Short answers, pulled from the story.
Nizamuddin Ahmad, full name Khwaja Nizam-ud-Din Ahmad Bakshi, was a Muslim historian of late medieval India who lived from 1551 to 1621. He served as Mir Bakhshi, the chief paymaster of Emperor Akbar's military, and wrote the Tabaqat-i-Akbari, a comprehensive general history of India.
The Tabaqat-i-Akbari is a general history of India written by Nizamuddin Ahmad covering the period from the Ghaznavids in 986-7 through the 38th year of Akbar's reign in 1593-4. It draws on twenty-nine named authorities, some of whose works are no longer preserved in any other surviving source.
The Tabaqat-i-Akbari covers Indian history from the Ghaznavid period beginning in 986-7 up to 1593-4, the 38th year of the reign of Emperor Akbar. That span extends across more than six centuries of political history.
Nizamuddin Ahmad held the position of Mir Bakhshi under Emperor Akbar, which made him the chief paymaster of the imperial military. This role gave him access to official court records and administrative networks that informed his historical writing.
An early partial translation appeared in 1867 in The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The full edited text was published in Calcutta by the Asiatic Society in 1927, with a reprint in 1973, and a critical edition through Bibliotheca Indica appeared between 1931 and 1935.
Nizamuddin Ahmad quoted twenty-nine authorities in the Tabaqat-i-Akbari, some of which are now entirely lost. For scholars of pre-Mughal Indian history, his text is often the only surviving record of information originally contained in those vanished chronicles.