The Mughal Empire From Babar To Aurangzeb.
By S.M. Jaffar
Published by S.Mohammed Sadiq Khan, Peshawar - 1936.
"ONE should not raise one's pen to write history unless one is equipped with a thorough knowledge of the original sources and a clear conscience. In order to obtain correct information, it is absolutely essential to approach history with an unprejudiced mind and without preconceived notions. The evidence thus collected from the huge mass of historical literaturet hat has come down to posterity from the pen of the contemporary chroniclers must be carefully sifted and pieced together in such a way as to present an accurate account of the past. History must not be used as an instrument of propaganda even in the best of causes ; if used in a wrong cause, it may result in filling streets with human blood. Volumes written on the Muslim Period of Indian history have voluminously added to the volumes of communal hatred and bigotry. Whatever the aims of their authors, the textbooks on Indian history, particularly on theMuslim Period, teem with exaggerations, distortions and timid suppression of facts, so much so that they tend to set one community at the throat of the other. False history has done more than a mere wrong to the cause of national unity and inter-communal amity in India. A retrospective glance at the present state ofaffairs will not fail to reveal to the reader the fact that the teaching of wrong history, more than anything else, is responsible for the recurring riots among the different communities of India. The sooner, therefore, such books are dispensed with, the better for the peace and prosperity of India. Born and brought up in communal atmosphere, we, Indians,see everything with communal glasses and therefore get a gloomy view. The obvious result is that the best of Muslim monarchs, statesmen and scholars have been painted in the darkest of colours and condemned as bigots and intolerants, nay, as blood-thirsty tyrants. As things stand at present, communal harmony without correct history is a dream which cannot be realized. The whole of Indian history, therefore, requires to be re-written in the right spirit,' not so much from the point of view of occurrences at the capitals of various states as in order to delineate the spread of culture and to demonstrate the value of its present composite form, so that our people may notbe led away by the false notion that whatever paraphernalia of civilization we posset does not go back to more than a century and a half '. Some time ago the Punjab Government appointed a Special Committeeto see into the subject. The Committee investigated the matter and made some useful recommendations.The same point regarding the re-writingof the whole of Indian history, particularly the Muslim Period, was stressed at Poona at the All-India Historical Conference in 1934 by Dr. (now Sir) Shafaat Ahmad Khan who presided over its deliberations and suggested the appointment of a Mss. Commission for the purpose. How far the objects aimed at have been achieved, I do not know. Some six years' ago, while I was a student, I too felt the same necessity after making an independent study of the Muslim Period and set myself to the task in right earnest. Remotely removed as I was from big educational centres, I was consequently deprived of all facilities for research. It was my love for my subject (history) that drove me from place to place in search of books drawn upon for material and the result is The Mughal Empire which I now submit to the judgment of the public." - Author