Tārikh-i- Firishta / Gulshan-i-Ibrāhīmī
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Introductory notes
Firishta, or Muḥammad Ḳāsim Hindū Shāh Astarābādī (c.1572-1624), his family being recently domiciled in Aḥmadnagar in the 1580s, was in the service of Murtaḍā Niẓām Shāh (1565-88). He fled, along with the gharibān and gharīb-zādā (the foreigners and their descendants), during a forced migration from Ahmadnagar to Bījāpūr in 1589. In 1589, Firishta was presented at the Bīdjāpūrī court, and on 8 January 1590 began service under Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh. Firishta acted as a go-between, later in 1590, for Burhān Niẓām S̲h̲āh who was seeking Bīdjāpūrī support. His history the Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī / Tārikh-i-Firishta is in two parts, the first dated 1606-7 and the second, newly titled, Taʾrīkh-i Nawras-nāma, dated 1609-10. This brief extract, from his narrative of the conquest of Sindh by Akbar in 1591, and the defeat of Mirza Jani Beg (d.1601) of the Turkhan Dynasty, the last independent ruler of Sindh, portrays the disruptions and shortages caused by these territorial wars.
1.
و میرزا جانی در محرّم سنه الف 1000اکتبر 1591م به کنار آب سند آمده در زمینی که اطراف آن آب و چهله بود فرود آمد و خانخانان در برابر آمد اورا محاصره نمود و مدّت دو ماه هر روز جنگ شده........درآن ایّام مردم سند راه آمد و شد غلّه بر لشکر خانخانان چنان بستند که نانی به جانی ارزان گشته بود :