This volume joins together in English for the first time the two editions of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan's classic account of the monuments and environs of precolonial Delhi. Translator Rana Safvi's annotations and appendices trace the historical development of the text between 1847 and 1854, before the cataclysmic events of 1857 changed Delhi forever. The volume includes sketches from the original Urdu edition. It is a valuable resource for urban historians and scholars of Delhi's monumental history.
The nature of Muslim knowledge concerning the West through travel accounts makes for fascinating reading. The eighteenth-century encounters of Munshi Ihtisamuddin and Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, embedded in their travelogues, however, seem very distant and less urgent. With Syed Ahmed, however, begins an entirely new phase with his interplay between Muslims and the West, on the one hand, and between Islam and Christianity, on the other. Even though his portrait of England is sometimes facile, his account of his travels opens the door to new questions, particularly because this was the period when the relations between Europeans and Indians were at the centre of many debates. Consequently, passages in the Musafiran-i Landan introducing 'Europe' and 'England' are historically important enough to merit attention, since they are not used merely as fulsome descriptions of Western society's advances, but also contain the germ of the justification for an Anglo-Muslim rapprochement. This makes the Musafiran-i Landan an important source for the construction of the history of an era. Its English translation, the first ever to be undertaken in full, makes it accessible to those who have no knowledge of Urdu. Although several accounts of 'India and West' are available, A Voyage to Modernism is of special significance. Set apart from his later endeavours like the Tahzibul Akhlaq and Asar-al Sanadid, it is the Syed's impressions caught in A Voyage to Modernism that mattered to all those who knew anything about his standing in public life and his stature as an enlightened reformer in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This eminently readable translation is enriched by editorial interventions by translators and editors of the work, and supported by rare archival photographs
In The Forgotten Cities of Delhi, book two of the Where Stones Speak trilogy covers historical trails in Siri, Jahanpanah, Tughlaqabad, Firozabad, Din Panah, Shergarh and Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti.In her trademark style, Rana Safvi combines narrative history with Sufi couplets and takes you on a walk across the first city of Mehrauli and Firozabad. This period was a major step towards integration of two distinct cultures towards a culture called Indo-Islamic by many historians. In the latter half of this volume, she tells us stories from an area and an era that's perhaps the richest in Delhi's archaeological history - Shahjahanabad and Firozabad on one end, and Jahanpanah and Siri on the other - a stretch that's today dotted with tombs, dargahs and the ruins of the Purana Qila. This area also houses the famous Humayun's tomb and the center of Delhi's spiritual trail: the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah.
The Mughal Empire dominated India politically, culturally, socially, economically and environmentally, from its foundation by Babur, a Central Asian adventurer, in 1526 to the final trial and exile of the last emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar at the hands of the British in 1858. Throughout the empire's three centuries of rise, preeminence and decline, it remained a dynamic and complex entity within and against which diverse peoples and interests conflicted. The empire's significance continues to be controversial among scholars and politicians with fresh and exciting new insights, theories and interpretations being put forward in recent years. This book engages students and general readers with a clear, lively and informed narrative of the core political events, the struggles and interactions of key individuals, groups and cultures, and of the contending historiographical arguments surrounding the Mughal Empire.
The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)
Mehrauli is the oldest of Delhi's seven cities. Once the thriving capital of the Tomar and Chauhan dynasties and the Dar ul Khilafat of the slave dynasty, today it lies forgotten. Its congested lanes and crumbling ruins are lost in a mishmash of history and modernity, the living and the dead rubbing shoulders with each other. Blending stirring Urdu couplets with haunting visuals, author Rana Safvi walks us through the oldest of Delhis, describing the religious diversity of Mehrauli's monuments: from the rocky Qila Rai Pithaura to the dargah of Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, from Zafar Mahal, the last great monument built by the Mughals, to the holy waters of the Hauz e Shamsi; each structure a living memory of an era dissolved in history. Embellished with stories and legends of a bygone era, and soaked in the sights and sounds of Sufi dargahs, mosques, temples, churches, gurudwaras and Buddhist monasteries, Where Stones Speak effortlessly reveals a little known, bewitching Mehrauli.
MONUMENTS OF DELHI (Architectural & Historical) Prof. R. Nath, Ajay Nath This is the English translation of Syed Ahmed Khan’s Urdu work ‘Athar’al-Sanadid of 1846 with original Sketches and Inscriptions. Revised and updated 2nd Edition. (Agra Sep ’2010) 14×22 cm, pages 26+254, Architectural Sketches 44, Original Inscriptions 58, Paperback, ISBN : 81-85105-33-2 Rs. 795/- US $ 40 (Sir) Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-98), the founder of Aligarh Muslim University, was also a scholar of history. He was greatly interested in the monuments of Delhi, on which subject he authored a work “Athar’al-Sanadid” in Urdu. It contained immensely useful historical and architectural material for the study of the monuments of Delhi, built over a long span of time, from c.1192 to 1846 A.D. Its Arabic and Persian inscriptions were meticulously collected by the author himself, while its sketches were made by his artist Mirza Shah Rukh Beg Musawwir. It was first published in 1846 A.D. and soon became popular in India and abroad. The British and French scholars depended upon it. Almost the whole of it was reproduced in French by M.Garcin de Tassey in the Journal Asiatique. Edward Thomas, the author of the classical work : ‘The Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi’ (London 1871) largely drew on the Athar’al-Sanadid. It was almost a base book to Alexander Cunningham, the father of Indian Archaeology, and guided him in the preparation of his Report for the year 1862-65 (A.S.I. Vol-I). His assistant J.D. Beglar who prepared his Report on Delhi separately (A.S.I. Vol-IV) also relied upon Sayyid Ahmed, whose work, in fact, laid the foundation of the study of this subject and who was the basic authority for all later works. There always was the need of a faithful and comprehensive translation of his work into English. Though several Urdu editions were published subsequently, it was not translated, for more than a century. This Urdu work : ‘Athar’al-Sanadid’ was translated into English by Prof. R. Nath and was first published under the title : Monuments of Delhi : A Historical Study in 1978. It was popularly received and the first edition was sold out by 1990, and though it is needed and is in great demand, it was out of print for more than two decades. It studies nearly 160 monuments of Delhi built between 1192 and 1846. Sayyid Ahmed’s original scheme has been simplified to be useful to the reader and the work has been updated with comprehensive notes and references. His artist Mirza Shah Rukh Beg Musawwir’s original 44 drawings (sketches, made free hand) and Sayyid Ahmed’s original inscriptions which he collected assiduously and some of which are no longer extant, have been repaired and reproduced. His chronology and architectural narrative have been reformed and, as needed in an English translation, correct technical terms have been substituted. Sayyid Ahmed’s Urdu and English prefaces and his personal narrative of his family are special features of this work. It is, in fact, a mine of information on the subject; recording the first authentic survey of the monuments of Delhi, it is almost an encyclopedic work.
