Mohammed Qacim Ferichta

• Name — Firishta • Birth Name — Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Astarabadi • Born — c. 1570 • Birthplace — Astarabad, Safavid Iran • Died — 1611–1623 • Occupation — Historian, poet, novelist • Notable Works — Tārīkh-i Firishta (Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī) • Era — Medieval Islamic period • Main Interests — Indo-Muslim history, Deccan history

Firishta was born c. 1570 at Astarabad on the shores of the Caspian Sea to Gholam Ali Hindu Shah. While Firishta was still a child, his father was summoned away from his native country to Ahmednagar, India, to teach Persian to the young prince Miran Husain Nizam Shah, with whom Firishta studied. In 1587 Firishta was serving as the captain of guards of King Murtaza Nizam Shah I when Prince Miran overthrew his father and claimed the throne of Ahmednagar. At this time, the Sunni Deccani Muslims committed a general massacre of the foreign population, especially Shias of Iranian origin, of which Firishta was one of. However, Prince Miran spared the life of his former friend, who then left for Bijapur to enter the service of King Ibrahim Adil II in 1589. Having been in military positions until then, Firishta was not immediately successful in Bijapur. Further exacerbating matters was that Firishta was of Shia origin and therefore did not have much chance of attaining a high position in the dominantly Sunni courts of the Deccan sultanates. Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur had also begun following the policy of bringing Sunni Muslim Deccanis to power and ending Shia domination by dismissing them from their posts. In 1593 Ibrahim Shah II ultimately implored Firishta to write a history of India with equal emphasis on the history of Deccan dynasties as no work thus far had given equal treatment to all regions of the subcontinent.

The work was variously known as the Tārīkh-i Firishta (The History of Firishta) and the Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī (The Rose-Garden of Ibrahim [Shah II]). In the introduction, a resume of the history of Hindustan prior to the times of the Muslim conquest is given, and also the victorious progress of Arabs through the East. The first ten books are each occupied with a history of the kings of one of the provinces; the eleventh book gives an account of the Muslims of Malabar; the twelfth a history of the Muslim saints of India; and the conclusion treats of the geography and climate of India. Tārīkh-i Firishta consists primarily of the following chapter's (maqāla), with some, like "The Kings of Dakhin" having subchapters (rawza): • The Kings of Ghazni and Lahore • The Kings of Dehli • The Kings of Dakhin – divided into 6 chapters: • Gulbarga • Bijapur • Ahmadnagar • Tilanga • Birar • Bidar • The Kings of Gujarat • The Kings of Malwa • The Kings of Khandesh • The Kings of Bengal and Bihar • The Kings of Multan • The Rulers of Sind • The Kings of Kashmir • An account of Malabar • An account of Saints of India • Conclusion – an account of the climate and geography of India (khātima) He called Nagarkot as "Bhimkot". Contemporary scholars and historians variously write that the works of Firishta drew from Tabaqāt-i-Akbarī by Nizamuddin, Tarīkh-i-Rāshidī by Mirza Haidar and Barani's Tārīkh. At least one historian, Peter Jackson, explicitly states that Firishta relied upon the works of Barani and Sarhindi, and that his work cannot be relied upon as a first hand account of events, and that at places in the Tarīkh he is suspected of having relied upon legends and his own imagination.

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