A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 59
brought peace and prosperity to the city: "[Kazlak Khan] called back
all who had scattered from the worries of war, and he resettled them.
He provided sustenance for the elite and the common and gave them
all equal justice." Juzjani's honorific for Kazlak Khan, mulk (king), is
apt because these appointments mandated an open and fluid hierarchy
of alliances.^22
In his preface, Juzjani explains that during his duties as a jurist he
came across a book which had been collected "as. exemplum for the
people: the lives of prophets, caliphs, and genealogies of past kings."^23
That book ended with the career of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, and
Juzjani wishes to expand its "genealogy to include all the rulers and
kings of Islam, whether Arab or non-Arab, from the beginning to now,
so that the light of every ruling family would be lit in this gathering."^24
This he accomplishes by consulting "commendable" histories, which
he rewrites in a language that is accessible to all who can reflect on it.
__r There is both a recognition of the consequences of writing for the
present and an overwhelming concern for posterity's judgment in his
work.
In his preface, Juzjani states that he is a mere reporter and begs for-.
giveness if he has made a mistake.^25 At the end of his history, he in-
vokes the immortal" prophet Khizr to pray for the immortality of his
work, and he consequently uses the name of his patron sultan.^26 There
are two concerns visible in Juzjani's preface which overlap with '.Awfi's
concerns. First, he invokes Arabic textual precedent; his first citation
is in the description of Adam's third son, Sheeth, where he cites
Tabari.^27 Second, he traces genealogies of various members of the no-
bility and government.
Such insistence on biological or textual ancestors in Arabia should
be read as the author's claim for an intimacy with the moral and eth-
ical concerns that are in the text. There is a courtly discourse about
the contents of each of thes~ Persian texts, in their prefatory comments.
Juzjani, '.Awfi, and Kufi also offer a textual genealogy in their preface,
and provide fodder for self-reflection and perspectives on political
expedients for the elite. It is a sort of public reflection. Yet these prac-
tices of public performance and reflection and their social function are
largely neglected by historians of the Delhi sultanate. In that histori-
ography, the emphasis remains on histoire evenementielle.^28 Yet there