Symbols of Authority in Medieval Islam History, Religion, and Muslim Legitimacy in the Delhi Sultanate By Blain H. Auer (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012. 237 pages.)

Abstract

This insightful book, useful to scholars and students of Islamic and South
Asian history, illuminates the place of Islamic thought and institutions in the
political regimes of the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526). Finding late approaches
to the historiography of the period unduly focused on “fact” and “fiction,”
rather than “meaning,” the author unravels the more complex relationship
between history and historiography in six pertinent chapters (p. xix). These
are complemented by maps, illustrations, thorough endnotes, and a useful
bibliography. As a whole, the cohort of Persian histories read lead to the convincing
conclusion that “historians played a major role in producing and sustaining
ideas about power, justice and Islamic rule of the premodern empire”
(p. 160) ...