ʿAbbās Sarwānī was an Afghan historian in Mughal India. He was a member of a Sarwānī Afghan family which had settled in the town of Banūr, in the sarkār of Sirhind, after receiving two thousand bīghā s of land as a maintenance grant during the reign of Bahlūl Lodī. Islām Shāh Sūr renewed the grant to shaykh ʿAlī, ʿAbbās's father; but in 987/1579 the land was reappropriated by the state. ʿAbbās subsequently entered the service of Sayyid Ḥamīd, a scholarly officer of Akbar; and it was on this