The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c16: Chapter XII. The Fighting Forces

The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c16

Language: English

Chapter XII. The Fighting Forces

c16.2

Contemporary writers lay great emphasis on the need for maintaining a strong and efficient army, for a state can never function without a coercive instrument¹. Originally, the army was, perhaps, composed of every able-bodied man who immigrated to India, but there soon grew up the idea of a division of labour. As the conquerors gradually assumed the duties of civil government, a functional division of society took place and fighting became more or less a profession. While potentially all Muslims were members of the state's fighting forces, normally, professional soldiers in the state's employ manned the army. These seem to have consisted of four classes: (i) the regular soldiers under the Sultan's direct control and in permanent employment; (ii) the troops permanently maintained by the provincial governors on the same footing as those of the king; (iii) special recruits in times of war and expeditions, and (iv) volunteers, ordinarily Muslims, who were expected to bear their own arms and enrol, for no pay but a share in the booty, for participating in what was called a *jihad*.

c16.3

¹ See Bughra Khan's advice to Kaiqubad; Barani, p. 102. Fakhre Mudir: *Adabul Harb* f. 79a.

c16.4

Although no direct reference is found to the existence, under the king's direct control, of what may be called a standing army, sufficient indications are yet found to warrant the inference that the central government did possess a body

c16.5

King's army.

c16.6

of regular troops¹. We however, know very little about its character and composition. The king's bodyguards, the *jandars*, it may be assumed, must have formed its nucleus. These *jandars* not only acted as a police force, in so far as the maintenance of order around the person and for that matter, the court and the palace of the king was concerned, but also joined in battles. They were largely drawn from the king's personal slaves, though their leader, the *sar-i-jandar*, was usually, a free-born noble². Their number naturally depended on the will of the ruler, but it must have been fairly strong; the Muizzi and Qutbi *jandars* gave no inconsiderable trouble to Iltutmish when he assumed the crown at Delhi. Minhaj seems to designate the standing army as the *hashm-i-qalb*, or *qalb-i-sultani*³; the *jandars* would obviously form a brigade of the centre army⁴, which apears to have been always stationed at Delhi. In Mahmud's reign, this force was occasionally brought out of the city for military exercise and parade¹. Whether the garrisons, placed in important fortresses or localities near the capital, also were drawn from this centre army or from the province in which they were situated is a moot point². This army, along with the jandars, was directly under the management of the ariz-i-mamalik who was responsible for its recruitment, efficiency and payment. Its numerical strength is unascertainable; it contained both cavalry and infantry and the two thousand Shamsi iqtadars certainly formed part of its cavalry section³.

c16.7

¹ See Minhaj, p. 113; Fakhre Mudir; *Tarikh*, p. 33.

c16.8

² Muizzuddin of Ghor, was himself a *Sar-i-Jandar* to his brother Ghiyasuddin; Minhaj, p. 115.

c16.9

³ *Cf.* Raverty's note on p. 634-35 of his translation of the *Tabaqat-i-Nasiri*, wherein he contends that "this centre was not the centre division of a corps d'armee under the regular military organization stationed at Delhi, but refers to the contingents which formed the centre of the Delhi forces when in the field; these contingents were furnished by numerous feudatories....whose fiefs lay in the immediate vicinity of the capital and whose contingents could be summoned to the King's standard at a very short notice". This conclusion appears untenable in view of the fact, that the *qalb* is always found associated with the Sultan and Delhi and that whenever any provincial contingent from far or near was required to join, it is usually mentioned in the account. That the *qalb* should not be identified with the provincial contingents is clearly proved by the fact that when confronting the rebel Kashlu Khan in 1256, Balban kept his own troops and those of Sher Khan, the Governor of Bhatinda, separate from the *qalb-i-sultani* and other troops from the capital over whom he placed Kashli Khan; Minhaj p. 308. It is inconceivable that in normal times the king was left with no troops at all. In the same year when Delhi was besieged by Kashlu and Qutlugh Khan, the citizens prepared for defence since "the royal troops were absent from the city"; *ibid*, p. 224. Barani, p. 33, also mentions the *hashm i-qalb* whom Balban took with him in his expedition against the Katehryyasi; the *hashm-i hazrat*, mentioned, on p. 115, also seems to refer to the same force.

c16.10

⁴ The personal slaves of Ruknuddan Firoz, *bandegan-i-khas*, are said in have been serving in the *qalb* when they deserted him and murdered his attendants: Minhaj, p. 183.

c16.11

¹ Ibid, p. 225.

c16.12

² Qureshi; op. cit. p. 133, however, implies that the garrison, kept in the provinces, formed part of the central army; he calls this latter hashm-i-atraf, on which authority, is not mentioned.

c16.13

³ Barani, p. 61.

c16.14

The provincial troops, being maintained out of the public revenues was technically a part of the standing army, but in a decentralised state like that of the Memelukes, authority over them was necessarily limited. In practice, the provincial force was the muqti's own; details of its maintenance was his own concern and the ariz-mamalik could exercise little interference. The latter's jurisdiction over them commenced only when the specified quota was called up from the province; he was then to hold a review of the contingents sent, check their number and equipment by comparing the muster roll of the respective province and to call for explanations for any discrepancy, from the representative of the muqti's army department. The provincial troops were presumably listed in the ariz-i-mamalik's army list, but the period covered by the Memeluke Sultanate affords no instance of the central government's attempt to regulate its number, rate of pay or other incidence of its employment and control. Nor is there any concrete evidence, as in the reign of Sher Shah Sur, of periodical transfer of troops from one province to another.

c16.15

From the few recored instances, the provincial army however, seems to have been modelled organizationally on the king’s regular troops. It also consisted of a permanent centre corps and also of temporary recruits¹. The *muqti’s ariz* looked after its maintenance and pay and through the representative stationed at the capital, (the *naib-i-ariz*), presented the contingents². The permanently employed troops at the centre and in the provinces were probably known as the *wajhi*, (regulars) a term which, in any case is applied to them during the Tughluq period³.

c16.16

¹ See Minhaj, p. 257. An indication of the numerical strength of the provincial troops can probably be had from Barani's statement that Malik Baqbaq, the Muqti of Budaon, possessed four thousand horsemen in his "jagir" p. 40.

c16.17

² Barani, p. 116; see also p. 239-40, supra.

c16.18

³ See for example Afif, pp. 296, 369-70.

c16.19

Reference to special recruits for temporary work is not frequent, but recorded instances imply that such enrolment was an established practice. In 1241, when the Mongols besieged Lahore, the *sadrus sudur*, Minhaj-i-Siraj, was directed by the king to deliver an exhortation urging the people to enrol in the army for fighting the infields⁴. In 1258 again, he delivered a similar lecture "with the object of stimulating to holy warfare and the merit of fighting against infields"⁵. It is perhaps safe to guess that such recruitments were confined to Muslims only. Even for expeditions against powerful rebels, such emergency recruitments were resorted to. On his way to Lakhnauti, Balban held a *leveé en masse* in Awadh and enrolled, it is said, about two hundred thousand men in archers, carriers, and also horsemen and infantry. In this case, it is reasonable to assume, that not all of this two hundred thousand men was meant for combatant work and that a proportion, doubtless, came from the non-Muslims. The employment of Hindu mercenaries for special campaigns should also be considered in this connection; Raziah, when she marched with her husband Iltuniah to recover the throne, is reported to have headed an army composed mainly of mercenaries from the Khokar and Jat tribes of the Punjab.

c16.20

⁴ Minhaj, p. 195.

c16.21

⁵ Ibid, p. 310.

c16.22

Provincial army.

c16.23

Special recruits.

c16.24

Our information is much too little as to the existence of a reserve volunteer militia. Fakhre Mudir, writing early in the reign of Iltutmish, describes a military review and mentions a body of infantry “who have voluntarily joined the forces and who should present themselves individually to the *ariz* and be enrolled in a separate list in charge of the *naqib* (trumpeter)”¹. Barani also mentions a class of soldiers who supplied their own arms and horse and joined the regular army². In 1259, when Hulaku’s envoys were received in Delhi, the royal army, including the contingents from the provinces, numbering about two hundred thousand infantry and fifty thousand horsemen, was, for the purpose of military display, supplemented by a huge number of volunteers from among the citizens who appeared in their own arms and horses and were drawn up alongside the regulars³.

c16.25

¹ Adabul Harb, f. 109b.

c16.26

² p. 86.

c16.27

³ Minhaj, p. 317.

c16.28

There never was a permanent commander-in-chief in peace time; the Sultan was the supreme commander of the defence forces. The *ariz*, both of the centre and of the province, performed, it must be supposed, the duties of a modern war office; promotions, training and discipline were also his routine function⁴. In the provinces, the *muqti* would be the chief of staff, though Barani suggests that the *ariz* even selected the troops for campaigns¹. Only once, in the reign of Raziah, we hear of the appointment of a *naib-i-lashkar*, placed presumably over the central standing army, to whom the queen delegated her command of the fighting forces². The office obviously was a temporary one, and is not heard of again after her deposition. The Sultans usually led the expeditions in person though the conduct of operations was left to specially commissioned officers.

c16.29

⁴ See Adabul Harb, p. 46-47 for regulations concerning the maintenances of descipline among the soldiers.

c16.30

¹ p. 60-61.

c16.31

² Minhaj, p. 187.

c16.32

With the exception of the volunteer militia, the soldiers received fixed remuneration either in cash, called *mawajib*, or in assignments, called *iqta*. The standing army of the centre, at least an important section of it, was paid in assignments, as is evidenced by the case of the Shamsi *iqtadars* who had been given villages in the Doab. Captains and even petty officers were also paid in similar assignments of revenue³. The income in such assignments (*iqta*) came from the land revenue realised from the peasant-cultivators. An instance of paying troops even in cultivable lands is furnished by Balban who settled Afghan soldiers as garrison in Gopalgir, Kampil, Patiali, Bhojpur and Jalali⁴. They drew their sustenance from the lands which they were to till and cultivate. From the nature of conditions involved in such form of payment these men were supposedly borne on the army list as hereditary soldiers. The bulk of the regular troops, however, was paid in cash from the *diwan-i-arz*; irregular and mercenery soldiers, it must be supposed, were always paid in cash. It is difficult to ascertain whether individual payment was the rule; the anxiety of Imadul Mulk to see that no deductions were made from the soldier’s pay by his office staff would presuppose that individual cash payment was the normal practice, at least in the case of the central army. But since recruitment does not appear to have been made singly but through the troop-leaders, it is doubtful if direct payment of salary was always practicable or desired. Alauddin Khalji’s branding regulations (*dagh* and *huliyah*), in any case, were designed to diminish the chances of fraud practised by the troop-leaders and even *muqtis* in drawing the soldiers’ pay under false representations. Out of his *marwajib*, the cavalryman was to provide for his own equipment and horse and keep the latter in good trim. Approval of his horse and arm was necessary before his pay could be drawn. Besides his *marwajib*, each trooper received a share of the booty (*ghanimah*) captured in the battle in which he participated; this was probably considered a war-bonus.

c16.33

³ Barani, p. 80.

c16.34

⁴ *Ibid*, p. 57-58.

c16.35

Instances from the Memeluke period throw insufficient light on the army division and their composition. Barani mentions amirs in command of fifty, hundred and thousand soldiers (*amir-i-panjah*, *sadah*, and *hazarah*)¹. Amir Khusrau, describing Kaiqubad’s retinue during his journey to meet his father, implies that a *malik* commanded something like twenty thousand soldiers². If Bughra Khan’s description of the Turkish heirarchy can be taken as applying to the army groupings as practised in his time in India, it would suggest a unit of ten under a *sar-i-khail* rising by decimal progressions through the divisions of *sipahsalar*, *amir* and *malik* to the supreme command of a *khan*³. This would not be far from what we hear of the army groupings in the time of Muhammud b. Tughluq¹.

c16.36

¹ Pp. 35, asd 495.

c16.37

² Qiranus-Sadain, p. 40.

c16.38

³ Barani, p. 145.

c16.39

¹ Qalqashandi: *Subhul Asha*, V, pp. 91-92; also Elliot; III, p. 576.

c16.40

The *Adabul Harb* gives a description of the battle array; on two sides of the *qalb* or *muqaddam* (vanguard) were drawn up the *maisara* (left wing) and the *maimana* (right wing), while a picked body of troops formed the *khalf* or rear, to be thrown in battle later, and only as a tactical move or as a last resort². A special corps, called *sariya*, (Minhaj seems to refer to it under the name of *tilaya*³) is also mentioned as being composed of four hundred light cavalry, commanded by an *amir*. It was employed for work requiring swift movements and for reconnoissance⁴.

Linked texts (2)

Tārīkh-i Fīrūzshāhī — Shams-i Sirāj ʿAfīf
Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī — Minhāj al-Dīn Jūzjānī