Ẕiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī

Ẕiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī (born 1285, India—died after 1357) was the first known Muslim to write a history of India. He resided for 17 years at Delhi as nadim (boon companion) of Sultan Muḥammad ibn Tughluq.

Using mainly hearsay evidence and his personal experiences at court, Baranī in 1357 wrote the Tārīkh-e Fīrūz Shāhī (“History of Fīrūz Shāh”), a didactic work setting down the duties of the Indian sultan toward Islam. In his Fatawā-ye jahāndārī (“Rulings on Temporal Government”), influenced by Sufī mysticism, he expounded a religious philosophy of history that viewed the events in the lives of great men as manifestations of divine providence. According to Baranī, the Delhi sultans from Ghiyās̄ al-Dīn Balban (reigned 1266–87) to Fīrūz Shah Tughluq (reigned from 1351) who had followed his guidelines for the good Islamic ruler had prospered, while those who had deviated from those precepts had failed.