South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c13.4

c13.4

The Muhammadan Kingdom of Madura.—Malik Kafur's invasion of the south reaching as far as Madura and Rāmēśvaram, was described at length in a previous lecture. Amir Khusru's circumstantial account of this southern invasion was given in full. It was also pointed out that although a few places he mentions are not yet capable of satisfactory identification, enough of his account could be made out to justify the statement that the objective of Malik Kafur after he left the territory of the Hoysalas was the country of Vīra Pāṇḍya.¹ There is very little doubt left that he marched in support of Vīra Pāṇḍya's rival Sundara Pāṇḍya whose territory proper was Madura and the country round it. When he returned early in A.D. 1312 Malik Kafur in all probability left a garrison behind to safeguard the position of his protege Sundara Pāṇḍya. Almost the next year we find the Malabar King Ravi Varman Kulaśēkhara of Kerala in occupation of the country from the South Peṇṇār to as far north as Poonamalle, nay even to Nellore, indicating clearly that the so-called Muhammadan conquest meant at best no more than the occupation of Madura and a comparatively narrow district round it. Sultan Mubarak Khilji sent Khusru Khan against Ma'bar in A.D. 1318 either to regain the lost hold of the Muhammadans, or it may be to make a fresh conquest of it. Whatever was the actual purpose, Khusru remained a whole year in Ma'bar and hatched his plot there to subvert the ruling dynasty at Delhi. Barni complains of his ill-treatment of the Muhammadan merchants there, and states that he developed his hinduising plot while there. Barni certainly cannot be held to mean that he took any direct part in encouraging the Hindus to throw off the Muhammadan yoke in the South. For South Indian History this may be held to mean no more than that he brought back to loyalty a certain amount of territory which remained under their control in the distant South, if even that. The revolution that followed immediately loosened the hold of the Muhammadans in the South, or at least cut off communication between the head-quarters and the distant Muhammadan garrison in Madura. Although Muhammad Tughlak was compelled to retire from Warangal in A.D. 1328, one of his invasions to Ma'bar appears to have successfully reasserted the authority of Delhi in Madura.