000			02015nam a22001577a 4500
999			_c519886 _d519886
008			220512b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aAnooshahr, Ali _933197
245			_aThe ghaznavid empire of India
260			_aThe Indian Economic and Social History Review
300			_a58(4), Oct-Dec, 2021: p.441-476
520			_aAlmost all of our information on the Ghaznavids comes from two contemporary chronicles (one in Persian and one in Arabic) and a divan (poetic anthology) from the early eleventh century. The Arabic text is the Tarikh-i Yamini written by Abu Nasr al-ʻUtbi, and the Persian chronicle is the Zayn al-Akhbar by Gardizi. Virtually, all subsequent Persian chroniclers drew on the later Persian translation of the Yamini. After the Mughal period, a few used Gardizi as well. In the nineteenth century, H. M. Elliot translated parts of the Persian translation of ʻUtbi into English, which popularised that particular version of events in modern scholarship. This uncritical overreliance on a single source has led to perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of medieval Indian history. I will argue that the version of the Ghaznavid campaigns in ʻUtbi was meant strictly for the court of the ‘Abbasid caliph in Baghdad where a sufficiently learned audience could actually be expected to understand the very difficult Arabic of the text. The Yamini did not simply embellish reality but was actually trying to create a narrative that was in contradiction to and even independent of reality. It was part of a campaign of misinformation to hide the fact that the Ghaznavids were creating an Indian empire both as a network of tributary kings and as an open trade zone ruled by a king of kings symbolised by the elephant. – Reproduced
650			_aGhaznavid empire, Perso-arabic historiography, Trade, Militarised peasants, Hierarchy of kings, ‘Utbi, Gardizi, Mahmud of ghazna _931164
773			_aThe Indian Economic and Social History Review
906			_aINDIA - HISTORY
942			_cAR