History of Chitral

CHITRAL: The ‘burnt’ book on history of Chitral emerged as the bestseller in the local market as its rendition in Urdu was published because all its copies in Persian had been burnt to ashes by the ruler of the state of Chitral soon after they reached the valley after being published in Peshawar.

Titled as Tareekh-i-Chitral, the book had been written by Mirza Mohammad Ghufran, who served as one of the top ranking functionaries of Katoor Dynasty (1500 to 1969 AD) in those days. He had written the book on the orders of his master Sir Shujaul Mulk, who ruled the state from 1895 to 1936.

Faizullah Khan, the owner of a leading bookshop of the city, told Dawn that the book was sold like a hot cake soon after its first consignment reached there from Lahore-based publisher and he had to place demand to the publisher for the second and third batches, which too exhausted shortly.

He said that like many other booksellers of the city, he had still a long list of aspirants of the book and he was waiting for its fourth batch as he was tired of listening to inquiries of people about arrival of the book.