Siyaru'l-Muta'Akhkhirin: The History of Latter Days (India in the Eighteenth Century)

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Ghulam Husain Khan Tabataba'i's Siyaru'l-muta'akhkhirin is divided into three unequal parts. The first part traces the history of the Mughal Empire from the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 to the latter part of Muhammad Shah's reign, around 1740. The second part focuses on the history of Bihar and Bengal from the death of the governor Shuja'uddaula in 1739 through the nizamate of Sirajuddaula, who was deposed and died in 1757. The third part returns to the history of the empire at large, picking it up at 1740 and continuing to 1780. Since Ghulam Husain Khan spent almost his entire life in Bihar and Bengal and had family ties to many of the rulers, he was a first-hand witness to many of the events of which he writes. He was also acquainted with many of the British employees of the East India Company and has insightful observations on the rule (and misrule) of the Company and the part it played in the impoverishment of the region.

Of particular interest are Ghulam Husain Khan's digressions on his own life. These rare glimpses into the personal lives of the author and those around him show how precarious one's position was in an age of shifting fortunes as the power and prestige of the Mughal Empire diminished and lives and livelihoods could depend upon the whim of an autocratic local ruler.

Copious notes identifying persons and places as well as a glossary of non-English terms and genealogical and dynastic charts add to the value of the translation.

Wheeler Thackston is a retired academic who taught Persian, Arabic, and other Near Eastern languages for forty years.

He has translated Babur's memoirs, three Persian memoirs about Humayun, and Jahangir's memoirs. He has also edited and translated Abu'l-Fazl's Akbarnama and many other works.

PRAISE AND LAUD without end be to the magnificent and splendid court of the giver without peer, in witness to whose oneness worlds sing in various tongues and of whose transcendence of mutability the ever-changing world in all its forms and the endless succession of days and nights speak. Eternal praise is due to the Lord of Prophets, his family, and companions, for he is the ultimate reason for creation and the means for the regulation of the continuum of life may prayers and salutations be upon him and them until the last day.

It is patently obvious to those who peruse the pages of time that books of history contain many benefits for various peoples. You might say that to read a page of such books is to see a record of the creator's power and the marvels of creation. Awareness of the conditions and monuments of humans, the good customs of the chosen, and the heights scaled by those who followed them as well as knowledge of the misery of the wretched of the past and the vileness and mischief of ensuing tyrants may be easily acquired by felicitous people of enlightened and intelligent minds through awakening and eschewing heedlessness and error.

Therefore, it occurred to this least of all creatures, Ghulam Husain, son of Hidayat Ali Khan, son of Sayyid Alimullah, son of Sayvid Faizullah Tabataba'i, on Tuesday, the first day of the month of Safar in the year 1194 [7 February 1780] that since apparently no one had bothered to record the history of the great men of India after the death of Muh'd Aurangzeb Alamgir, as much as was known and had been heard from trustworthy sources should be summarily written so that if any scholarly writer after this time should undertake to narrate the history of those who preceded him, the flow of events will not be broken.

BORN AROUND 1727 in Delhi, Ghulam Husain Khan belonged to a minor aristocratic family of Tabataba'i sayyids, many members of which were connected to the ruling elite in some capacity. They moved to Murshidabad in 1732 and then to Patna in 1733. Ghulam Husain Khan's father, Hidayat Ali Khan, served in various imperial capacities, including commandant of Khairabad, governor of Sikandra and Panipat, and commandant of Sirhind, and he was also the bakhshi of Haibat-Jang, the deputy governor of Patna. Ghulam Husain Khan's mother was a first cousin to Aliverdi Khan Mahabat-Jang, the Nazim of Bengal from 1740 to 1756. He lived through turbulent times as the Mughal Empire was depleted and dismembered by invasions by Nadir Shah Afshar and Ahmad Shah Abdali from the west, Maratha incursions from the south, Afghan rebellions from within, and the rise of the Sikhs in the Punjab and the East India Company in Bihar and Bengal.

Ghulam Husain Khan spent most of his life in Bihar and Bengal. As he was intimately acquainted with the nazims of Bengal and observed their foibles, sometimes too closely for comfort, his accounts of them can be relied upon as representing perhaps not an unbiased point of view but at the very least an eye-witness account.

Ghulam Husain Khan also had close ties to many of the British of his day. He was especially friendly with Dr William Fullerton, a Scottish surgeon who was in Bengal and Bihar from 1744 to 1766, and Col. Thomas Goddard, both of whom he praises highly.