The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c15.4

c15.4

tary personnel to administer them was mostly sought to be avoided. The ruling class congregated in military stations and capital cities, and non-Muslim penetration of the rural area was extremely slow and was confined to missionaries. Except the martial classess, and that usually in course of hostilities, and a few traders, the non-Muslim population in the countryside hardly came into governmental contact with the sovereign people whose purpose of administration, in the early years at least, turned on the smooth and regular collection of the land revenue. It is to be noted however, that this character of the administration wore out as the century progressed. *Laissez faire* in local administration was one of the principles whose early abandonment featured the Khalji regime, which thus summed up a tendency that had been progressively making itself felt throughout the century.