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 Bahlul Khan Lodi (12 July 1489) was the chief of the Pashtun Lodi tribe. Founder of the Lodi dynasty from the Delhi Sultanate upon the abdication of the last claimant from the previous Sayyid rule. Bahlul became sultan of the dynasty on 19 A ...

. This land was eventually returned to Abbas' father, Shaykh Ali, during the reign of Shah Sur, following the expulsion of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

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. 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 The Sur Empire ( ps, د سرو امپراتورۍ, dë sru amparāturəi; fa, امپراطوری سور, emperâturi sur) was an Afghan dynasty which ruled a large territory in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent for nearly 16 yea ...

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 {{India-historian-stub