Abdur Razzaq, the Persian diplomat who visited Vijayanagara in 1443 and described its splendour, was sent as an envoy by the ruler of:

Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi, a Persian scholar and diplomat, was sent as an envoy by the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh, whose capital was Herat (in present-day Afghanistan), to India in the 1440s.

His journey:

• He set out in 1442 and sailed from Hormuz to Calicut, on the Malabar coast.
• At Calicut, he observed the trade of the port and the rule of the Zamorin.
• He then travelled to Vijayanagara, where he arrived in 1443, during the reign of Deva Raya II.
• He returned to Persia in 1444.

His description of Vijayanagara:

• NCERT quotes his account, in which he describes the city as having seven lines of fortification (seven fortified walls).
• He wrote that the city of Vijayanagara was such that the pupil of the eye had never seen a place like it, and the ear of intelligence had never been informed that there existed anything to equal it in the world.
• He described the fortifications enclosing not only the city but also agricultural land and forests.
• He described the markets, the jewellers' bazaars, the palaces, and the wealth of the city.
• He described the Mahanavami festival celebrations.
• He noted the large number of elephants and the powerful army of the king.

His account:

His travels are described in his Persian work "Matla-us-Sadain wa Majma-ul-Bahrain".

About Deva Raya II:

• He was the most powerful ruler of the Sangama dynasty (ruled about 1424-1446).
• He recruited Muslim cavalry and archers into his army to strengthen it.
• He was a patron of literature, and his court had poets in Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu.

Other foreign visitors to Vijayanagara:

• Niccolo de Conti (Italian): visited around 1420.
• Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz (Portuguese): visited in the 16th century.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Abdur Razzaq was not sent by the Ottomans, the Delhi Sultanate or the Bahmanis.