History of the Pashtun people
It is widely known that Sher Shah Suri built hundreds of serais in India for the comfort of travelers in the 16th century. However, few people are aware that Sher Shah also constructed a serai in Mecca. This information is derived from Zubdat al-Tawarikh by Shaikh Nurul Haq Delhvi, penned during the reign of Mughal … Read more
1- I will start by pointing out that the correct spelling of Sher Shah’s tribal surname is Sur (سور), not Suri (سوري). This error was originally made by early European writers and repeated by others. In all the pre-modern inscriptions and sources, the nisba of Sher Shah is written as Sur. It is also spelled as … Read more
The first Pashtun poet, the historicity of whose person and work, we cannot reasonably doubt, is Shaikh Isa Mashwani, though the quantity of his poetic effusion vouchsafed to the potency is very small. He was contemporary of the great Pashtun monarch, Sher Shah Sur, whose short reign (1540-45) is one of the golden periods of the … Read more
Mirza Aziz Koka, foster-brother and childhood playmate of Mughal emperor Akbar, praised Sher Shah Sur in a 1611’s letter written to Emperor Jahangir as follow; “Sher Shah Afghan, who was not a ‘malak’ (angel) but a ‘malik’ (king), established such a stable government that his memory is still alive. He turned Hindustan into a garden … Read more