This article examines the content and the documentary value of an essay on the genealogy and family history of Haybat Khān Kākaṙ, a member of the Indo-Afghan migrant community, whose contribution to the first book on Pashtun ethnohistory, the Tārīkh-i khānjahānī wa makhzan-i afghānī (1613), remains underestimated. Written in Persian by Haybat Khān himself, this essay has survived as an appendix in several manuscripts of the Tārīkh-i khānjahānī, including its early dated copy of 1629. While further confirming Haybat Khān’s co-authorship of the book, the essay provides reliable first-hand data on the dynamics of the formation of the Pashtun nobility in the Delhi Sultanate from the mid-fifteenth century and testifies to the veracity of Pashtun genealogical traditions beginning form the early thirteenth century. Through intertextual links with the Tārīkh-i khānjahānī, it also sheds light on the social and business activities of women, citing an illustrative case of the transformation of historical facts into hagiography.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Afżal, Khān Khaṫak (1974), Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, D.M. Kāmil Momand (ed.), Peshawar.
Aigle, Denise (2016), “ʿAṭṭār’s Taḏkirat al-awliyāʾ and Jāmī’s Nafaḥāt al-uns: Two Visions of Sainthood”, Oriente Moderno 96.2: 271–315.
Andreyev, Sergei (1999), “The Rawshaniyya: A Sufi Movement on the Mughal Tribal Periphery”, L. Lewisohn, D. Morgan (eds.), The Heritage of Sufism. Vol. III: Late Classical Persianate Sufism (1501–1750), Oxford: 290–318.
Aquil, Raziuddin (2007), Sufism, Culture, and Politics: Afghans and Islam in Medieval North India, New Delhi.
Dale, Stephen F. (2012), “Indo-Persian Historiography”, Ch. Melville (ed.), Persian Historiography (A History of Persian Literature X), London–New York: 565–609.
Darweza, Ākhūnd (1960), Taẕkirat al-abrār wa ʾl-ashrār, Peshawar.
Dorn, Bernhard (1836), History of the Afghans: Translated from the Persian of Neamet Ullah, parts 1–2, London.
Gommans, Jos J.L. (1995), The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, c. 1710–1780, Leiden–New York–Köln.
Gommans, Jos J.L. (2007), “Afghāns in India”, K. Fleet, G. Krämer, D. Matringe, J. Nawas, E. Rowson (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam 3 (available online at https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/afghans-in-india, accessed on 07 January 2022).
Green, Nile (2008), “Tribe, Diaspora, and Sainthood in Afghan History”, The Journal of Asian Studies 67.1: 171–211.
Khushḥāl, Khān Khaṫak (1966), Dastār-nāma, foreword by Ṣ. Rishtīn, glossary by D.M. Kāmil Momand, Kabul.
Kolff, Dirk H.A. (1990), Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850, Cambridge.
Kushev, Vladimir V. (2001), “The Dawn of Pashtun Linguistics: Early Grammatical and Lexicographical Works and Their Manuscripts”, Manuscripta Orientalia 7.2: 3–9.
Kushev, Vladimir V. (2008), Afganskij yazyk (pašto) XVI–XIX vekov. Puti stanovleniya i razvitiya literaturnogo yazyka, St. Petersburg.
Niʿmatallāh, Ibn Ḥabīballāh al-Harawī (1960–1962), Tārīkh-i khānjahānī wa makhzan-i afghānī, vols. 1–2, S.M. Imamuddin (ed.), Dacca.
Nejatie, Sajjad (2025), “Afghan State Formation to 1800”, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (available online at: https://oxfordre.com/asianhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefora-9780190277727-e-870, accessed on 11 January 2026).
Nichols, Robert (2008), A History of Pashtun Migration, 1775–2006, Karachi.
Papas, Alexandre (2019), “Individual Sanctity and Islamization in the Ṭabaqāt Books of Jāmī, Navāʾī, Lāmiʿī, and Some Others”, Th. d’Hubert/A. Papas (eds.), Jāmī in Regional Contexts: The Reception of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s Works in the Islamicate World, ca. 9th/15th–14th/20th Century, Leiden–Boston: 378–423.
Pelevin, Mikhail (2025), Love, Honour and God: Pashto Writings of Early Modern Times, Leiden–Boston.
Ṣadr, Khān Khaṫak (1989), Ādam Durkhānəy, 3rd ed., M.N. Ṭāʾir (ed.), Peshawar.
Sarwānī, ʿAbbās Khān (1964), Tārīkh-i Shīrshāhī, vols. 1–2, S.M. Imamuddin (ed. and transl.), Dacca.
Sarwānī, ʿAbbās Khān (1974), Tārīk̲h̲-i-Śēr Śāhī, B.P. Ambashthya (transl.), Patna.
Wink, André (1997), Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Vol. II: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th–13th Centuries, Leiden–New York–Köln.
Wink, André (2024), Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Vol. IV: The Age of the Great Mughals, 16th–17th Centuries. Part One: Afghans and Mughals in the Struggle for Empire, Leiden–Boston.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 75 | 75 | 45 |
| Full Text Views | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 10 | 10 | 4 |
This article examines the content and the documentary value of an essay on the genealogy and family history of Haybat Khān Kākaṙ, a member of the Indo-Afghan migrant community, whose contribution to the first book on Pashtun ethnohistory, the Tārīkh-i khānjahānī wa makhzan-i afghānī (1613), remains underestimated. Written in Persian by Haybat Khān himself, this essay has survived as an appendix in several manuscripts of the Tārīkh-i khānjahānī, including its early dated copy of 1629. While further confirming Haybat Khān’s co-authorship of the book, the essay provides reliable first-hand data on the dynamics of the formation of the Pashtun nobility in the Delhi Sultanate from the mid-fifteenth century and testifies to the veracity of Pashtun genealogical traditions beginning form the early thirteenth century. Through intertextual links with the Tārīkh-i khānjahānī, it also sheds light on the social and business activities of women, citing an illustrative case of the transformation of historical facts into hagiography.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 75 | 75 | 45 |
| Full Text Views | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 10 | 10 | 4 |