Ziauddin Barani

Ziauddin Barani
Born
Ziauddin Barani

1285
Baran, Delhi Sultanate (modern-day Bulandshahr, India)
Died1357
Delhi Sultanate
NationalityIndian
Occupation(s)Historian, Political Thinker
TitleNadim (Companion) of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq
Academic background
InfluencesSufi Mysticism
Academic work
EraDelhi Sultanate
Notable worksTarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, Fatwa-i-Jahandari

Ziauddin Barani (Urdu: ضیاء الدین برنی‎; 1285–1358 CE) was an Indian[1][2][3] political thinker of the Delhi Sultanate located in present-day Northern India during Muhammad bin Tughlaq and Firuz Shah's reign. He was best known for composing the Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi (also called Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi), a work on medieval India, which covers the period from the reign of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq to the first six years of the reign of Firoz Shah Tughluq; and the Fatwa-i-Jahandari which promoted a hierarchy among Muslim communities in the Indian subcontinent, although according to M. Athar Ali it was not based on race or even like the caste system, but taking as a model of Sassanid Iran, which promoted an idea of aristocracy through birth and which was claimed by Persians to be "fully in accordance with the main thrust of Islamic thought as it had developed by that time", including in the works of his near-contemporary Ibn Khaldun.[4]

  1. ^ Arbind Das · (1996). Arthashastra of Kautilya and Fatawa-i-Jahandari of Ziauddin Barani. p. 144. Barani never called himself Turk for one intention that he wanted to be an Indian than anything else
  2. ^ Mohammad Habib (1950). Medieval India Quarterly: Volumes 1-5. p. 244. His ignorance of the geography of Central Asia and Persia is surprising...in his modes of thought and feeling he is hundred per cent Indian
  3. ^ Kassam, Zayn R.; Greenberg, Yudit Kornberg; Bagli, Jehan (16 July 2018). Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Springer Netherlands. p. 114. ISBN 978-94-024-1266-6. Żiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī (ca. 1285–1357) ... was a native of Baran, a town just east of Delhi, known today as Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, India.
  4. ^ M. Athat Ali, "Elements of Social Justice in Medieval Islamic Thought" in Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri, Recording the Progress of Indian History: Symposia Papers of the Indian History Congress, 1992–2010, Primus Books, 2012, p. 197.