The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c18.30

c18.30

Very little can be added respecting finance administration to what has been said above under the *diwan-i-wazarat*. Only once in the *Tabaqat-i-Nasiri* we come across the word *baitul mal*; whether it meant the existence of a separate treasury for the *zakat*, is not clear from the context³. For revenue in the sense of state income the term *khazanah* is generally used. As the government was controlled by the Sultan’s household establishment, the public revenue could be squandered in the persuit of his pleasure; for there does not appear, as yet, the existence of a privy purse for the king. Firoz emptied the treasury on the caterers of pleasure; Kaiqubad, after his return from Awadh, is said to have spent all the surplus revenues, so assiduously collected by Nizamuddin, on his dancing girls⁴.