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Divya Cherian, Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-century South Asia (USA: University of California Press), 2023, 284 pp., (Pb.).

S.H. Askari, tr., Sīrat-i Fīrūz Shāhī, Translation of a Unique Manuscript (Patna: Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library), 2021, ₹600, including a 34-page Introduction by the translator (Hb).

Shalin Jain, Identity, Community and State: The Jains Under the Mughals (Delhi: Primus Books), 2017, 401 pp., ₹1,095 (Hb).

The establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, 1206, marked the infusion of a new cultural stream to which the religiously neutral term 'Persianate' is now attached. Indeed, it added to Sanskrit another language of learning in India, namely, Persian. The change, however, was not just one of an addition to India's list of literary languages. There was a recognisable extension of knowledge (and area of reflection) alongside the intrusion of an external language. The present article attempts a survey of the developments in different aspects of science (including practical activity related to it) during the period of the Sultanate (1206–1526), considered in two parts, according to the respective languages of the texts, namely, Sanskrit and Persian.

Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri, Agrarian Society in Awadh: Structure and Change under the Pre-Colonial Regimes, c. 1595–1856 (New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House), 2022, 262 pp., ₹950 (hb).

Robert Eric Frykenberg, ed., Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (Delhi: Primus Books), 2020, 273 pp., ₹300 (Pb) [originally published in 1969]. Robert Eric Frykenberg, ed., Land Tenure and Peasant in South Asia, (Delhi: Primus Books), 2020, ₹350 (Pb) [originally published 1977].

Akbar's policy of religious toleration from early in his reign (1556–1605) long remained in need of a theoretical justification, especially one from within the framework of Islamic tradition. At long last, the concept of Ṣulḥ-i Kul, derived from s[ūfic thought, was found to answer the need. Here we bring together evidence from contemporary texts to establish more precisely when the secular conversion of this mystic notion took place and how it came to be used as a justification for human amity and religious tolerance by Akbar's administration. Its short reign, however, ended within a few years of Akbar's death.

Peggy Mohan, Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India Through Its Languages (Gurgaon: Penguin/Viking), 2021, 341 + xvii pp., ₹599 (hb).

Zak Cope, The Wealth of (Some) Nations—Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value Transfer (London: Pluto Press), 2019, 260 pp., £19.99 (Pb).

The article explores documents in the so-called Vrindavan archives from Mughal times to extract information about individual women who appear there as complainants, sellers and donors. It seeks to establish what we can learn about women's limited rights to inheritance and notes their total exclusion from peasant holdings. An appendix furnishes recorded descriptions (ḥuliya) of women who appeared before the local qāẓī (judge).