Khwāndamīr, Ghiyās ad-Dīn Muḥammad

▪ Persian historian

Khwāndamīr also spelled  Khondamir  

born c. 1475, , Herāt, Khorāsān [now in Afghanistan]

died 1534/37, ; buried in Delhi, India

      Persian historian, one of the greatest historians of his time.

      Grandson of the Persian historian Mirkhwānd, Khwāndamīr entered the service of Badīʿ al-Zamīn, the eldest son of the Timurid ruler of Herāt, Ḥusayn Baykara. Khwāndamīr was an ambassador to the Uzbek ruler Muḥammad Shaybānī when the latter captured the city of Herāt in 1507; he also witnessed the Iranian monarch Shāh Esmāʿīl I Ṣafavi take the city and defeat the Uzbek ruler in 1510.

      Khwāndamīr then retired temporarily and began writing. Except for a brief period spent with the eldest son of his former patron, Khwāndamīr seems to have settled in Herāt until his departure for India in 1528. Reaching Āgra, he entered the service of Bābur, heir to the Timurid tradition and the first of the great Mughal rulers of India, and accompanied him on various missions. After Bābur's death the historian served his son, Humāyūn. Returning from a march on Gujarāt, Khwāndamīr fell ill and died.

      A prolific writer, Khwāndamīr's most outstanding works are Khulāsat al-Akhbār (“The Perfection of the Narratives”), written in 1499–1500 for the Timurid minister and author Mir Ali Shir Navai; Habīb al-Siyar (“The Friend of Biographies”), a general history finished in 1524, the most valuable sections of which deal with the reigns of Sultan Ḥusayn Baykara and Shāh Esmāʿīl I Ṣafavi; the seventh and final volume of the history Rowḍat al-Safāʾ (“The Garden of Purity”) of his grandfather, Mirkhwānd; and the Humāyūnnāme (“The Book of Humāyūn”), in which he describes the buildings and institutions of the great Mughal empire.

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