The Persian language in India arrived with the Ghaznavid conquests of the 11th century and served as the language of courts, revenue offices and high literature for about 800 years. Mughal emperor Akbar made it the official language of his empire, and the British ended its official use in 1837. Its words still fill everyday Hindi and Urdu.
Persian, also called Farsi, is not spoken as a mother tongue by any community native to India today. Yet anyone who has visited a district court, read a land record or listened to a qawwali has met it. This explainer traces how it came, why it mattered and what it left behind.
- Quick facts: Persian language in India
- How Persian reached the Indian subcontinent
- Persian under the Delhi Sultanate
- The Mughal peak: Persian as the language of empire
- Persian beyond Delhi: Bengal and the Deccan
- How Persian lost its official status
- Persian words still used in India today
- Persian in Indian cinema and learning
- Why the Persian legacy matters
- Frequently asked questions
Quick facts: Persian language in India
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Arrival | 11th century, with the Ghaznavid conquests of Punjab |
| First big centre | Lahore, then Delhi under the Delhi Sultanate |
| Peak period | Mughal era, 1526 to 1857 |
| Official status ended | Act XXIX of 1837, in favour of English and local languages |
| Last major administrative use | Hyderabad State, until 1884 |
| Status today | Taught in some colleges and universities; survives in Hindi and Urdu vocabulary |
How Persian reached the Indian subcontinent
Persian came to north-west India with the Ghaznavid rulers, who conquered Punjab in the 11th century. Lahore became an early centre of Persian learning, and poets born in the subcontinent, such as Masud Sa’d Salman, were writing in Persian by this period.
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The word “Hindu” itself is commonly traced to Persian, where it was used for people living beyond the Sindhu (Indus) river. That small fact shows how long the two worlds have been in contact.
Persian under the Delhi Sultanate
From the 13th century, Delhi became one of the most important centres of Persian literary culture outside Iran. The Sultanate used Persian for its records, letters and court histories.
The best-known name from this period is Amir Khusrau, who wrote much of his Persian poetry under the Khalji and Tughlaq rulers. He is also linked with the early growth of Hindavi and with the qawwali tradition, which is why his name still comes up at Sufi shrines today.
After Timur sacked Delhi in 1398, Persian went through a quieter phase. Some Afghan rulers used Hindavi at court, but Sikandar Lodi later declared Persian the official language of the Sultanate again.
The Mughal peak: Persian as the language of empire
Persian reached its height under the Mughals. When Humayun returned to India with help from the Safavid rulers of Iran, many Iranian scholars, poets and officials came with him.
His son Akbar made Persian the official language of the empire. This had a practical effect: anyone who wanted a job in revenue, accounts or administration had to learn it. Many Hindu families of scribes and accountants became skilled in Persian and served the state for generations.
Akbar also ordered Persian translations of Sanskrit texts. The best known is the Razmnama, a Persian version of the Mahabharata, which was produced with illustrated manuscripts. Later, Dara Shikoh, Shah Jahan’s eldest son, worked on Persian translations of the Upanishads.
Persian beyond Delhi: Bengal and the Deccan
Persian was not only a Delhi language. The Bengal Sultanate used it in court and administration in the 14th century, alongside Arabic and Bengali. In the Deccan, the Bahmani Sultanate, founded in 1347, used Persian for official work, and its successor kingdoms continued the practice.
Hyderabad State kept Persian in its administration until 1884, when it shifted to Urdu. This makes the Deccan one of the last major centres of Persian administration in India.
How Persian lost its official status
The East India Company at first kept Persian for revenue and court work, because that was what Indian officials and records used. Change came in the 1830s.
- 1832: The Madras and Bombay Presidencies dropped Persian from administration.
- 1835: Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Minute on Education pushed for English-medium education in British India.
- 1837: Act XXIX of 1837 ended Persian as the language of official proceedings, in favour of English and local languages.
- 1884 and 1889: Hyderabad and then Kashmir replaced Persian with Urdu in their administrations.
Persian-medium schools in Punjab lasted until about the 1890s. By the early 20th century, the poet Muhammad Iqbal, who wrote a large body of work in Persian, was seen as one of the last major voices of the Indo-Persian tradition.
Persian words still used in India today
The clearest legacy of Persian is in everyday speech. Hindi and Urdu took in thousands of words that came through Persian, some of them originally Arabic or Turkish. Many are so common that people do not think of them as borrowed.
- Government and law: sarkar (government), adalat (court), darbar (royal court), tehsildar (revenue officer), wakil (lawyer)
- Daily life: bazaar (market), dost (friend), zameen (land), roz (daily), khush (happy)
- Titles: badshah (emperor), shahenshah (king of kings)
Court and land records in many states still use terms from the Persian period, such as munsif and tehsil. Persian poetry is also sung in qawwali and Sufi gatherings, and Mirza Ghalib, best known for his Urdu ghazals, wrote a large part of his work in Persian.
Persian in Indian cinema and learning
An interesting link with Bombay cinema: Dokhtar-e-Lor, the first Persian-language sound film, was produced in Bombay in 1932. It was made for audiences in Iran, using film studios in India.
Today, Persian is taught as a subject in some Indian colleges and universities, and the University of Kashmir has published a Persian-language journal, Danish, since 1969. Scholars who work on Mughal history, land records and Sufi literature still need it to read original documents. You can read more explainers like this in our Education and Infotainment sections.
Why the Persian legacy matters
Persian shaped how India was governed, recorded and written about for centuries. Much of what historians know about the Sultanate and Mughal periods comes from Persian chronicles, letters and revenue records.
It also helped give birth to Urdu, which grew from local speech mixed with Persian, Arabic and Turkish words. In that sense, the Persian legacy is not only in archives. It is in the way millions of Indians speak every day, and in the culture stories we cover under Lifestyle.
Further reading: Farsi.
Frequently asked questions
When did Persian come to India?
Persian came to the north-west of the subcontinent with the Ghaznavid conquests in the 11th century. It spread to Delhi and became a major court language under the Delhi Sultanate from the 13th century.
Which Mughal emperor made Persian the official language?
Akbar made Persian the official language of the Mughal Empire. Persian had already been used by earlier rulers, but under Akbar it became the standard language of administration across the empire.
When did Persian stop being the official language in India?
Act XXIX of 1837 ended the use of Persian in official proceedings in British India. Hyderabad State continued to use it until 1884.
Is Persian still spoken in India?
No native community in India speaks Persian as a first language today. It is studied in some universities and survives through thousands of loanwords in Hindi and Urdu.
Sources: Persian language in the Indian subcontinent (Wikipedia), Razmnama (Wikipedia), Amir Khusrau (Wikipedia).
