Ghulam Hussain Khan


Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai
Portrait of Ghulam Hussain Khan c.1750-1760
Born1727/28
Died1797/98 (aged 69-70)
OccupationHistorian, Subahdar, Noble
LanguagePersian
Period18th century
Notable worksSeir Mutaqherin
RelativesAlivardi Khan, Siraj-ud-Daulah

Ghulam Hussain Khan, also known as Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai (1727/28–1797/98) was an 18th-century Indian historian and scholar-administrator from Delhi who later settled in Azimabad (Patna).[1][2][3] He is the writer of the famous book Seir Mutaqherin (سیر المتاخرین; lit.'Review of modern times'), one of the notable contemporary historical accounts of the late Mughal Empire.

He is considered to be among a slew of Muslim nobles whose families had left Delhi and settled in Azimabad.[4]

Life

Ghulam Husain's ancestors were originally from Iraq. His father Hidayat Khan accompanied the Nawab of Bengal, Alivardi Khan to Azimabad where he was appointed subadar.[5] Ghulam Hussain Khan left Delhi after Nader Shah's invasion of India and moved to the court of his cousin, Alivardi Khan, the Nawab of Bengal, in Murshidabad.[6] Khan was also related to the next nawab, Siraj ud-Daulah, either through Siraj being Alivardi's grandson[7] or in another way.[8]

Charles W. J. Withers described him as a "high-born Bihari official "whose Persian father had served the Mughal Emperor and whose mother was related to Alivardi Khan."[9]

Notes

  1. ^ Naushahi, Arif (3 June 2013) [15 December 2001]. "ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN KHAN ṬABĀṬABĀʾI". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. IX/1: Ethé, Carl Hermann–Excavations IV (Online ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation. pp. 60–61.
  2. ^ Greene, Jack (2010). Exclusionary Empire: English Liberty Overseas, 1600-1900. Cambridge University Press.
  3. ^ Yang, Anand (1999). Bazaar India: Markets, Society, and the Colonial State in Bihar. University of California Press. pp. 52–53. ISBN 9780520919969.
  4. ^ Ahmad, Quyamuddin (12 October 2016) [15 December 1988]. "ʿAẒĪMĀBĀD". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. III/3: Azerbaijan IV–Bačča(-ye) Saqqā (Online ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation.
  5. ^ India and Iran in the Long Durée. Brill. 2021. p. 110. ISBN 9789004460638.
  6. ^ Dalrymple 2019, p. 80.
  7. ^ Dalrymple 2019, p. 78.
  8. ^ Dalrymple 2019, p. 83.
  9. ^ Withers, Charles (2016). Geographies of the Book. Routledge. p. 31. ISBN 9781317128984.

References

  • Dalrymple, W. (2019). The Anarchy. London: Bloomsbury. p. 80.

Further reading