Ziyā Baranī's Vision of the State

Abstract

Ziyā Barani, born in a family of scholars and petty officials, had risen to be confidant of Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq of Delhi (r. A.D. 1324- 1351), only to spend the last few years of life in abject poverty. In these years he wrote his most important historical texts, with a clear perspec tive of what the state should do: it should govern through the exercise of pomp, preserve the exclusiveness of the ruling class by barring admit tance to any low-born persons, Muslim or Hindu, and avoid the com pany of rationalists. Within the ruling class, Baranī advocates restraint in the use of violence, aware that it results in cyclic displacement of noble families and dynasties, and undermines the stability of the state. He was sad that real history often defied his perspective.