Date of Bakht‑yar’s raid on Nadiya

Summary

This historical investigation revisits the problem of dating the Muslim general Muḥammad Bakhtyār Khaljī’s raid on Nadiya (Navadvīpa), an event that marked the beginning of Muslim rule in Bengal. Earlier scholars, including Charles Stewart and Edward Thomas, had placed the attack around 1202–4 CE, while Major Raverty proposed a date ten years earlier based on the assumption that Bakhtyār ruled Bengal for twelve years. The article surveys the conflicting testimony of Muslim chronicles—such as Tabaqāt‑i‑Nāṣirī, Hasan Nizāmī’s Taj‑ul‑Maʾāsir, Firishta’s history and Badaunī’s Muntakhab—and explains that differing regnal years and misreadings of Hijrī dates led to confusionfile:///home/oai/share/563030_compressed-109-216.pdf#:~:text=Date%20of%20Bakht,ya%E2%80%94r%E2%80%99s%20rule. It then turns to Bengali sources and epigraphic evidence that indicate that Lakṣmaṇa Sena fled Navadvīpa around 1203 and that Bakhtyār’s rule in Bengal lasted only a few years before his death in 1205–6. Weighing these sources, the author argues that the raid likely occurred in 1204 CE (AH 600) and not earlier; Raverty’s 1194 date is rejected because it contradicts contemporary Muslim writers. The study also emphasises that Bakhtyār’s conquest was an independent venture with little support from the Delhi Sultanate, and that subsequent Muslim chroniclers back‑dated the event to magnify the achievements of their patrons. By integrating Hindu and Muslim narratives, the article presents a more coherent chronology for this transformative episode in Bengal’s history.