Faiz Faizi
Faizi and Abu'l-Fazl were brothers and sons of Shaikh Mubarak, a scholar twice in trouble with the orthodox ulama, and between them they ran Akbar's literary and historical establishment: the poet laureate and chief Sanskrit translator on one side, the official chronicler and gazetteer-writer on the other. The intellectual character of the reign is substantially one family's.
- Imperial inscription atFatehpur Sīkrī
The Ain-i-Akbari's account of court procedure, the translation bureau, the Ibadat Khana debates and the imperial household all describe this city, where Abu'l-Fazl worked for most of the years he was writing. The chronicle and the capital were built in the same fifteen years, and both were abandoned by the reign that commissioned them.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak”. Abu'l-Fazl, Akbarnāma and Āʾīn-i Akbarī, trans. Beveridge, Blochmann and Jarrett; S.A.A. Rizvi, Religious and Intellectual History of the Muslims in Akbar's Reign (1975).
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