Abbas Sarwani was a historian during the
Mughal period in India. Little is known of his personal life, except that he was a member of the
Sarwani Pashtun family.
Accordingly, one of his ancestors settled near Banur town and received 2000
''bighas'' of land during the reign of
Bahlul Lodi. This land was eventually returned to Abbas' father, Shaykh Ali, during the reign of
Shah Sur, following the expulsion of the
Mughal Empire in 1540. By 1579 this land was returned to the state, which prompted Abbas to be employed by Sayyid Hamid, a scholar of the Mughal emperor
Akbar
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
.
At the behest of Akbar, Abbas compiled, in 1582, ''Tufah-yi Akbar Shahi'', better known as, ''
Ta'rikh-i Sher Shahi'', a biography of Shah Sur. The ''Ta'rikh-i Sher Shahi'' was compiled after the fall of the
Sur dynasty with the preconceived notion of enhancing the Pashtun dynasty when facts were lacking. Abbas' work is not a first hand source, but a combination of sources from Sarwani nobles that served with the
Lodi and Sur dynasties.
[''Abbas Sarwani'', I.H. Siddiqui, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. XII, 1-2.]
References
16th-century Indian historians
Indian people of Pashtun descent
Historians from the Mughal Empire
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