The _Grave Task_ of Writing Turko-Mongol History_ Mirza Haydar Dughlat as a Historian.pdf

Presentation about using a historical source as a historian not just a witness

1. The "Grave Task" of Writing Turko-Mongol History:
Mirza Haydar Dughlat as a Historian
Henry D Brill

2. Abstract
Mirza Muhammad Haydar Dughlat (b. 1499–1500, d.1551) was a Turko-Mongol aristocrat who left behind an
ambitious historical work: the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, or the History of Rashid.
In his Persian-language history, Mirza Haydar chronicles the Chaghatayid-Moghul khanate, a remnant of the Mongol
Empire, from the mid-fourteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries.
Indeed, the period at the center of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi was a highly tumultuous one that saw the slow, but steady, rise
of new Islamicate empires, which brought major political and cultural changes to Central and South Asia.
However, Mirza Haydar does not limit himself to an abstracted discussion of political and cultural changes. Rather, he
describes at length his own experiences within this highly fluid and formative milieu.
The present thesis attempts to recover the ways in which history was imagined, constructed, and practiced in
early-modern Central and South Asia by using the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of Mirza Haydar as a case study. Such an
examination allows for new insights on the intellectual ecosystem and cultural world in which the Moghul historian
lived to come to the fore.

3. Beginning Quote
With my lack of ability, what right had I to put my destitute pen to the page of
composition? However, it was out of necessity, since a few narratives of the
Moghul khans who were Muslims have been heard from reliable sources, and
there are also those whose careers I have witnessed myself. Now that I look
around myself, I see that among my peers there is no one left who knows these
narratives or who could recite them. If I were not so bold, the Moghuls and the
Moghul khans would become so neglected that they would lose their own
heritage, not to mention the history of their ancestors.