Nujum al-Ulum (Stars of Sciences), ‘written in Persian but replete with Dakhni Urdu’, which ‘drew on Indic, Islamic, Hellenic, and Turkic traditions to provide a comprehensive vision of medieval Deccani court culture. Blending astronomy, mysticism, and politics,’ we are told, ‘the text shows that despite the bitter class struggles between [Dakhnis] and Westerners or the sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shiahs, courtly knowledge in the Deccan could achieve a remarkably eclectic synthesis of Indic and Persianate cultural traditions.’29
