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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2009
It has been suggested that all historical sources are subjective from their inception and that authors' styles, commitments and views determine the bases of historical writings. Claude Lévi-Strauss has ventured so far as to claim: “Besides, historical fact has no objective reality. It only exists as a result of a retrospective construction undertaken by people who have lived the events they speak of in a purely arbitrative sense.” Indeed, historical narratives are fraught with danger when used as sources of actual information, for factual accuracy often does not extend to validity in representation of events. Formal histories such as dynastic chronicles were particularly vulnerable to misrepresentation. They usually were composed either with the intent of flattering the rulers who served as patrons of the author's efforts - and, hence, reflect royal ideology and imperial propaganda - or as a means of disparaging and vilifying the royal house
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The Amīr's nisba, although written as al-Bakkarī in the inscriptions, is more correctly al-Bhakkarī as given in the Tārīkh-i Sind.
7 Akbar nāma, iii, p. 324Google Scholar. Bihar and Bengal had been conquered by Akbar in A.D. 1574–6. On this rebellion see Tripathi, Ram P., Rise and Fall of the Mughal Empire (Allahabad, 1956), pp. 261–5, 345Google Scholar; and CHIiv, pp. 125–7, 132.Google Scholar
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