Description
This volume has grown out of two courses of six lectures each delivered by me‘ as Reader in Indian History at the Patna University in January 1920 and February l92l. The first edition of the book-published in ‘192l) contained only the first year's lectures. The second edition (l§)24)’w.as more than double the size of the first, as it contained in addition to both courses of lectures, two altogether new chapters. In the preparation of the second edition a more exhaustive study of the .~Iin~i-A_ kbut and the Mirat-i-Ahmadi was made and very important inforrmation derived from a correct manuscript of the Mirat-I-Ahmad! with useful marginal glosses which was traced in the O.P.L., Patna. The sections on illegal exactions, news-reporters, the judiciary etc. were, in the second edition, so fully re-written as to have become practically new. Moreover, the chapter on Aurangzeb’s Revenue Rules (Originally published as a part of my Studies in Mughal India) was now added to this volume, and it will be omitted from future editions of the Studies as more appropriate here than there. The book has been minutely revised for the third edition and all tlu: doubtful points satisfactorily cleared by a fresh study of the Persian sources. The additions amount to nearly five pages. Full use has also been made of the Encyclopedia of Islam, now within sight of completion, by giving references to it wherever possible, in order to show how my views find support in" this standard work and also to guide the reader to all the greatest authorities on Muslim Law and institutions cited therein. This it the shortest and most effective method of answering a Calcutta pleader who has attacked my statements, because my readers will hardly consider his ignorance of the primary sources on Islam and of Mughal empire state papers as compensated for by the brass of avocasserie.