he local edition of Dr Manan Ahmed Asif’s book, The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India is out. He is an associate professor of history at the Columbia University, New York. Folio books (Lahore) have brought out a beautifully produced volume that was launched at Idara-i-Taleef-o-Tarjama at the University of the Punjab.

All credit for the launch of the book goes to Prof Zahid Munir Amir, currently the director of the institute. Much of the debate at the launch of the book centred on the under-emphasised importance of Tarikh-i-Firishta.

The point that Dr Asif quite persuasively underscores in the book is the seminality of Tarikh-i-Firishta in the construction of the image and impression about the orient among the Western literati. This – the construction of the orientalist knowledge about India premised on a book of history written by an Indo-Persian historian, Muhammad Qasim Firishta – is, indeed, a path-breaking assertion. It offered a lot to contemplate, as well as converse about, to the academics who had congregated on the occasion.

Orientalism is a much talked about term, brought to pre-eminence by literary theorist, Edward Said, in his seminal work Orientalism.

Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Moreover, it is a way of coming to terms with the Orient (the East) that is based on the Orient’s special place in the European Western culture and experience.

The British administrative-historian who later wrote extensively on India had been instructed through the historical lens, provided by the protagonist of this write-up. The autonomy of the orientalist discourse stands challenged by this “path-breaking” assertion.

Before proceeding any further, it would be worthwhile to provide some perspective on Qasim Firishta and his book. Not much is known about the personal history of our protagonist. Whatever is available in the books of historiography is summarised in the lines that follow.

Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Astarabadi, was a Persian historian, who later settled in India and served the Deccan sultans as their court historian. Astarabad is the capital city of Golestan province of Iran, famous for carpet manufacturing as well as for some archaeological sites, including Tureng Tepe and Shah Tepe, that hold remains dating from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic eras.

He was born in 1560 to Gholam Ali Hindu Shah. While Firishta was still a child, his father was summoned away from his native country into Ahmednagar, India, to teach Persian to the young prince Miran Husain Nizam Shah, with whom Firishta studied.

Tarikh-i-Firishta is said to be independent and reliable on the topic of north Indian politics of the period… Firishta’s accounts are held credible because of his affiliation with the south Indian kingdom of Bijapur.

In 1587, Firishta was serving as the captain of guards of King Murtaza Nizam Shah I when Prince Miran overthrew his father and claimed the throne of Ahmednagar. At this time, the Sunni Deccani Muslims allegedly committed a general massacre of the foreign population, especially Shias of Iranian origin. However, Prince Miran spared the life of his former friend, who then left for Bijapur to enter the service of King Ibrahim Adil II in 1589.

The work was variously known as the Tarikh-i Firishta and the Gulshan-i Ibrahimi. In the introduction, a resume of the history of Hindustan prior to the times of the Muslim conquest is given. So is an account of the victorious progress of Arabs through the East. The first ten books are each occupied with a history of the kings of one of the provinces; the eleventh book gives an account of the Muslims of Malabar and the twelfth a history of the Muslim saints of India. The conclusion treats the geography and climate of India.

Tarikh-i-Farishta is said to be independent and reliable on the topic of north Indian politics of the period. Firishta’s accounts are held credible because of his affiliation with the south Indian kingdom of Bijapur. Despite his contested assertion about Yusuf’s Ottoman origin, Firishta’s account continues to be a very popular story widely accepted in Bijapur to this day.

In 1768, when the East India Company (military) officer and Orientalist, Alexander Dow, translated Firishta’s text into English, it came to be seen by the English as an authoritative source of historical information. Firishta’s work still maintains a high place and is considered reliable in many respects. Several portions of it have been translated into English but the best as well as the most complete translation is that published by Gen J Briggs under the title, The History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India in London in 1829.

I had been under the impression that James Mill’s History of British India was the text that had set the tone for the narration of history and the method to read and understand the process of history. The second text which had been thought to be of great importance was The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, put together by Elliot & Dowson which became a prototype for the next generation of historians and also for the general readers of history.

Periodisation (dividing Indian history into three distinct periods, namely Hindu, Muslim and the British period) became an abiding feature of the way the discourse of history in general came to be constructed afterwards. Then, obviously, Edward Said’s thoughts with respect to Orientalism provided a peculiar lens to see the equation between knowledge and power.

But The Loss of Hindustan has changed the entire epistemic trajectory and given a fresh orientation whereby the entire orientalist vision is predicated on Qasim Firishta’s Tarikh instead of any body of works propounded by a Western scholar/ writer.

Would I be justified to conclude that William Jones, John Gilchrist, James Mill and the whole string of historians and writers stand withdrawn from the status of primacy, relinquishing it to Qasim Firishta? If that is so, it indeed is a monumental shift. For that, Dr Manan Ahmed Asif should be felicitated.

The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.  He can be reached at tahir.kamran@bnu.edu.pk