This article examines information on the capital city in the Fatawa-i Jahandari, written by the ex-Tughluq courtier Ziya’ al-Din Barani in the 1350s in Delhi. It argues that the imagined, ideal capital city described by the author inheres everyday, ground realities that contested the execution of politics and imperial authority, thereby problematising the template of absolute political rule, especially in the capital city. Always judged as conservative, Barani’s advice to achieve the ideal was hardly orthodox: kingly justice was neither severely nor canonically ‘Islamic’ but was at once a combination of tact, compromise and, where unnecessary, acceptance of unIslamic practices. The larger argument is one of methodology, seeking to draw attention to the importance of studying normative texts more carefully for historical information in the hope to writing a more textured history.
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