Where this begins
The corpus starts in the Deccan, and starts there for a structural reason rather than a sentimental one: the Deccan connects outward in four directions at once — north to Delhi through the Chishti chain, west to Persia and Central Asia through the courts, across the sea to the Horn of Africa, and south to Mysore. A seed that connects in four directions grows into a graph. One that connects in one direction grows into a list.
Method, and a warning
Entries marked Draft are unreviewed first drafts and should be read as such. Nothing here is published as settled until a subject reviewer has passed it. Sources are named at the foot of every entry; where an entry rests on a contested or late account, it says so in the text rather than in a footnote.
Claims examined
Alongside the entities, the Codex keeps a second kind of entry: claims under examination — 8 widely repeated statements about the Deccan and about Indian Muslims, checked against the record. Each states the claim as its holders state it, concedes what is true in it, and then sets out the evidence. Where historians genuinely disagree, the disagreement is the content.