“Tarikhi Rashidi”

Before you is one of the most important historical works of Central Asia – Tarikhi Rashidi by Mirza Muhammad Haydar Dughlat. Its author was not only a chronicler, but also a military commander, a relative of Babur, and a direct participant in the turbulent events of the sixteenth century.
This seventeenth-century manuscript was copied in Northern India, yet its narrative is deeply connected with the history of Mawarannahr, Moghulistan, and the Uzbek khanates. Much of what historians know about this period survives thanks to this very text.
Look closely at the manuscript pages. The text is written in elegant nastaliq script on dense Kashmiri paper with a distinctive cream tone. Certain names and passages are marked in red ink, allowing readers to navigate important rulers, dates, and episodes within the dense historical narrative.
What makes this work especially remarkable is the author’s voice. Dughlat writes not as a distant observer, but as someone who witnessed the decline of the Timurid world, the rise of the Shaybanids, and the struggle for power across Central Asia. The manuscript therefore reads simultaneously as a chronicle, a memoir, and a personal testimony of an era that reshaped the region.