The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c16.35

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.