“No Indian historian woken up to potential research on medieval times using Ottoman archieves”

By TCN News,

New Delhi: “Without Ottoman history, there can be no European history,” said Professor N R Farooqi, officiating Vice-Chancellor, University of Allahabad, and expressed concern over the neglect of archival material on Ottoman history, which though not present in India, is available in unbelievable volume in the Turkish National Archives, the “Archives of the Prime Ministry.”


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Professor N R Farooqi, officiating Vice-Chancellor, University of Allahabad
Professor N R Farooqi

The Ottomans were involved with the Europeans for almost 400 years and a large number of European and American historians are using these archival materials – which has about a 150 million documents in it today – but no Indian historian or Indian university seems to have woken up to this potential research area, Farooqi said as he delivered the XXXIIIrd Dr M A Ansari Memorial Lecture on ‘An Overview of Ottoman Archival Sources and their Relevance for Medieval Indian History’ on Wednesday.

The Department of History and Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia had organized the event, a release said.

Farooqi provided several interesting examples such as the letters that were written by Aurangzeb to the Ottoman rulers or the inventories of the gifts sent by Muhammad Shah to the Turkish sultans and how all this lies assiduously preserved in the Turkish Archives. He recounted details of how an all women Haj contingent, probably coordinated by a woman leader, had been sent to Mecca and Medina during Akbar’s time and that they had come back to India in four years, the release added.

Professor Talat Ahmad, Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia, who presided over the lecture, spoke eloquently about the significance of Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari as a scholar of repute and drew attention to his contribution to the history of modern India.

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