INDIAN history has been divided into ancient, mediaeval and modern periods. The period between A.D. 1206 (the year of accession of Qutb-ud- din Aibak as Sultan of India) and 1761 (occupation of Delhi by the Marathas) is ordinarily accepted as the mediaeval period of Indian history. The mediaeval period is also designated as Muhammedan period in contrast with the earlier Hindu-Buddhist period of ancient India.

The Muhammedan historians of the Sultanate were mostly courtiers and qadis. They were contemporaries who had seen and taken part in the events they narrated. That is why their record of events is vivid and authentic. Their histories are, however, records of battles, conspiracies, revolts) murders and fratricides. Elliot remarks, 'Of domestic history, we have in our Indian Annalists absolutely nothing, and the same may be remarked of nearly all Muhammedan historians, except Ibn Khaldun. By them society is never contemplated, either in its conventional usages or recognised privileges; its constituent elements or mutual relations; in its established classes or popular institutions, in its private recesses or habitual intercourses. In notices of commerce, dbt agriculture, internal police, and local judicature, they are equally deficient.

One is constrained to remark that it is agriculture department and the condition of cultivators which were of least interest to the Muhammedan historians. May be, it was due to the fact that Islam is an urban religion, and the emphasis on the part of the Muhammedan elite was on administration, trade, commerce and urban life. As such, they considered agriculture as an insignificant activity not worthy of notice and those who practised it as persons of no consequence.