composed the armies of the northern invaders, with little or no reference to their racial origin; and secondly, at the time of Baber, it was regarded as something scarcely better than a term of contempt. But later, when the so-called Moghul dynasty came to be looked up to as the supreme power, the name assumed a different and more respectful significance. Mr. Keene writes: "Under Akbar, when the empire had become a firm result of successful war, the word [Moghul] recovered its prestige and—like the name of 'Goth' in Spain—came to indicate 'a noble conqueror,' or the descendant of one";[1] and in support of this view he cites a valuable passage from Kháfi Khan (for which he acknowledges his indebtedness to the late Professor Blochmann, who may be inferred to have translated it), which runs as follows: "The flourishing condition of Mugholistan commenced with Mughol Khan, who was a great king. Although from the time of Akbar the word Mughol has been applied to the Turks and Tajiks of Irán (Persia) to such an extent that even the Sayyids of Khorasán were called Mughols, yet in reality the word is the proper term for those Turks who belong to the descendants and house of Mughol Khan; and it was used in this sense in the time of the earlier (Moslem) kings of Delhi. …" Here Kháfi Khan uses Turk in the same sociological sense as Rashid-ud-Din, Minháj-ud-Din, Mirza Haidar, and the rest.[2]
Mr. Denzil Ibbetson, too, furnishes some instructive remarks, in his Report on the Punjab census, on the way the words Turk and Moghul have come to be used in modern times in the north of India. A Turk is there regarded as a native of Turkistan and a man of Mongolian race. "In the Delhi territory, indeed," writes Mr. Ibbetson, "the villagers, accustomed to describe the Mughals of the Empire as Turks, use the word as
- ↑ Turks in India, p. 24.
- ↑ I may take this opportunity of remarking that Mr. Keene must have referred to the old translation of the Swedish officers of Charles XII., when he states (p. 50) that Abul Gházi "is represented as saying that he wrote his book 'in the Moghul or Turki language.'" I cannot find such a passage in Desmaisons' version. At p. 36 the author is made to write:—Afin de mettre cette histoire à la portée de toutes les classes, je l'ai écrite en Turc;" and I believe this to be the only allusion he makes to the subject. It is an additional instance of the dual mode of using the word Turk, for here Abul Gházi employs it to denote the language of the Turks proper, in an ethnic sense. He in no way classes the two tongues as one. He was, himself, a Turk of Khiva, and Mr. Erskine, who remarked the inconsistency in the old version of Abul Gházi's history, has well said :—"No Moghul or Turk would have confounded these two languages." (Hist., i., p. 586, App.)
