Persian-language chronicles from the Ilkhanate era provide detailed testimony of the Tibi brothers' influence in Ma'bar, illuminating the context behind the Kayalpattinam inscription. The Iranian historian Rashid al-Din (d. 1318), in his universal history, included reports on the Pandya Kingdom's fall. As summarized by the 19th-century Missionary Robert Caldwell, Rashid al-Dīn writes that by the late 13th century (c. 1290) the Pandya realm was effectively divided: "Within the last few years [prior to 1300], Sender Bandi [Sundara Pandya] was Dewar (ruler), who, with his three brothers, obtained power in different directions. And Malik al-Taqī-ud-Din, brother of Shaikh Jamal al-Din, was his minister and adviser, to whom he assigned the government of Fatan, Male Fatan, and Kail" (Here "Kail" corresponds to Kayal, i.e. Kayalpattinam, and "Fatan" likely refers to the port of Fattan or Pattinam in the region.) In other words, by the end of Sundara Pandya's reign, his chief minister was Taqī al-Din Tībī, the brother of Jamal al-Din. Caldwell further records that "In the year 692 AH (1293 CE) the Dewar [Sundara] died and his wealth and possessions fell into the hands of his adversaries and opponents, and Shaikh Jamal al-Din, who succeeded him, obtained... 700 bullock-loads of jewels." This vivid detail—700 loads of jewels accruing to Jamal al-Din upon the king's death—suggests the enormous wealth at stake, likely referring to the transfer of the Pandya royal treasury into the hands of Jamal al-Din (and his faction) after Sundara Pandya's demise.

The Ilkhanid envoy and chronicler Abd Allah Wassaf (d.1328) confirms Rashid al-Din's account almost to the letter. Waşşāf's version, as noted by Caldwell, only differs in that it claims Sundara Pandya was succeeded by his brother (rather than by Jamal al-Din directly). Caldwell regarded this discrepancy as "not serious, for both statements may in a measure be true the brother's accession may have been merely nominal, the minister being really ruler as before". In other words, even if a Pandya prince briefly took the throne in name, the real power remained with Jamal al-Din Țibī and his allies. Notably, Wassaf gives Taqī al-Din an exalted title: he refers to him as "the eminent prince, the marzbān of Hind", and states that Taqī (whom he identifies as "Takiu-d-Din 'Abd ur-Rahman, son of Muhammad al-Tībī") was the deputy and vizier to the Pandya (the "Dewar"), entrusted with "Fitan, Mali Fitan and Kabil" (i.e. Kayal). Waşşaf adds that "he was still worthy of having the khutba read in his name," a striking indication that Taqī al-Dīn's authority was so recognized that the Friday sermon (khutba), normally proclaimed in the name of the sovereign, could be dedicated to him. Such an honor underscores that the Tibīs were viewed as de facto rulers in the eyes of the Muslim community.

Beyond political power, the Persian sources detail the economic might of the Tibīs in Ma'bar, especially their domination of the horse trade and other commodities. South India's dependency on imported war horses is a well-known feature of the medieval period; the humid climate precluded breeding high-quality horses locally, so Arab and Central Asian horses were in constant demand by Indian rulers (in this case, the Pandyas). Waşşaf provides astonishing figures: he relates that Jamal al-Din Tibī, honored in Ma'bar as Mālik al-Islām (Lord of Islam), entered into an agreement to supply the Pandya Kingdom with horses. Every year, from his base at Kish Island, Jamal al-Din would embark 1,400 horses of his own stock, animals so superb that "in comparison, the most celebrated horses of antiquity... would be as worthless as a chess knight," and transport them to Ma'bar. In addition, he gathered as many more horses as possible from other Persian Gulf ports (Qatif, Bahrain, Hormuz, etc.) to ship to Ma'bar, seemingly to serve the needs of the Pandyan Kingdom, which by that time had become a "key market". The price of each horse was fixed at 220 dinars of red gold, and crucially, the contract stipulated that if any horse died or was injured during the voyage, the Pandya royal treasury would reimburse its value. This royal guarantee shows the leverage Jamāl al-Din had: the Pandya court was so eager for his horses that it assumed the transport risk. According to Wassaf, under this arrangement approximately 10,000 horses were annually exported to Ma'bar (as well as to other regional ports like Cambay), an enormous volume, with a total value of about 2,200,000 dinars each year. The payment, he notes, was drawn from the "overflowing revenues of temple endowments and the tax on courtesans", specifically so that "no charge was incurred by the public treasury", implying that the Hindu temples' wealth was diverted to fund the import of horses. This extraordinary detail suggests that Jamal al-Din's commerce was not only profitable but had structural effects on the Pandya fiscal system, effectively tying sacred temple income and even social institutions (courtesans) into supporting the military horse trade. By citing Nur-al-ma'arif, an important Rasulid customs record compilation, Elizabeth Lambourn notes that the desire for horses among the 'Sūliyān' (Cholas), was one of the highest in all of India.

Waşşaf also describes the monopolistic privileges enjoyed by the Tibi family in Ma'bar's commerce. He writes that it was "a matter of agreement" that no other merchants could purchase goods in Ma'bar until Mālik al-Islām Jamal al-Din's agents and factors had taken their desired share. "Whatever commodities and goods were imported from the remotest parts of China and Hind into Ma'bar," Wassāf reports, "his [Jamal al-Din's] agents and factors should be allowed the first selection, until which no one else was allowed to purchase". Only after the Tibī agents had selected the prime goods were other traders permitted to buy, and even the "remnants were exported on [Jamal al-Din's] own ships" to be sold in other markets. In effect, the Tibis controlled the trade pipeline end-to-end: from procurement in foreign lands, to first-choice in Ma'bar's emporia, to re-export of surplus. The result, as Waşşaf marvels, was that "the trade was so managed that the produce of the remotest China was consumed in the farthest West". Indeed, he exclaims that "no one has seen the like of it in the world." Such statements underscore the unprecedented integration of East-West commerce in this era, a development in which the Tībīs played a starring role.

The prominence of the Tibis in Ma'bar is further corroborated by other contemporary sources. The Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who visited the region around 1292, took note of a powerful Muslim figure at the Pandya court. Polo refers to an envoy of the ruler of Ma'bar named "Chamalittin" (in Henry Yule's transcription) who had been sent to the court of Kublai Khan in China. Scholars identify "Chamalittin" as Polo's rendering of Jamal al-Din. This appears to be a reference to Jamal al-Din Tībī acting as a diplomatic go-between for the Pandya king to the Yuan Empire. Polo's account also alludes to the immense horse trade in Ma'bar and how foreign merchants (likely including the Tībīs) supplied thousands of war horses to the Pandyas at great profit. Meanwhile, the Delhi court poet Amir Khusraw, in his Persian chronicle Khazā'in ul-Futūh (1311), vividly describes the loot captured by the invading army of Malik Kafūr in Ma'bar. He notes that the Delhi forces seized 5,000 fine horses of "Yamānī" and "Shāmī" breeds (i.e. Arabian and Syrian horses) from the defeated Tamils. This corroborates Ma'bar's reputation as a horse-rich land, which by implication highlights the importance of traders like the Tibīs who imported those mounts.

These accounts collectively indicate that the Tibi brothers had carved out a sphere of quasi-sovereign authority in the far south of India during the 1290s-1300s, precisely when the Pandya dynasty was in decline and before the establishment of any northern sultanate in the region. Standard political histories of South India often jump from the Pandya civil war to Malik Kāfür's raid (1309-1311) and then to the Madurai Sultanate's founding (1335). But the interest of our paper lies in the events that happened during the interregnum (1293-1335), which is often subjected to multiple narratives and contradictory accounts. The inconsistency in these narratives also implies an inconsistency or fragmentary nature of sovereign power in the region during this period. Persian chroniclers insist, and the Kayal inscription implies, that local Muslim magnates filled the power vacuum. Indeed, Wassaf dates the death of Sundara Pandya (whom he calls "Dewar") to 692 AH / 1293 CE, nearly two decades before Malik Kāfür's invasion. There is reason to treat Waşşāf's chronology with caution; K. A. Nilakanta Sastri has pointed out some discrepancies between Wassaf's dates and those of local Pandya inscriptions, but the general picture is consistent: the Pandya kingdom was already weakened by civil war (a fraternal conflict between Sundara Pandya and Vīra Pandya) when it drew the attention of Delhi. Alauddin Khilji's general Malik Kāfür intervened in 1311, ostensibly invited by one claimant, but his raid was essentially a plundering expedition—"just an addition to the confusion of a country already distracted", as Sastri observes.

Kāfür's campaign did not result in permanent annexation: after looting temples and wealth, the Delhi forces withdrew, and the Pandyas (or local powers) continued to rule. In fact, the Delhi Sultanate had to send another army in 1323 (under Khusraw Khān) to try to impose control, which suggests no continuous Delhi presence in the interim following the Kafur's expedition. Sastri argues that a serious attempt to incorporate the deep south into the Sultanate occurred only under Muhammad bin Tughluq in the 1330s.

Within this unsettled milieu, the evidence strongly supports that the Tibīs governed Kayalpattinam and its environs as a de facto autonomous domain. Persian sources speak of Jamal al-Din Tibi effectively succeeding Sundara Pandya in 1293, and of Taqī al-Din wielding ministerial and military authority (even being mentioned in the khutba). Taqī al-Din's fate, tellingly, is also recorded. The Delhi chronicler Ziyā al-Din Baranī, in his Tārīkh-i Firūz Shāhī, relates that during the second Delhi invasion (c. 1323), there was a wealthy Muslim merchant in Ma'bar named Tākī Khān who "was a Sunni by profession, had acquired great wealth which he had purified by paying the alms prescribed by his religion". This Tākī Khān, Baranī says, naively did not flee when the Turkic army arrived, "as the invading force was Muslim". But the Delhi general Khusraw Khān treacherously "seized him, took his money by force and put him to death." This description of a pious, fabulously wealthy Sunni merchant in Ma'bar matches that of Taqī al-Din Tibi (whose name "Taqi" would be rendered Tākī in Baranī's spelling). Baranī's anecdote thus suggests that Taqī al-Din was killed and his fortune plundered in the course of Delhi's invasions, which aligns with local traditions that the Tibi presence did not long survive the onslaught from the north.

In summary, Persian accounts portray a period of fragmented sovereignty in Peninsular India, in which Muslim merchant-princes like the Tibīs rose to power amidst the vacuum left by a waning dynasty and only later fell to imperial forces. They underscore that the conventional periodisation of South Indian Islam, from the Chola/Pandya Hindu kings straight to Delhi's Muslim governors omits an intermediate chapter, one in which indigenous or locally-settled Muslims assumed the mantle of rulership. The evidence from Kayalpattinam's tombstone inscription fits neatly into this chapter, identifying Jamāl al-Din Tibi as exactly such a figure to be continued.