تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 6.5
Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354 6.5
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6.5.1
The doctor Shams ad-Din, who was a philosopher and a born poet, wrote a laudatory ode to the sultan in Persian. The ode contained twenty-seven verses, and the sultan gave him a thousand silver dinars for each verse. This is more than has ever been related of former kings, for they used to give a thousand dirhams for each verse, which is only a tenth of the sultan’s gift. Then too when the sultan heard the story of the learned and pious qadi Majd ad-Din of Shiraz, whose history we have written in the first volume, he sent ten thousand silver dinars to him at Shiraz. Again, Burhan ad-Din of Sagharj [near Samarqand] was a preacher and imam so liberal in spending what he possessed that he used often to contract debts in order to give to others. The sultan heard of him and sent him forty thousand dinars, with a request that he would come to Delhi. He accepted the gift and paid his debts with it, but went off to Cathay and refused to come to the sultan, saying “I shall not go to a sultan in whose presence scholars have to stand.”
6.5.2
One of the Indian nobles claimed that the sultan had put his brother to death without cause, and cited him before the qadi. The sultan walked on foot and unarmed to the qadi’s tribunal, saluted him and made obeisance, having previously commanded the qadi not to rise before him or move when he entered his court, and remained standing before him. The qadi gave judgment against the sultan, to the effect that he must give satisfaction to his adversary for the blood of his brother, and he did so. At another time a certain Muslim claimed that the sultan owed him a sum of money. They carried the matter before the qadi, who gave judgment against the sultan for the payment of the debt, and he paid it. When a famine broke out in India and Sind, and prices became so high that a maund of wheat rose to six dinars, the sultan ordered that every person in Delhi should be given six months’ provisions from the granary, at the rate of a pound and a half per person per day, small or great, freeman or slave. The doctors and qadis set about compiling registers of the population of each quarter and brought the people, each of whom received six months’ provisions.
6.5.3
In spite of all we have said of his humility, justice, compassion for the needy, and extraordinary generosity, the sultan was far too ready to shed blood. He punished small faults and great, without respect of persons, whether men of learning, piety, or high station. Every day hundreds of people, chained, pinioned, and fettered, are brought to his hall, and those who are for execution are executed, those for torture tortured, and those for beating beaten. It is his custom that every day all persons who are in his prison are brought to the hall, except only on Fridays; this is a day of respite for them, on which they clean themselves and remain at ease—may God deliver us from misfortune! The sultan had a half-brother named Mas'ud Khan, whose mother was the daughter of Sultan ‘Ala ad-Din, and who was one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen on earth. He suspected him of wishing to revolt, and questioned him on the matter. Mas'ud confessed through fear of torture, for anyone who denies an accusation of this sort which the sultan formulates against him is put to the torture, and the people consider death a lighter affliction than torture. The sultan gave orders that he should be beheaded in the market place, and his body lay there for three days according to their custom. One of the gravest charges against the sultan is that of compelling the inhabitants of Delhi to leave the town.
6.5.4
The reason for this was that they used to write missives reviling and insulting him, seal them and inscribe them, “By the hand of the Master of the World, none but he may read this.” They then threw them into the audience-hall at night, and when the sultan broke the seal he found them full of insults and abuse. He decided to lay Delhi in ruins, and having bought from all the inhabitants their houses and dwellings and paid them the price of them, he commanded them to move to Dawlat Abad. They refused, and his herald was sent to proclaim that no person should remain in the city after three nights. The majority complied with the order, but some of them hid in the houses. The sultan ordered a search to be made for any persons remaining in the town, and his slaves found two men in the streets, one a cripple and the other blind. They were brought before him and he gave orders that the cripple should be flung from a mangonel and the blind man dragged from Delhi to Dawlat Abad, a distance of forty days’ journey. He fell to pieces on the road and all of him that reached Dawlat Abad was his leg. When the sultan did this, every person left the town, abandoning furniture and possessions, and the city remained utterly deserted.
6.5.5
A person in whom I have confidence told me that the sultan mounted one night to the roof of his palace and looked out over Delhi, where there was neither fire nor smoke nor lamp, and said “Now my mind is tranquil and my wrath appeased.” Afterwards he wrote to the inhabitants of the other cities commanding them to move to Delhi to repopulate it. The result was only to ruin their cities and leave Delhi still unpopulated, because of its immensity, for it is one of the greatest cities in the world. It was in this state that we found it on our arrival, empty and unpopulated, save for a few inhabitants. Let us return now to that which concerns us, and relate how we arrived first at the capital and our fortunes until we left his service. We reached Delhi during the sultan’s absence, and proceeded to the palace, where, after passing the first, second, and third doors, the principal naqib introduced us into a spacious audience-hall. Here we found the wazir awaiting us. On passing through the third door the great hall called Hazar Uslun, where the sultan holds his public audiences, met our eyes. Thereupon the wazir made obeisance until his head nearly touched the ground, and we too made obeisance by inclining the body and touching the ground with our fingers, in the direction of the sultan’s throne. When we had performed this ceremony the naqibs cried in a loud voice Bismillah, and we all retired.
6.5.6
After visiting the palace of the sultan’s mother and presenting her with a gift, we returned to the house which had been prepared for our occupation, and hospitality-gifts were sent to us. In the house I found everything that was required in the way of furniture, carpets, mats, vessels, and bed. The beds in India are light, and can be carried by a single man; every person when travelling has to transport his own bed, which his slave boy carries on his head. It consists of four conical legs with four crosspieces of wood on which braids of silk or cotton are woven. When one lies down on it, there is no need for anything to make it pliable, for it is pliable of itself. Along with the bed they brought two mattresses and pillows and a coverlet, all made of silk. Their custom is to put linen or cotton slips on the mattresses and coverlets, so that when they become dirty they wash the slips, while the bedding inside is kept clean. Next day we rode to the palace to salute the wazir, who gave me two purses, each containing a thousand silver dinars, saying “This is for washing your head,” and in addition gave me a robe of fine goathair. A list was made of all my companions, servants, and slave boys, and they were divided into four categories; those in the first category each received two hundred dinars, in the second a hundred and fifty, the third a hundred, and the fourth sixty-five. There were about forty of them, and the total sum given to them was four thousand odd dinars.
6.5.7
After that the sultan’s hospitality-gift was fixed. This was composed of a thousand pounds of Indian flour, a thousand pounds of flesh-meat, and I cannot say how many pounds of sugar, ghee, and areca-nuts, with a thousand betel leaves. The Indian pound equals twenty of our Moroccan pounds and twenty-five Egyptian pounds. Later on the sultan commanded some villages to be assigned to me to the yearly revenue of five thousand dinars.
6.5.8
On the 4th of Shawwal [8th June 1334] the sultan returned to the castle of Tilbat, seven miles from the capital, and the wazir ordered us to go out to him. We set out, each man with his present of horses, camels, fruits, swords, etc., and assembled at the gate of the castle. The newcomers were introduced in order of precedence and were given robes of linen, embroidered in gold. When my turn came I entered and found the sultan seated on a chair. At first I took him to be one of the chamberlains. When I had twice made obeisance the “king” of the Sultan’s intimate courtiers said “Bismillah, Mawlana Badr ad-Din,” for in India they used to call me Badr ad-Din, and Mawlana [“Our Master”] is a title given to all scholars. I approached the sultan, who took my hand and shook it, and continuing to hold it addressed me most affably in Persian, saying “Your arrival is blessed; be at ease, I shall be compassionate to you and give you such favours that your fellow-countrymen will hear of it and come to join you.” Then he asked me where I came from and I answered him, and every time he said any encouraging word to me I kissed his hand, until I had kissed it seven times. All the new arrivals then assembled and a meal was served to them.