Chronicles of Khwaja Abdul Karim: The Bayan-i-Waqai the lineage

He was staying in Delhi to seek permission from the royal court to proceed for Hajj when Nadir Shah Afshar (1148-1160 A.H.) invaded and occupied Delhi in (1151 A.H.).

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Chronicles of Khwaja Abdul Karim: Khwaja Abdul Karim Kashmiri (died 1198. H) son of Khwaja Aqibat Mahmood, grandson of Khwaja Muhammad Bulaqi, great-grandson of Khwaja Muhammad Riza (Rida) was a writer from Kashmir, India

He was staying in Delhi to seek permission from the royal court to proceed for Hajj when Nadir Shah Afshar (1148-1160 A.H.) invaded and occupied Delhi in (1151 A.H.).

He along with a friend joined the revenue services of Nadir Shah as a clerk (mutasaddi) on the condition that he would be allowed to perform Hajj which Nadir Shah gladly accepted. He along with Sayyid Alawi Khan Hakim Bashi, accompanied Nader Shah Afshar on his return journey to Iran when Nader Shah finally arrived in Qazvin in 1741 CE (1154 A.H.), after successive battles in Panjab, Sind, Afghanistan, Khorasan, Transoxania, Kharazm, and elsewhere.

Finally, in 1742, Abdul Karīm took leave of him to go to Mecca. He took the way from Baghdad to Syria and from Syria to Arabia. On the way, he visited Karbalā, Mosul, Damascus, Ḥalab, and other places. He performed the pilgrimage in 1742 and after staying three months in Makkah he took a boat from Jeddah to the port of Hoogly (Calcutta), via Yemen, Ceylon, Pondicherry and Madras finally returning to Delhi in 1156/1743. He died in 1198/1784.

After he returned to Kashmir, he recorded his experiences of Iran and Arabia in lucid and vibrant prose titled Bayan-i-Waqai, it is better known as Nadir Namah which is a good example of Persian prose writing. It assumes importance he had recorded in detail the life and times of King Muhammad Shah and his ignominious life after the defeat at the hands of Nadir Shah as he was witness to some most important historical events in the later Mughal era.

He mentions that it was 1795 Kos from Baghdad to Makkah.

He further opines about his experiences dealing with people from different nationalities, the people of Halab are fantastic; those of Syria are sordid; the Egyptians are thieves; regarding Indians he say, they are the favourites of God.

His Book was translated by Francis Gladwin as “The Memoirs of Khojeh Abdul Kurrem “published first in Calcutta in 1788 and later in London in 1793.


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