MASHRIQ MEIN ISLaMi TAHZiB KĒ ATHAR

This is a fascinating scientific and analytic study of the Islamic inscriptions of Bengal ever written in Urdu, a language widely used in the northern regions of South Asia. The author is a promising cultural historian from Bangladesh who is remarkably familiar with both eastern and western academic traditions having trained and taught in a number of prestigious universities in South Asia, Middle East and USA. The book begins by describing the importance of Inscriptions as a primary source material – both direct and circumstantial – that can be especially useful in the reconstruction of the political and social history of a region for a particular period. At times, epigraphs are the only source to offer missing links in the chronology of rulers, particularly where historical literature is silent. Often epigraphs can corroborate or contradict statements of a historian or elaborate on the details of a given event or supply accurate names or dates not available in other sources. Quite a few early Muslim historians realized the importance of inscriptions and started taking interest in them. A pioneer among them was Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn [Ali al-Shibi (1378–1433, an academic at the famous Bengali seminary of Makkah, al-Madrasah alSultaniyyah al-Ghiyathiyyah al-Bangaliyyah) who studied the inscriptions of the graveyard of al-Ma[la (popularly also known as al-Mu[alla) in a methodical way for the reconstruction of the history of Makkah, surprisingly much on the same line of the modern science of epigraphy.