In the Mirror of Persian Kings: The Origins of Perso-Islamic Courts and Empires in India

Description

For a period of nearly eight hundred years, Perso-Islamic kingship was the source for the dominant social and cultural paradigms organising Indian political life. In the medieval world of South Asia, Persian kingship took the form of a hybridized and adaptive political expression. The Persian king embodied the values of justice, military heroics, and honor, ideals valorized historically and transculturally, yet the influence of the pre-Islamic Persian past and Persian forms of kingship has not yet been fully recognised. In this book, Blain Auer demonstrates how Persian kingship was a transcultural phenomenon. Describing the contributions made by kings, poets, historians, political and moral philosophers, he reveals how and why the image of the Persian king played such a prominent role in the political history of Islamicate societies, in general, and in India, in particular. By tracing the historical thread of this influence from Samanid, Ghaznavid, and Ghurid empires, Auer demonstrates how that legacy had an impact on the establishment of Delhi as a capital of Muslim rulers who made claims to a broad symbolic and ideological inheritance from the Persian kings of legend. Cover Half-title Title page Copyright information Dedication Contents List of Figures and Maps Figures Maps Preface: In the Mirror of Persian Kings in India List of Abbreviations A Note on Transliteration 1 The History of Persian Kingship and Persianization in South Asia The Persianate and the Cosmopolitan in India The Transcultural Phenomena of Persian Kingship Models of Persian Kingship and Their Use in South Asia Connecting History from Samarkand to Lahore The Move to New Persian and the Birth of the Persianate World The King and the Vizier in the Mirror of Princes 2 Kings in History: Persian Royal Genealogies and Muslim Rulers Imperial Genealogies The Lineage of Prophets and of Kings Islamic Genealogies of Persian Kingship Alexander, the Medieval Persian and Indian Editions Transmission of Sasanian Cultural Memory and Kingship in Medieval India Khusraw I, the Immortal One The Horseman Motif and Transcultural Forms of Kingship The Cultural Memory of Indo-Persian Contact 3 Warrior King: Slaying Demons, Hunting Beasts, and War Battles with Demons On Avoiding War and the Power of Diplomacy The Preparations for War and the Hunt 4 Theory and Application of Persianate Political Ethics in India Justice, Moral Virtues, and Tyranny in Political Thought Society, Order, and Royalty The Qualities of Kindness and Clemency Justice and Anti-Corruption Fissures in Law and Politics: The Relationship between Ma?la?at, Shari?a, and Siyasat What Is Ma?la?at? The Rule of the Sultan and the Shari?a The General Good and Punishment 5 The Pen, the Sword, and the Vizier The Barmakid Family and the Model Minister Lessons from Buzurjmihr: The Qualities of Ministers and Their Appointments Minister As Deputy of the Empire Ministers of the Delhi Sultanate Conclusion Bibliography Arabic and Persian Sources Secondary Sources Index