'Macht' and 'Herrschaft' in Persianate Chronicles from medieval and early modern India
Panel 182, sponsored byMiddle East Medievalists (MEM), 2018 Annual Meeting
On Saturday, November 17 at 5:30 pm
Panel Description
The Muslim realms of medieval and early modern India are characterized by a distinct stratification by rank. To understand the political and social organization of these realms, ‘Macht’ and ‘Herrschaft’, analytical categories considered as closely related at least since Max Weber, are of eminent importance. ‘Macht’ and ‘Herrschaft’ were constituted in the social logic of the elite discourses of these societies, and in the Persianate historical writings these discourses produced.
This panel focuses on two main questions: 1) How are ‘Macht’ and ‘Herrschaft’ conveyed in texts which are written either along ideal types or explicitly formulated models? 2) How are phenomena of ‘Macht’ and ‘Herrschaft’ represented in texts from the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal periods? To answer these questions, the panel deals with three fields of investigation: The challenges of textually representing ‘Macht’ and ‘Herrschaft’; the narrative strategies of (de )legitimizing ‘Herrschaft’; the communication strategies as a way of negotiating ‘Macht’.
Paper one discusses semantical and narratological approaches to Abd al-Malik Isami’s Futuh al-salatin. This historical epic anecdotally deals with aspects of Muslim rule in northern India from Mahmud of Ghazni to the 14th-century sultans of Delhi. It examines how forms of ‘Herrschaft’ and especially of ‘Macht’ are perceived and represented in this text.
Paper two discusses the functions of Islamic Genealogies of Prophets and Persian Kings in legitimizing the ‘Herrschaft’ of the Sultans of Delhi. To underpin the obligatory acceptance of the ruled, the sultanate’s historical writing utilized both prophetic and royal genealogies to emphasize the sultans’ claim to rule. It examines how the respective texts did use these genealogies.
Paper three discusses strategies of legitimizing ‘Herrschaft’ in Minhaj al-Din Juzjani’s Tabaqat-i nasiri. There is a set of personal qualities and behaviors ascribed to a sultan of Delhi which enables him to rule successfully. However, Juzjani ascribes these qualities not only to sultan Nasir al-Din Mahmud, but to the latter’s foremost dignitary Ghiyas al-Din Balban as well. Is Juzjani lifting Balban into position as Nasir al-Din’s legitimate successor?
Paper four discusses approaches of communication theory when dealing with communicational aspects of ‘Macht’ within the elite discourses at the court of Shah Jahan (1627-58). Starting from a broad understanding of communication, it examines which ways of communication are presented in Shah Jahani sources; how historiographers do describe communication situations; and to what purpose they do use the topic in their narrative.
This paper discusses narrative strategies concerning the representation of “Macht” (“power”) and “Herrschaft (“rule”) in Abd al-Malik Isami's historical epic “Futuh al-salatin”. As no biographical work mentions him, we know next to nothing about Isami. He was forced to leave his home in Delhi when Sultan Muhammad b. Tughluq (d. 1351) ordered moving the capital to Dawlatabad in the Deccan in about 1327. Because his grandfather died on the way, the poet is consequently a hostile witness with regard to the reign of Muhammad b Tughluq. In Dawlatabad, he composed his “Futuh al-salatin” and dedicated the work to the founder of the newly established Bahmanid dynasty, Ala ad-Din Bahman Shah (r. 1347-58). After having finished his epic in 1350, he decided to migrate to the Hidjaz. He settled there, and most likely died in Medina. The year of his death is not known.
The “Futuh al-salatin” comprises 11,693 verses and is modelled on Firdawsi’s (d. 1020) well-known “Shah-nama”. It presents the deeds of the Muslims and of the Muslim rulers in India from the time of the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud (d. 1030) to the date of composition. The majority of the sultans are honoured by eulogies, written in a clear, vivid style, praising their bravery, sagacity, piety, and generosity – eulogies that are often garnished by anecdotes and legends intended to show the sultan in the best light to those who succeeded him.
Up to now, Isami’s “Futuh al-salatin” has been perceived as a historiographic text. Scholars like Peter Hardy or Khaliq Nizami wanted to find out to which degree the facts the epic provides us with were trustworthy and reliable rather than not. In this talk, we will analyze the “Futuh al-salatin” with the help of the classic narratological toolkit including topics like focalization, plot, narrator vs. author, time, setting, analepsis, prolepsis, etc. Focusing on the representation of “power” and “rule”, the different voices of the epic – authorial, storytelling, analogical – will be addressed as well as moral reflections, spiritual discourses and the textual function of speech and dialogue.
This paper discusses the use and manufacture of prophetic and royal genealogies in history writing to legitimize the rule of the Delhi Sultans (1200-1400). Historians of the period (Fakhr-i Mudabbir, Hasan Nizami, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani and Ziya al-Din Barani) crafted royal genealogies based on prophets such as Adam, Abraham and Moses while simultaneously drawing from the heritage of Persian kings of legend such as Jamshid and those from pre-Islamic Persian dynasties like the Sasanian kings. This paper attempts to answer two questions. How were genealogical narratives woven into the authority of the Delhi Sultanate? What discourses of power were embedded in the concept of genealogy?
Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani finished his extensive general history on the early Delhi Sultanate around 1260. Named after and officially dedicated to the ruling Sultan, Nasir al-Din Mahmud Shah (r. 1246-66), it covers Islamic history from its early beginnings until the author’s time. Focusing on Central Asia and India, it follows a distinct textual structure derived from the Persianate historiographical tradition of Greater Khorasan. As such, fixed sets of personal virtues and behaviors are ascribed to sultans and their dignitaries in order to sustain a normative hierarchy and to legitimize their Herrschaft. This leads to outright eulogies, especially when depicting the sultan of the age.
However, Juzjani does not only highlight Nasir al-Din but obviously equates him on a textual level with his foremost malik and former slave Ghiyath al-Din Balban, who succeeded him later on by constituting a new dynasty in 1266. Despite a potential anachronism, this led researchers to ask repeatedly whether Balban might have already ascended the throne when Juzjani finished his work. Instead of looking to historical circumstances, one can find the reason for this ongoing debate on a literary level: In contrast to other maliks, the striking depiction of Balban equates the ideal of a perfect sultan on so many levels that one is left wondering about his actual position in the reign of sultan Nasir al-Din. But why did Juzjani choose this seemingly problematic way of presenting Balban?
This paper pursues a literary approach in order to argue that Juzjani might have depicted Balban as a person of ideal abilities intentionally so that his later ascension to the throne could be legitimized in advance. This seems to be necessary since Balban constituted a new dynasty. There must be a reason that Juzjani was referring to Nasir al-Din’s proper heirs only in nebulous terms.
The paper examines sets of personal virtues and behaviors that legitimize a ruler with a special focus on Balban, who could not draw on descent or designation to justify his claims. Further, I will ask which narrative strategies were used by Juzjani in order to depict Balban as the perfectly qualified successor of Nasir al-Din? This will lead to a better understanding of one of the most important sources on the early Delhi Sultanate.
The reign of Shah Jahan (r. 1627-58) still counts to the rather understudied periods of Mughal history. It offers, though, promising material to approach the negotiation and mediation of Macht and Herrschaft at the Mughal Court, as well as its representation to the periphery. Starting from a broad understanding of communication, this paper aims at approaching the relation of performative or interactive communication (as in court ceremonial) and textual forms of communication. In contrast to performative communication, which is bound to the very moment the respective participants interact, both visual and textual communication are means of representation, and may be directed towards intended target groups beyond the participants in courtly communication. It is thus vital asking for intentions and agendas behind the (textual or visual) representation of communication. While miniature painting and architectural communication at the Mughal Court have been studied formerly, this paper concentrates on textual representations of court communication.
The paper starts from the assumption that Mughal Herrschaft based on a constant interaction of the emperor as the ‘center’ of his realm on the one hand, and the mansabdar-élite on the other. The emperor’s supremacy being reliant on a cooperating élite, communication between emperor and mansabdars became the central means of negotiating Macht and Herrschaft. Textual representation of court communication thus served to depict or even discuss social relations and rank, especially between the emperor and the mansabdar-élite holding functions both at court as well as in the military and administration. It served to show idealized social relations and to mirror ways of negotiating Macht as well as constellations of Macht and Herrschaft between the emperor and the élite. The semantics of khidma (‘service’) and ni'ma/inayat (‘benefice’) are explored as a vital part of the discourse.
The paper explores communication strategies represented in two historiographies from the early Shah Jahani period, namely Qazvini’s and Tabataba’i’s Padshahnamas/Shahjahannamas. How do the historiographers describe communications situations, and to what purpose do they use the topic in their narrative?
