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The Sayyids and the Lodhis
1.0 Introduction
After Firoz Shah Tughluq's death, the Delhi sultanate disintegrated rapidly. The Sharqi kingdom of Jaunpur came into existence in 1394. Malwa and Gujarat also broke away. When Timur arrived on the scene in 1398-99, the fate of the Tughluq dynasty was sealed. After crossing the Indus, Timur met no serious opposition in the Punjab. Though Delhi submitted without much of a fight, Timur's army sacked it for three days and indiscriminately massacred both Hindus and Muslims. Travelling through Haridvar, Nagarkot and Jammu, he withdrew from India in March, 1399. His invasion, though merely a plundering raid, delivered the death blow to the Tughluq dynasty.
2.0 THE SAYYIDS
The Tughlaq dynasty ended soon after the Timur invasion but the sultanate survived, though it was merely a shadow of its former self. Timur’s nominee captured Delhi and was proclaimed the new sultan and the first of Sayyid Dynasty (1414 AD - 1451 AD), which was to rule the earlier half of the fifteenth century. Their rule was short-lived and confined to a radius of some 200 miles around Delhi.
Khizr Khan (1414-21): Before his departure from India, Timur had conferred Multan and Dipalpur on Khizr Khan. Timur's confirmation enhanced Khizr Khan's prestige and enabled him to capture Delhi. He tried to consolidate Delhi's control from Multan to Kanauj and from the foot of the Himalayas to the Malwa frontier.
Mubarak Shah (1421-34): His successful expeditions against Mewatis, Katihar and the Gangetic Doab enabled him to collect revenue from that region, although Delhi's authority over their chiefs was precarious. Mubarak Shah was assassinated by some of his own nobles.
Muhammad Shah (1434-43): The new Sultan was also unable to combat the intrigues among the leading nobles. He was in fact reduced to the pitiable position of ruling a territory which extended merely forty miles around his capital.
Alam Shah (1443-51): When he retired to Badaun in 1447, Bahlul Lodhi captured Delhi. The Sultan did not contest Bahlul's usurpation and formally transferred the sovereignty of Delhi to him in 1451. The Sayyids had ruled in name only, but the Lodhis revived the prestige of the Delhi sultanate.
3.0 THE LODHIS
3.1 Bahlul Lodhi
Bahlul Lodi established the Lodhi Dynasty and he ruled from 1451- 1526. He was previously the governor of Sarhind (in Punjab), under the Sultan of Delhi Alauddin Alam, of the Sayyid Dynasty (1414-1451). Due to the weak position of the Sayyid dynasty, Bahlul Lodhi took advantage as he first occupied the province of Punjab, and later on, captured Delhi and became the Sultan of Delhi on April 19, 1451 under the title of Sultan Abul Muzzaffar Buhlul Shah Ghazi.
During his rule though there were numerous attempts to destabilize the empire. Bahlul, however, captured a number of nearby states. This was the only Afghan dynasty to rule over the Delhi Sultanate, with the exception of Sher Shah Suri. Bahlul Khan seized the throne and managed the kingdom without much resistance from the then ruler, Alam Shah. Bahlul Khan’s territory was spread across Jaunpur, Gwalior & Uttar Pradesh. In 1486, he appointed his eldest son Babrak Shah as the Viceroy of Jaunpur.
3.2 Sikandar Lodhi
Due to the death of Bahlul Lodhi in July 1489, his son Nizam Khan succeeded him, under the title Sikandar Shah Lodhi. He turned out to be the most capable ruler of the Lodhi Dynasty. Sikandar Shah established a fair system of administration & founded the historical city of Agra. His empire extended from Punjab to Bihar and he also signed a treaty with the ruler of Bengal, Alauddin Hussain Shah. Sikandar Shah was the one who founded a new town where the modern day Agra stands and was known to be a kind and generous ruler who cared for his subjects.
3.3 Ibrahim Lodhi
With Sikandar's death emerged the fight for succession between his sons, which resulted in the decline of rule of the Lodhi dynasty. Ibrahim Lodhi, son of Sikander, was the last Sultan of the Lodhi Dynasty. Zahiruddin Babur, the Mughal ruler from Central Asia, attacked India and defeated Ibrahim in the first battle of Panipat on April 21, 1526.
As the time came for Ibrahim to ascend the throne of Lodhi Dynasty, the political structure in the Dynasty had dissolved due to abandoned trade routes and depleted the treasury.
The Deccan was a coastal trade route, but in the late 15th century the supply lines collapsed. The decline and failure of specific trade route resulted in cutting off supplies from the coast to the interior, where the Lodi Empire resided. The Dynasty was not in a position to protect itself from the warfare if it would break out on the trade route roads, and therefore, the trade routes were not utilised. Their trade declined, and so did the amount in the treasury, leaving them vulnerable to internal political problems.
Another problem Ibrahim faced when trying to ascend the throne as the next Lodi emperor was the Afghan chiefs. The chiefs did not like Sultan Ibrahim, so they divided the Lodi Empire and gave Ibrahim's older brother, Jalaluddin, the area in the east of Jaunpur and gave Ibrahim the area in the west, Delhi. Despite this situation, Sultan Ibrahim being the military man he was, gathered enough military support and killed his brother and reunited the kingdom by the end of that same year in 1517.
Later Ibrahim Lodhi arrested the Afghan nobles who had opposed him. The Afghan nobles were loyal to the Governor of Bihar, Dariya Khan, as they wanted him to rule Delhi, and not Sultan Ibrahim.
People who tried to take over the Lodhi throne were extremely common during Sultan Ibrahim's time. Due to the lack of the law of succession, Ibrahim was forced to put down a great group of these ambitious men. Ibrahim Lodhis' own uncle, Alam Khan, working off his own ambitions, betrayed Ibrahim because he wanted to rule Delhi. Alam Khan decided to place his loyalty with the first Mughal emperor, Babur.
Due to the demands of the nobles, Ibrahim Lodhi's younger brother Jalal Khan was given a small share of the kingdom and was crowned the king of Jaunpur. Later, Ibrahim's men assassinated him and the kingdom came back to Ibrahim Lodhi. He was known to be a very stern ruler and was not liked much by his subjects.
To take revenge of the insults done by Ibrahim, the governor of Lahore Daulat Khan Lodhi asked the ruler of Kabul, Babur, to invade the kingdom. Lodhi was defeated in a battle and Babur then founded the Mughal dynasty in India. The death of Ibrahim Lodhi marked the end of Lodhi dynasty. This was a historical turning point - the defeat of Ibrahim ending the Lodhi Dynasty, and marking the beginning of Mughal rule in India.
4.0 ADMINISTRATION under the delhi sultante
The government of the Delhi Sultanate was a compromise between Islamic political ideas and institutions on the one hand, and the existing Rajput system of government on the other. Consequently, many elements of the Rajput political system, with or without changes, became part and parcel of the Turkish administration in India.
4.1 Muslim political ideas
Theological basis: Muslims believed that Islamic society and government should be organised on the basis of divine injunctions of the Quran. The sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad, collectively known as hadith, began to be supplemented with the above. The ulemas (Muslim theologians) gave various rulings on the basis of the Quran and the hadith to meet different situations and problems, which are together known as the sharia (Islamic Law).
Allah-Prophet relationship: According to the Quran, the real master and sovereign of the whole universe is Allah. Allah has sent to all lands, through the ages, his prophets for the transmission of his message, Muhammad being the last one. While it is the duty of the governed to obey the ruler, it is equally the duty of the ruler to discharge his functions efficiently.
Caliphate: In principle, the entire Muslim fraternity should have only a single monarch. But when the caliphate or the empire of the caliphs became very extensive and disintegrative forces began to gain the upper hand, the ulemas or Muslim jurists developed the theory of governors by usurpation and said that ‘whom the caliph did not oppose he approved’.
Similarly they held that only an elected head could be the ruler. But when the caliphate became a hereditary monarchy they evolved a new doctrine of election. Now election by eleven or five or even by a single person enjoying the confidence of the people was regarded as election by the people. This legalised nomination by a ruling sovereign as election by the people. In the absence of any widespread uprisings against a ruler it was held that acquiescence was tantamount to approval or election by the people.
Caliph-Sultan relationship: Most of the Sultans kept up the pretence of regarding the caliph as the legal sovereign while they themselves were the caliph's representatives. Most of them included the name of the caliph in the khutba (prayer) and the sikka (coin) and adopted titles indicative of their subordination to the caliph.
However, three rulers emphasised their own importance. Balban used to say that after the Prophet, the most important office was that of the sovereign and called himself the 'Shadow of God'. Muhammad bin Tughluq assumed this style during the early years of his reign and although Balban had retained the name of the caliph in the khutba and sikka, Muhammad made no mention of caliph anywhere. But, despite all this, neither of them had the audacity to call himself the caliph. The only person who had done this was Qutub-ud-din Mubarak Khalji.
4.2 Provincial government
The whole kingdom was divided into a number of provinces, known as wilayat or iqlim, and tributary states. Little attempt was made to interfere in the internal affairs of the tributary states as long as they did not threaten the integrity of the empire. But the provincial administration under the Sultans was neither well organised nor efficient.
In the earlier stages, a nobleman was assigned un-conquered or semi-conquered territory as iqta and he was acknowledged the governor of all the land he could subdue by force. But this no longer applied in the later times. The ruler himself now undertook the task of conquest and subjugation, and he assigned the conquered territory to suitable governors. In the earlier period, transfer of governors was a rare occurrence but in later times this was freely done. In Alauddin Khalji's reign, according to Barani, there were twelve provinces.
The governor was called nayim or wall. Below the provincial governor there was a provincial wazir, a provincial ariz and a provincial qazi. Their functions corresponded to those of similar dignitaries at the centre. Like the Sultan at the centre, the provincial governor combined in his hands the powers of maintaining law and order, control over the local army, realisation of state dues and provision for justice.
4.3 Local government
The provinces were divided into shiqs and below it into paraganas. The shiq was under the control of the shiqdar. The paragana, comprising a number of villages was headed by the amil. The village remained the basic unit of administration and continued to enjoy a large measure of self-government. The most important official in the village was the headman known as muqaddam or chaudhari.
5.0 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS
The principal achievement of the Delhi Sultans was the great systematisation of agrarian exploitation and the immense concentration of the revenues thus obtained. Immediately after a conquest, settlements were made with the members of the defeated aristocracies. Hence the land revenue then was no more than the tributes fixed on subjugated rulers. Introduction of radical reforms in the revenue system came only after a century of experience and adaptation.
After consolidating their position in India, the Delhi Sultans classified the land into three categories - iqta land, i.e. land assigned to officials as iqtas; khalisa land or crown land, i.e. land which was under the direct control of the Sultan and whose revenues were meant for the maintenance of the court and the royal household; and Inam land (also known as madad-i-maash or suyurghal or waqf'land), i.e. land assigned or granted to religious leaders and religious institutions.
6.0 Taxation System
The different types of taxes charged and collected by the Delhi sultans can be broadly divided into two classes:
(1) religious taxes and (2) secular taxes.
- Among the first type, zakat is a tax on the property and land of the Muslims. But it was meant essentially for religious and charitable purposes endowed through the department of sadr.
- The second religious tax was the jizya (or jaziya), a tax imposed on non-Muslims or zimmis for the protection given by the state to their life, property and place of worship. However, certain types of people were exempted from its payment, such as imbeciles, minors, destitutes, monks and priests.
- Among the secular taxes, kharaj was the most important tax or source of income to the state. It was a land tax realised originally from the non-Muslims peasants, but later collected from even the Muslims cultivating khalisa land. This was probably done to prevent a sudden crash in the revenues of the state by wholesale conversions. In assessing the land revenue, both the area of the field and the nature of the crop were kept in consideration. But the more usual method was division of crops. Alauddin and Muhammad Tughluq took special measures to fix land revenue on the basis of a unit of area but the scheme did not make much headway, nor did it have any abiding influence on land tenures.
- Another secular source of income to the state was the khams or the tax on mines, treasure troves, etc. and the share in war booty. Legally speaking, the state was entitled to only 1/5th of the war booty, but all the Delhi Sultans, except Firuz, revised the rates and realised 4/5ths for the state and left 1/5th to the soldiers. Similarly, the tax on mines and treasure troves was 1/5th of the wealth secured.
- Besides, there were many other secular taxes such as the irrigation tax (shirb), grazing tax, customs and excise from traders and merchants, house-tax, etc.
Method of Collection: Taxes were paid both in cash and in kind, though sultans like Alauddin preferred payment in kind in some regions like the Doab. All the revenue of the state was pooled into a central treasury. The wazir made allocation of grants for the various departments on the basis of the total revenue collection. Many other officers assisted the wazir in the revenue administration. But the modern method of budgeting was unknown and the sultan was free to treat the royal treasury virtually as his privy purse.
7.0 Evolution of the Iqta System
First Stage (1206-1290): The system started with the assignment of different regions as iqtas (territorial areas or units whose revenues were assigned to officials in lieu of salaries) to military commanders, out of whose revenues they could maintain themselves and their troops as well. Iqta in this stage stood for not only a revenue unit but also an administrative unit. Transfer of iqtas from one person to another was done rarely in this period.
Second Stage (1290-1351): Modification of the system was done under the Khaljis and the early Tughluqs. They resorted to frequent transfer of iqtas. They insisted on the submission of accounts of collection and expenditure by the iqtadars or muqtis (holders of iqtas) regularly and sending the balance (fawazil) to the treasury. Estimation of the revenue paying capacity of each area, fixation of the salaries of the officers in terms of cash and assignment of the iqtas of the same revenue paying capacity were the main developments.
Third Stage (1351-1526): It began with the reversal of the trend of the previous phase by Firoz Tughluq, who granted a series of concessions to the officers. Fixation of the estimated revenues of the iqtas was done permanently, thus allowing themuqtis to appropriate all the increases of revenue. The posts and the assignments were made practically hereditary. These changes, introduced by Firoz, were continued by all his successors.
All the above developments in the iqta system were basically due to the changes in the composition of the nobility under the Delhi Sultans. The nobility was initially monopolised by the Turks, but gradually others like the Persians, Afghans, Abyssinians, and Indian Muslims, entered the nobility, thus making it more cosmopolitan and heterogeneous. The entry of new elements into the nobility under the Khaljis and early Tughluqs enabled the Sultans to increase their control over the iqta system, but once the new elements got themselves strengthened they demanded more powers and privileges, thus resulting in the liberalisation and decentralisation of the iqta system by Firoz Tughluq.
8.0 Rural Classes
Peasantry: The peasantry, known as the balahars, paid one-third of their produce as land revenue, sometimes even one-half of the produce. Besides land revenue, they paid certain other taxes which proves that taxation during this period was as much, if not higher than, as in the previous period. In other words, the peasants were always living at the subsistence level which was easily denied by the frequent wars, thus resulting in large scale, and not so infrequent, famines.
Muqaddams and small landlords: They had a better standard of life, for they readily misused their power in order to exploit the ordinary peasants. Autonomous chieftains constituted the most prosperous rural section. Though they were now a defeated ruling class, they were still powerful in their respective areas and continued to live a luxurious life as in the pre-Muslim period.
9.0 GROWTH OF COMMERCE AND URBANIZATION
Sprawling urban centres: The 13th and 14th centuries saw the rise and growth of several towns and cities in India. For instance, Lahore and Multan (modern Pakistan); Broach, Cambay and Anhilwara (western India); Laknauti, Gaur and Sonargaon (eastern India); Daulatabad (Deccan); Delhi and Jaunpur (northern India), etc. Delhi, according to Ibn Batuta (a Moroccan traveller who spent eight years at the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq), was the largest town in the Islamic East, and Daulatabad could almost rival Delhi in size.
Urban growth: At the heart of each new dynastic domain, capitals needed serious fortification. Big stone forts arose in rapid succession on major arteries of mobility, running east-west in the northern plains and north-south in the peninsula: at Kota (1264), Bijapur (1325), Vijayanagar (1336); Gulbarga (1347), Jaunpur (1359), Hisar (1361), Ahmedabad (1413), Jodhpur (1465), Ludhiana (1481), Ahmadnagar (1494), Udaipur (1500) and Agra (1506). In this context, Delhi began its long career as an imperial capital, strategically astride routes down the Ganga and into Malwa and the Deccan.
Forts growing into new urban centres: The new dynastic capitals were often not located in the most fertile agricultural tracts or in old medieval centres in riverine lowlands, but rather in the uplands, on dry ground, in strategic sites, along a route of communication and supply. As new dynastic domains grew richer, forts became fortified cities with palaces, large open courtyards, gardens, fountains, garrisons, stables, markets, mosques, temples, shrines and servant quarters. The architectural elaboration of fortified space became big business; it produced a new kind of urban landscape. Inside a typical fort, there was palace glamour as well as stables and barracks; we see a self-contained, armed city, most of whose elements came from far away. Permanent armies drawing specialist soldiers and supplies from extensive networks of trade and migration sustained these new urban centres. No new dynasty of any significance rested on resources from its capital's immediate hinterland; and to this extent, they were all imperial, however small.
Army determines the political geography: Political geography no longer focused as much as before on agrarian core regions; rather, it followed the routes of armies. A typical sultan's domain consisted of a series of fortified sites, each with an army that lived on taxes from its surrounding land. Dynasties expanded as local fort commanders submitted to one central command; they fragmented when their commanders declared independence, as they often did. The two great imperial success stories were the Delhi Sultans, whose five dynastic lineages embraced a shifting collection of subordinate rulers for three hundred years, from 1206 to 1526; and the Mughals, whose one lineage controlled a vast military command for about half that long, from the day of Akbar's coronation, in 1556, to the day of Aurangzeb's death, in 1707.
Army promotes physical and social mobility: Urbanism reached new heights under military regimes that promoted vast physical and social mobility. Armies protected trade routes and sultans built strategic roads. The army provided the surest route to upward mobility that always required extensive travel. Many men traveled long distances to fight. It became standard practice for peasants to leave the Bhojpuri region, on the border of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, after the harvest each year, to fight as far away as the Deccan, to collect wages and booty, and then return home lo plant the next crop. Short distance seasonal military migration became an integral feature of peasant subsistence in the Decean. Dynasties expanded only because warriors migrated to its periphery, where they fought, settled, and attracted new waves of military migration. War pushed peasants away from home by disrupting farm operations, and by forcing villagers to feed armies. Life on the move became a common social experience for many people: seasonal migrants, people fleeing war and drought, army suppliers and camp followers, artisans moving to find work and peasants looking for new land, traders, nomads, shifting cultivators, hunters, herders and transporters. Altogether, people on the move for at least part of each year may have comprised half the total population of major dynastic domains in the medieval period.
Trade growth, and traders’ importance: This mobility increased commerce im various ways. But the specific kind of urbanism that characterised medieval domains came from concentrations of goods and services and of commercial supply and demand around fortified sites of dynastic military power. Armies at home and on the move needed diverse goods and services, from horses to weapons to cuisine, rugs, jewellry, art, and entertainment. Rulers accumulated cash and credit to pay troops and buy war material. Getting cash to support war required rulers to supply virtual military cities moving across the land for months at a time, filled with all sorts of army personnel, suppliers, retainers and allied service groups. To maintain his supremacy, a sultan needed cash to finance his wide-ranging display of military power. Financial support became harder to find in times of dynastic distress; and as a result, bankers and merchants became powerful in politics, as they also became influential in urban society and culture.
10.0 GROWTH OF TRADE AND COMMERCE
Ibn Batuta travelled the new Asian world that emerged in the Mongols' wake. Born in Tangier, in Morocco, he started his journey in 1325, overland to Mecca, across Persia, and via Samarkand to Delhi. He lived at the sultan's court in Delhi for eight years and later served the sultan as an emissary to China, and returned by sea via Sumatra, Sri Lanka, Kerala, Goa, and Gujarat, before heading back to Morocco. His astute observations often concern commercial conditions. In Turkestan, he found that "horses ... are very numerous and the price of them is negligible." He found Bengal to be "a vast country, abounding in rice and nowhere in the world have I seen any land where prices are lower than there." On the road from Goa to Quilon, he wrote, "I have never seen a safer road than this, for they put to death anyone who steals a single nut, and if any fruit falls, no one picks it up but the owner."
Role of south Asia as a land bridge: Though early medieval inscriptions do indicate substantial commercial activity, including long-distance trade by major merchant communities, medieval documents indicate that commerce expanded dramatically after 1200. As Ibn Batuta indicates, specialised commodities were produced in abundance in particular regions, and rulers protected traders’ activities inside their domains. In addition, his route itself - like that of Marco Polo a century before - indicates that inland transport across Central Asia was part of a wider circuit of mobility that included the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. South Asia was a huge land bridge between Central Asia and southern seas.
Network of trade routes in the Indian Ocean: A web of long and short trade routes in the Indian Ocean were attached to the coast from ancient times. Long routes between China and Europe always touched South Asia, where they met coastal routes among localities from Gujarat to Bengal. Early medieval records in Cairo describe voyages to Gujarat and Malabar; and for many merchants from the Mediterranean, Cochin was India's port of entry. Many Christian, Muslim and Jewish traders from the west, settled in early medieval Kerala, where Hindu rulers depended on them to increase dynastic wealth. Ibn Batuta observed that "most of the merchants from Faras [Persia] and Yemen disembark at Mangalore, where pepper and ginger are exceedingly abundant." In 1357, John of Marignola, Pope Benedict’s emissary to China, called Quilon "the most famous city in the whole of India, where all the pepper in the world grows." Europeans began building fortified settlements for permanent residence on the west coast after Vasco da Gama arrived in Malabar, in 1498.
Importance of overseas connections to inland: The coast and its overseas connections became increasingly important for people living in the inland interior. Trends elsewhere also made Indian Ocean ports more important for inland societies. Warriors needed horses imported by sea. Exports became more numerous as farness pushed agriculture into the interior uplands, where more diverse productive localities entered trading systems strung along rivers leading to and from the sea. Upland forests sent spices, timber, honey, fruits, elephants and many other valuable commodities to the coast, in return for rice, meat, tools and other goods that traveled coastal trade routes. In this context, farmers began specialising in growing cotton that thrives in black volcanic soil. By 1500, cotton and silk textile manufacturing, trade and consumption involved many specialists: growers, spinners, weavers-dyers, transporters, bankers, wholesalers and retailers. Consumers of cloth were concentrated initially in urban centres, where urban traders, bankers, wholesalers and weavers became critical links in complex chains of commercial transactions that expanded the scale of manufacturing and stretched along the coast and out to sea.
Coins: There was an increase in the number of coins during the period of the Delhi Sultans, compared to the previous period, indicating the growth in commercial transactions.
Merchants and their activities: A large amount of evidence about merchants and their operations is available. India again started exporting a large number of commodities to the countries on the Persian Gulf and Red Sea (West Asia), and also to South East Asian countries. Coastal and sea trade was in the hands of the Jain Marwaris and Gujaratis, and Muslim Bohra merchants. Overland trade with Central and West Asia was in the hands of the Muitanis (mainly Hindus) and Khorasanis (Afghan Muslims). Barani, a contemporary historian, gives an excellent account of their riches.
Efforts of Sultans to increase commerce: Political unification of major parts of India removed the political as well as economic barriers. Introduction of the institution of dalals or brokers (dalal, meaning one who acts as an intermediary, is Arabic in origin), facilitated commercial transactions on a large scale. Construction of new roads and maintenance of old ones facilitated easy and smooth transport and communications. Sarais or rest houses were maintained on the roads for the convenience of traders and merchants.
11.0 TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGES
Cotton Textile Industry Increase in its production was affected by the introduction of several new techniques, such as spinning wheel, cotton-carder's bow and weaver's treadles.
Silk Industry There was also an increase in the production of silk cloth due to the introduction of sericulture (production of raw-silk by rearing silkworms), which made India less dependent on Iran and Afghanistan for raw silk.
Paper Industry Its production in India was started by the Turks and there was an extensive use of paper from the 14th and 15th centuries.
Building Industry Introduction of new techniques, like the vaulted (arched) roofing and the cementing lime, made possible large-roofed brick structures.
Other Crafts Leather-making, metal-working, and carpet-weaving increased in production due to the increased demand under the Sultans. However, these crafts did not witness any significant technological changes.
11.1 Causes for changes in urban economy
The foremost cause was the immigration of artisans and merchants from the Islamic East to India, bringing with them their crafts, techniques and practices. Secondly, there was an abundant supply of docile trainable labour obtained through large-scale enslavement. Finally, the Delhi Sultans established a revenue system through which a large share of agricultural surplus was appropriated for consumption in towns.
Contemporary historians like Isami give us a good account of the immigration of artisans and merchants to India. The large number of captives obtained for enslavement in the military campaigns were trained as artisans by their captors, and they later became free artisans by obtaining or buying their freedom. Thus the immigration and enslavement were responsible for the growth of urban centres and crafts, and their sustenance was provided by the increase in the revenues with the establishment of the new land revenue system. The ruling class, who appropriated a large part of the country's surplus, spent most of it in towns.
12.0 PERSIAN CHRONICLES
General merits: There are numerous contemporary and semi-contemporary Persian chronicles dealing with different Muslim dynasties which give us reliable details on topography and more or less dependable chronology, in addition to connected accounts of political and military events. Some of them are general histories of the Muslim world in which medieval Indian history occupies some place; but there are several chronicles dealing with the history of medieval India. In some cases, these works deal only with particular regions, dynasties or rulers.
Main demerits: The Persian chronicles suffer from two principal defects. As the authors were generally connected with the court and dependent upon royal favour, they could not give an objective version of historical events. Moreover, they were sometimes swayed by religious orthodoxy, not only in the case of the Hindus but also in the case of unorthodox Muslim rulers like Muhammad Tughluq. Secondly, their attention was concentrated upon the court and the camp; they took little interest in the condition of the people and in socio-economic developments.
Minhaj-us-Siraj, author of the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, was born in 1193. He entered government service in the reign of Iltutmish, and served as the Chief Qazi of Delhi in the middle of the thirteenth century. He was a judicial officer as also a courtier and necessarily exercised political discretion in writing his history.
- The Tabaqat is a compendium of Islamic history from the days of Adam to the year 1260 when it was completed. It was named after the reigning Sultan, Nasiruddin Mahmud.
- That portion which deals with the history of the Sultanate is important because the author was a contemporary in close contact with the events of the period and took pains to collect information from different quarters.
- What he has left is valuable as a work on purely political history. It describes the careers of most of the prominent nobles of Muhammad of Ghur and Iltutmish.
- He praises those from whom he received favours, suppressing or misrepresenting facts to suit his own point of view. He excludes details about the careers of those against whom he was prejudiced. He exposes the worst side of the character of the ulema-their selfish intrigue for worldly success.
Ziauddin Barani was 74 years old when he completed his work. Son of a government officer, he was employed at the headquarters for 17 years in the reign of Muhammad Tughluq. Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, named after Firuz Shah Tughluq, is the most valuable historical work written during the period of the Sultanate. It begins with the first year of Balban's reign (1266), leaving a clear gap of six years after the close of the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, and ends with the sixth year of Firuz Shah Tugluq's reign (1357). Barani wrote another book, Fatawa-i-Jahandari, which is a compendium of instructions on state affairs emphasising the Islamic ideal of government. It can claim no philosophical depth or even practical wisdom.
- A historian's duty, says Barani, is to be truthful, honest and fearless; if it becomes difficult for any reason to put the facts openly, he should convey them indirectly through implications and suggestions.
- He claims on several occasions that whatever he wrote was true, but Ferishta (a seventeenth century historian) blames him for withholding the truth. One of Barani's serious defects is indifference towards chronology. He does not always arrange events in chronological order.
- Again, his treatment is not systematic and it is incomplete in certain cases. For example, his account of the Deccan expeditions of Malik Kafur is very brief and unsatisfactory. He collected information from different sources, particularly from leading persons connected with the court; but he had little coordination.
- One special method used by Barani is to record 'dialogues' or 'discourse'.
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