2020/10/01 by Jawan Shir Rasikh · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Islamic Studies and History #Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East #Education and Islamic Studies #Reading (process) #Politics #Agency (philosophy) #Islam #Bureaucracy #Extant taxon #Classics #Medieval history #History #Annals #Sociology #Literature #Religious studies #Law #Art #Philosophy #Social science #Political science #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.3366/afg.2020.0053
openalex publication_date 2020/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This essay explores the many lives of Minhaj Siraj al-Din Juzjani (fl. 1193–1260), author of the Tabaqat-i Nasiri. Before writing the Tabaqat-i Nasiri in Delhi in 1259–60, Juzjani had served for a half-century in the role of judge, imam, and other positions. In re-reading the historical evidence, I offer twofold analyses of the extant evidence regarding this under-studied historian of Islam. Firstly, I show that Juzjani's personal and social privileges defined his career peregrinations across medieval “Afghanistan” and Hindustan. He belonged to a Sunni scholarly bureaucratic family from Khurasan with deep familial, career, and political connections to the Ghaznavid and Ghuri ruling houses. Secondly, this re-reading of the Tabaqat-i Nasiri is an attempt to make a contribution to the basic epistemic question of how to study the human and historical agency of medieval Muslim scholar-historians like Juzjani without losing sight of the political landscapes and historical contexts in which they operated, and wrote key works of medieval Islamic history.