The publication of the chronicle aroused great interest, particularly in British India and Europe. Robert Sewell translated and published the work under the title Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar). A contribution to the history of India (London, 1900). Another historian, Donald William Ferguson, a regular correspondent of David Lopes, was able to assist Sewell in translating some Portuguese words (Machado, Cartas..., 1973, pp. 181-404). David Lopes did not shy away from confronting authors whose opinions or interpretations he disagreed with, nor did he hesitate to criticise inaccurate translations. He did so in História dos portugueses no Malabar por Zinadin. A 16th-century Arabic manuscript published and translated by David Lopes (1898). Here, David Lopes justifies his purpose, emphasising the almost complete abandonment of historical studies in Portugal: “I mean history and not stories (...) but it is necessary to do so, not simply narratively, but truly critically” (História dos portugueses no Malabar..., 1898). In his extensive introduction of over one hundred pages, he studies trade in India until the 8th century (and from that century until the 16th), the history of Malabar, the Christians of São Tomé, the Jews of Cochin and the Portuguese domination of Eastern writers. He then informs us that the work of Zinadin, whose name means “the ornament of the faith” (zîn ad-dîn), had already been translated into English by Rowlandson in 1833 from two manuscripts of the time. David Lopes was able to compare four manuscripts and produce a new translation, omitting the abundant notes of the English translator, which he considered uninteresting or erroneous. The work was printed at the expense of the IV Centenary of the Discovery of India, Contributions of the Lisbon Geographical Society.

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