GE I

Delhi through the Ages: the Making of its Early Modern History

Course Objective:

The objective of the paper is to teach students about the changes in the city of Delhi
from its early inception to the eighteenth century.

The course teaches how the city grew into one of the largest cities in the world and was
the capital of some of the great empires of its

time. As the capital of these empires, Delhi profited from continuous immigration, state
patronage and a vibrant cultural life. But the

course also wants students to learn that the city was not merely dependent upon its
rulers for cultural and political sustenance. It focuses

on Sufis, litterateurs and merchants who also gave the city its unique character and
resilience in the face of political turbulence. Other

than recourse to readings the course tries to acquaint students with Delhi through
project work and introspection of Delhi’s presence and

its uneasy relationship with its past.

Learning Outcomes:

The study of Delhi will introduce students to different kinds of sources -- archaeological,
architectural and a variety of textual materials.

Students will learn how to use these materials and correlate their sometimes discordant
information. Through the study of a city which

was also a capital it will teach students to analyze processes of urbanization and state
formation. But the focus on the city will also teach
them the difficulties in appropriating narratives of the state with the history of particular
localities. The course underlines the need to

read the history of the city creatively without subsuming it within the state.

Course Content:

1. Between Myth and History -- Delhi’s Early Pasts: Indraprastha, Lalkot

2. From settlements to cityscape – Understanding the Many cities of Delhi

3. Delhi’s 13th and 14th Century settlements -- Case study of any two: 1) Dehli-yi kuhna’s
masjid-i jami‘ (old Delhi/Mehrauli), 2) Siri,

3) Ghiyaspur/Kilukhri, 4) Tughluqabad, 5) Jahanpanah, and 6) Firuzabad (see the

4. Shajahanabad: Qila Mubarak (Red Fort) as a site of power and the morphology of the
city

5. 18th century Delhi: political upheaval and social empowerment – complicated

Essential Readings:

· Singh, Upinder. (2006). Ancient Delhi, Delhi: Oxford University Press

· Richard J. Cohen, “An Early Attestation of the Toponym Ḍhillī”, Journal of the
American Oriental Society, Vol. 109 (1989), pp.

513-519.

· Kumar, Sunil. (2019) ”The Tyranny of Meta-Narratives; Re-reading a History of

Dayal ed, Questioning Paradigms, Constructing Histories: A Festschrift for Romila Thapar,
Aleph Book Company, pp 222-235.
· Irfan Habib, ‘Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate -- an Essay in Interpretation’, IHR
4 (1978), pp. 287-303.

· Ali Athar. (1985). “Capital of the Sultans: Delhi through the 13 th and 14th Centuries”, in
R.E. Frykenberg, ed., Delhi Through the

Age: Essays in Urban History, Culture and Society, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.
34-44

· Kumar, Sunil. (2011). “Courts, Capitals and Kingship: Delhi and its Sultans in the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries CE” in

Albrecht Fuess and Jan Peter Hartung, eds., Court Cultures in the Muslim World: Seventh
to Nineteenth Centuries, London:

Routledge, pp. 123-148;

· Koch, Ebba. (1997), “Mughal Palace Gardens from Babur to Shah Jahan
(1526-1648)”, Muqarnas, vol. 14 pp. 143-165

· Koch, Ebba. (1994). “Diwan-i ʿAmm and Chihil Sutun: The Audience Halls of Shah
Jahan”. Muqarnas, vol. 11, pp. 143-165.

· Koch, Ebba. (2010). The Mughal Emperor as Solomon, Majnun, and Orpheus, or the
Album as a think tank for allegory”

Muqarnas, vol. 27, pp. 277-311.

· Rezavi, Syed Ali Nadeem, (2010). “‘The Mighty Defensive Fort’: Red Fort At Delhi
Under Shahjahan -- Its Plan And Structures

As Described By Muhammad Waris.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 71, pp.
1108–21.

· Gupta. Narayani. (1993). “The Indomitable City,” in Eckart Ehlers and Thomas Krafft,
eds., Shahjahanabda / Old Delhi: Tradition

and Change. Delhi: Manohar, pp. 29-44.

· Losty, Jeremiah P. (2012).“ , edited by Pramod

Kapoor and Jeremiah P Losty, New Delhi: Lustre Press, pp. 14-87.
· Alam, Muzaffar. (2013) “Introduction to the second edition: Revisiting the Mughal
Eighteenth Century” in The Crisis of Empire

in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab 1707-1748, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
pp.xiii-lxiv

· Raziuddin Aquil, (2017) “Violating Norms of Conduct” in The Muslim Question:

Penguin Random House, pp. 133-156.

· Dadlani, Chanchal. (2017).“The City Built, the City Rendered: Locating Urban
Subjectivity in Eighteenth-Century Mughal Delhi.”

Affect, Emotion, and Subjectivity in Early Modern Muslim Empires: New Studies in Ottoman,
Safavid, and Mughal Art and

Culture, pp. 148–67.

· Chenoy, Shama Mitra. (1998). Shahjahanabad, a City of Delhi, 1638-1857. New Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.

· Ataullah. (2006-2007). “Mapping of 18 th Century Delhi: The Cityscape of a pre-Modern

History Congress, vol. 67 pp. 1042-1057.

87

· Nilanjan Sarkar, “An urban imaginaire, ca 1350 : The capital city in Ziya' Barani's
Fatawa-i Jahandari”, IESHR, VOL. 48

(2011): 407-24.

· 1) Flood, Finbarr B. “Introduction” in Finbarr B. Flood, Piety and Politics in the Early
Indian Mosque, Delhi: Oxford University

Press, 2008, pp. xi-lxxviii

· 2) Jackson, Peter. (1986). ‘Delhi: The Problem of a Vast Military Encampment’, in: R.E.
Frykenberg (ed.). Delhi Through the

Ages: Essays in Urban History, Culture, and Society, New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1986), pp.18-33.
· 3) Najaf Haidar, 'Persian Histories and a Lost City of Delhi', Studies in People's History,
vol. 1, (2014): 163–171

· 3) Desiderio Pinto, s.j., "The Mystery of the Nizamuddin Dargah: the Account of
Pilgrims", in Christian W. Troll, ed., Muslim

Shrines in India, (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 112-124.

· 3) Kumar, Sunil. (2019) ”The Tyranny of Meta-Narratives; Re-reading a History of

Dayal ed, Questioning Paradigms, Constructing Histories: A Festschrift for Romila Thapar,
Aleph Book Company, pp 222-235.

· 3) Aquil, R. 2008. “Hazrat-i-Dehli: The Making of the Chishti Sufi Centre and the
Stronghold of Islam.” South Asia Research 28:

23–48.

· 4, 5, 6) Welch, Anthony and Howard Crane. (1983). “The Tughluqs: Master Builders of
the Delhi Sultanate“: Muqarnas, vol. 1

pp. 123-166.

· 6) Flood, Finbarr B. (2003). “Pillars, Palimpsests, and Princely Practices: Translating

and Aesthetics, No. 43, Islamic Arts, pp. 95-116.

· 6) Anand Taneja, ‘Saintly Visions: Other histories and history’s others in the medieval
ruins of Delhi’ IESHR, 49 (2012).

Suggested Readings:

· Singh, Upinder. ed., (2006) Delhi: Ancient History, Delhi: Social Science Press

· Asher, Catherine B. (2000). “Delhi Walled: Changing Boundaries” in James D. Tracy,

Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 247-281.

· Matuso, Ara. (1982). “The Lodi Rulers and the Construction of Tomb-Buildings in
Delhi”. Acta Asiatica, vol. 43, pp. 61-80.
· Page, J.A. (1926). An Historical Memoir on the Qutb. New Delhi: Memoirs of the
Archaological Survey of India #22

· Hasan, Zafar. (1922). A Guide to Nizamu-d Din. New Delhi: Memoirs of the
Archaological Survey of India #10

· Page, J.A. (1937). An Memoir on Kotla Firoz Shah, Delhi. New Delhi: Memoirs of the
Archaological Survey of India #52

· Shokoohy, Mehrdad. (2007). Tughluqabad: a paradigm for Indo-Islamic Urban planning

Araxus Books.

· Anthony Welch, ‘A Medieval Center of Learning in India: the Hauz Khas Madrasa in
Delhi’, Muqarnas, 13 (1996): 165-90;

· Anthony Welch, ‘The Shrine of the Holy Footprint in Delhi’, Muqarnas, 14 (1997):
116-178;

· Hasan, S. Nurul. (1991). “The Morphology of a Medieval Indian City: A Case study of
Shahjahanabad”, in Indu Banga ed, The

City in Indian History, Delhi

· Blake, Stephen Blake. (1985). “Cityscape of an Imperial City: Shahjahanabad in 1739”,

Ages: Essays in Urban History, Culture and Society, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.
66-99.

· Blake, Stephen P. (1991). Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639-1739.
Cambridge; New York: Cambridge

University Press.

· Chandra, Satish. (1991). “Cultural and Political Role of Delhi, 1675-1725”, in R.E.
Frykenberg, Delhi through the Ages: Essays

in Urban History, Culture and Society, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 106-116.

· Moosvi, Shireen. (1985) “Expenditure on Buildings under Shahjahan–A Chapter of

· Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, (2001). “A True Beginning in the North” and “A

Culture and History, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 109-126, 129-142.

· Bayly, Christopher Alan. (1986). “Delhi and Other Cities of North India during the
‘Twilight’”, in Delhi through the Ages: Essays

in Urban History, Culture, and Society, edited by Robert Eric Frykenberg, Delhi: Oxford
University Press, pp. 221–36.

Teaching Learning Process:

Classroom teaching supported by group discussions or group presentations on specific

in the course are from a non-history background, adequate emphasis shall be given
during the lectures to what is broadly meant by the

historical approach and the importance of historicising various macro and micro-level
developments/phenomena. Interactive sessions

through group discussions or group presentations shall be used to enable un-learning of

and time periods, as well as to facilitate revision of issues outlined in the lectures.
Supporting audio-visual aids like documentaries

and power point presentations, and an appropriate field-visit will be used where
necessary.

Assessment Methods:

Students will be regularly assessed for their grasp on debates and discussions covered
in class. Two written submissions; one of which
could be a short project, will be used for final grading of the students. Students will be
assessed on their ability to explain important historical

trends and thereby engage with the historical approach.

Internal Assessment: 25 Marks

Written Exam: 75 Marks

Total: 100 Marks

Keywords:

Myth, history, settlements, cityscape, morphology, social empowerment, Delhi,