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The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c19: Chapter XV

The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c19

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English

Chapter XV

c19.1

It is perhaps safe to hold that Persians, Afghans and Turks, with a sprinkling of Arabs, formed the upper class of Muslim society in the first century of Muslim rule over north India. Conversion from Indian tribes, not inconsiderable in number, swelled the rank and file, but except in Sind, from where some converts are mentioned in early Arab accounts as having reached positions of honour and distinction in Arabian letters and society¹, they do not seem, by the available evidence, to have been accorded positions of equality. Drawn as they were as yet mostly from the lower classes of the Indian people,—if traditions respecting the early Muslim missionaries are to be believed—, they could hardly hope to be admitted into the aristocracy of the conquerors or to a share of their privileges. The most jealous guardian of this aristocracy was the Turk whose military power enabled him to reserve the leadership for his own race. As he overran the North Indian river valleys, fame and increased resources heightened his superiority-complex; this was reaffirmed by his success in withstanding the Mongol storm when all other people went down. There was substance in Balban's claim that not less than fifteen sovereign princes from Muslim Asia had found asylum in his kingdom. Unquestionably, the Indian Turk had proved himself the leader of the eastern world of Islam.

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¹ *Islamic Culture*, 1937, pp. 177-78.

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But among the least effects of the Mongol eruption was a vast shake-up and mixing of the different races composing the Islamic peoples. In India, its resultant forces went, in no small measure, to the evolution of a homogeneous Muslim society. In the second generation from Muizzuddin, the Turk was isolated from his homeland and was compelled to fight with his back to the wall. Countless refugees poured from Khurasan and even Iraq and from beyond the Hindukush to swell his rank and the solidarity of Muslims fighting against a powerful infidel had to become a real and overriding sentiment. In this prolonged war-emergency, native converts and even non-Muslims proved indispensible; the former even found opportunities to learn the conqueror's ways and even to make a bid for political power. Despite Balban's rantings against 'low-born non-Turks' the employment, as his ariz, of Imadul Mulk Rawat,—of obvious Indian parentage—seems to have been unavoidable. More significant is Barani's reference to the Mongol converts who had settled in Delhi and had close family ties with leading Turkish nobles and held high position in Kaiqubad's court. Intermarriage with the natives and with the refugees imperceptibly but inevitably diluted the Turk's blood and also, though in a slower manner, his cultural ideas. The Khalji state, more broadbased than that of the Memelukes, was only a political expression of these social forces.

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Two broad divisions of Muslim society seem to have persisted from the very beginning. This was the ahl-i-saif and the ahl-i-qalam, men of the sword and men of the pen, the latter, judging from the recorded types, being almost wholly confined, in the first one or two generations, to non-Turkish foreigners. From them were drawn recruits for the clerical services, the *katib*, the *dabir*, the *wazir*. In the lower ranks of the revenue staff should be placed the native lettered class, both Hindu and Muslim. By far the most influential section of the *ahl-i-qalam* were of course the ecclesiastics—theologians and litterateurs—who, along with the *umara*, formed the first two estates of Muslim society. Although not so strictly organised as the Christian episcopacy they were yet, informally, a well-knit group, intensely conscious of their importance and jealous of their high privileges. They manned the judicial and ecclesiastical services and wherever there was a mosque,—and every Muslim locality must have one—, the *imam*, the *khatib*, the *muhtasib* and the *mufti* represented an interest which recieved state-recognition. They necessarily controlled the educational establishments and thus put a premium on unorthodox thought and learning calculated to undermine their positions. The authority of the *sadrus-sudur* who officially presided over this class, thus embraced all the lettered Muslims except the group known as the *mashaikh*, the mystic saints whose independence and other-worldliness could never suit the literal-minded *ulema*. Between the two sections there was little mutual admiration; the *ulema's* unconcealed anxiety to please the secular authority often brought forth bitter condemnation from the saints. Because of their popular appeal the latter, however, demanded attention; the official class, including even the king, were obliged to treat them with due deference. Firoz Khalji's reign affords an instance, in the incident of the mystic Sidi Maula, of how these men could constitute polical danger, for their appeal transcended racial and credal barriers.

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Among the 'fighters' who supplied the executive and military personnel, military rank naturally determined social position. This rank seems to have been graded into *khan*, *malik*, *amir*, *sipahsalar*, and *sar-i-khail*. In the form these titles are mentioned in the chronicle they appear to be a reproduction of the Turkish tribal arrangement in which the family and not the individual was the unit of society. In the first quarter of the century when tribal loyalties were still fresh the extension of this heirarchical organisation to India may perhaps be assumed. But as non-Turks, mostly Iranians, increased the number of the fighter class, this order of society would inevitably undergo a process of transformation. The Turk had nothing comparable to the *mawali* system of the Arab by which each tribe preserved its separate entity when the *Ajami*, in large numbers, entered the fold of Islam and threatened to disrupt the tribal basis of society. In India non-Turkish slaves were attached to families and acquired their traditions but the free-born converts and immigrant Muslims could not be given a place at the end of the social ladder.

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It is of course hardly to be expected that these factors would lead to the emergence, at this period, of the very modern idea of the individual being the unit of society; punishment of the offender's family which is instanced by some of the 13th century-rulers would not accord with such a notion. The family still remained the unit but its grouping under the *sar-i-khail* disappeared. The process must have been slow and its completion cannot be dated; Barani, writing in the fourteenth century still uses the generic term of *khail-khanah*. In any event, as indicative of social rank the *sar-i-khail* finds no further mention in the chronicles. The many cases of promotion recorded in the *Tabaqat-i-Nasiri* do not even include the *sipahsalar*; the *amir*, malik and the khan seem to include the entire personnel of the ahl-i-saif. Only in the case of Aibak his rank of sipahsalar is mentioned¹, and is included among his titles in one of the epigraphic records of his reign Subsequently, it appears to have lost rank and came to occupy the lowest position; even in the officer cadre of the army, early in the 14th century, Shahabuddin Abbas, in describing the Tughluq army organisation, assigns to it the smallest command and pay².

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¹ Fakhre Mudil: Tarikh, p. 22.

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² Elliot, III, p. 578.

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The practice of regarding the amir as the first rank to be held by the aspirant to military aristocracy, which became normal in the latter 13th century, seems to have had even earlier beginning. Nizamul Mulk, writing in the 12th century, in describing the system of training for the slaves, mentions the amir as the first responsible office the newly trained slave was to occupy³. He adds that this system was becoming obsolete in his time; but not so in the Memeluke Sultanate. Ghazi Malik's admission into the military aristocracy began with his promotion to the rank of amir⁴. It was also Iltutmish's first commission. In fact every slave seems to have acquired this rank before he received an executive post⁵. Since the days when Subuktigin and Mahmud of Ghazni expressed their sovereignty by this title alone the amir like the sipahsalar had lost rank and by the time of the Tughluqs was only a captain in charge of a hundred troopers. Whether the possible elevation of the principal non-Turkish refugees straightway to the rank of *malik* in the 13th century had anything to do with the *amir's* degradation cannot be stated with certainty, but the Memeluke chronicles undoubtedly show a surfiet of the first-mentioned dignitary; an Indian Muslim is also described as *malik*¹. The higher rank of *khan* was held as a rule by grown-up princes of the royal family and such of the Turkish *maliks* as were specially honoured by the king. If the lists of Minhaj and Barani are any guide, no non-Turk, not even the Khaljis, could ever hold this rank. It was presumably part of the distinctions enjoyed by governors of important provinces. Its absence from the titles of Aibak and Iltutmish is perhaps to be explained by their opportune elevation to the throne; only Balban served a long period of apprenticeship and passed through this grade. The highest status below that of the king was conferred by the title of *Ulugh Khan* (great *khan*), naturally held by only one person at a time. Balban, possibly in imitation of the Mongol terminology, preferred to call it *Qaan* which he bestowed on his heir-apparent, a shrewd move to forestall the recurrence of the process of his own usurpation.

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³ Siyasat Naman, ed. Khalkhali, pp. 74-75.

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⁴ Rahlah, Def. et Sang., III, p. 201-2.

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⁵ See Minhaj, for the careers, among others, of Tajuddin Sanjar Gazlakkhan, Tughril Tughan Khan, Qaraqash Khan, Iltutniah and Badruddin Sunqar. For the prevalence of this system among the Turks even of Egypt, see Ency. Islam article on Mamluks.

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¹ Kamal Mahiar; Barani, p. 126. See aslo Muizzuddin's *Firman*, (App. A), Ajaipal being called *Malik* Muhammad Qaddaraz.

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The third element, *awam o khkalq*, is less easy to distinguish. As the Muslim society was mainly urban at this period it must have included all the indeterminate city crowd, the artisan, the shop keeper, the clerk and the petty-trader. The big merchants, since they are never mentioned separately, would also have to be grouped with this class, but wealthy, much travelled and accomplished merchants, *tajir* and *malikut-tujjar*, the found it easy to be admitted to the nobility. An important section was formed by the slaves owned by the king and the nobility, who, before promotion to *imarat*, were employed in various domestic and technical jobs. They contributed the largest quota to the staff of the different *karkanahs* and the city’s craftsmen included not a few of them. A town’s population would also include non-Muslims; although direct evidence is lacking it will not be far from truth to consider them as contributing the largest number to the city’s trading community. In point of fact the influence born of wealth which the Hindu bankers and traders enjoyed would entitle them even to a position of aristocracy; indeed, Barani complains that they even out did the Muslims in pomp and material comforts¹.

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¹ *Fatawai-Jahandari*, f. 120a.

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Judging from Minhaj’s account of the Muizzi and Shamsi maliks, very few of the immigrant Turks were born in Islam; most of them came as slaves sold in childhood to Muslim merchants. Along with those settled in the Islamic countries and driven to India by the Mongols they were converted to Sunni Islam, the religion of the Ghaznavide, the Seljuq, the Khwarizmi and the Shamsabani dynasties. Politically, it was dangerous to countenance the *Shiah* sect whose faith involved allegiance to the enemy of the Abbasides, for the latter’s moral sanction gave the Delhi Sultan his strongest support. Moderate as well as extreme *Shiahs* were all denounced as heretics and contemptuously designated as *mulahidah* and *rawafiz*. The Qaramitah also called *Batini*, came in for special persecution which throughout the eastern Caliphate was intensified after the destruction of the Fatimide dynasty. Their headquarters in Alamut, in Northern Iran, became the object of a series of attacks in which both the Khwarizmis and Shansabani claimed

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Relegious groups.

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notable success. Being persecuted everywhere they became a secret society and terrorised the *Sunni* world through their fanatic adherents (*fidais*) who became experts in using the assassin' knife.

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Only in the Arab-ruled province of the Indus valley where Turkish orthodoxy was comperatively late in arriving, a section of the extreme *Shiah*, the *Qaramitah*—forerunners of the *Ismailis*—found a lodgement in the 9th century. They succeeded in making proselytes from the Hindu and Muslim population and winning political power in Upper Sind. In Multan and Mansura for more than two centuries political and religious allegiance was owed to the Fatimide Caliph of Egypt¹. Mahmud of Ghazni obtained only a temporary success for orthodoxy by installing a *Sunni* ruler over Multan, for Muiz-zuddin had to fight hard in order to overthrow the *Qaramitah* ruler. The final extension of Delhi's sovereignty put an end to their political power in the Indus valley but the sect was not exterminated. From Minhaj's account they even appear to have spread east and south and found followers in Gujrat and even in the Doab. Muizzuddin's death at their hands made the Memeluke state bitterly hostile to them; even the Mongol eruption failed to assuage this bitterness. Iltutmish's final acceptance of Abbaside suzereinty confirmed the *Shiahs* in their enmity to the Turkish rulers. While the *ulema* denounced them as unclean heretice, they on their part openly arraigned the latter for their worldly greed and compromising religiosity. Towards the end of Raziah's reign under the leadership of a person named Nur Turk² they conspired, to sieze power. Collecting the sect from all parts of India and fully armed he raised a great insurrection in the Jami Masjid and commenced a slaughter of the orthodox worshippers. It was a serious rising and took military force to quell it. Although suppressed on this occasion the sect could hardly be expected to die out; Barani's frequent condemnation of the Mulahidah heretics would postulate their continuance as a somewhat noticeable religious group¹. Under the Memelukes nevertheless, Shiism made little progress in Hindusthan; it had to wait till the conversion of the Il-Khans of Persia gave it once again a political sanction.

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¹ See Elliot: I, p. 491, for supporting evidence of the Sumra rulers of Lower Sind being in political and religious affiliation with the Fatimides. For Ismaili success in Sind and Gujrat, see also Arnold: *Preaching of Islam*, pp. 274-277.

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² Minhaj, p. 189-90.

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¹ See for example, pp. 15, 43, 98 and 437. Not every section of the Muslims joined in the denunciation; on the contrary their leading savants were regarded with respect, as proved by a remark of Nizamuddin Aulia repeating the saintliness of Nur Turk; *Fawadul Fawaid*, f. 102b.

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Muslim society in the 13th century-India therefore predominantly belonged to the Sunni persuasion. With its rigid simplicity Sunni Islam also suited the Turkish mind which showed a singular ineptitude for the esoteric religion of the Shiah. With the theologians imported from abroad and also trained in India, the Memelukes set about to preserve the orthodoxy of their own faith and that of their compeers. The Mongols drove a large section of Iranian Muslims; whatever their original predilections might have been, they, exhibited a remarkable conformity in India. The Shansabanis belonged to the Shafei school of Muslim law², but the Memelukes held to the system of Abu Hanifa.

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² Minhaj, p. 77.

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Not quite apart from the Sunnis and yet forming a distinctly important group was the mystic fraternity of the *sufis*. The 13th century was remarkable for the great number of Muslim mystics who, men of great learning, lived away from the society of townsmen. Although not recluses in the real sense of the term and often householders, they were yet genuinely indifferent to material comforts. While not formally rejecting orthodoxy, but, on the contrary, mindful of its observances, they held to an ethical religion and strove after mystic communion with the Godhead. Except for certain religious exercises designed to bring about a particular mystic experience, like the *Sima*, (music intended to rouse the mind to a condition of ecstacy), they were indistinguishable in normal life from the orthodox, and many of them carried on ordinary vocations. The fraternity, grouped round the *murshid* (guide) was thus open to the orthodox Muslims also, initiation requiring nothing more than practising the graded exercises in the seclusion of one’s home. Miracles were usually believed of them and even the uninitiated masses felt drawn to their unassuming piety. Even the formalist *ulema* reverently attended their *khanqah* and felt honoured when admitted to the circle of the select desciples. They scorned the advances of the official class and many lived in proud poverty. Of the many such mystic orders that arose in India and are active even now, the period under review saw the foundation and exclusive prevalence, each in its own area, of two of the most important, namely the *Chishtia* and the *Suhrawardia*, founded respectively by Muinuddin at Ajmer and Bahauddin Zakariya at Multan. While the latter remained confined to the Indus valley, the *Chishtia* order spread to the whole of Hindusthan and the Punjab and counted among its potential adherents almost every notable Muslim of the age. Muinuddin died at Ajmer in 1235 and his tomb has since become a renowned place of pilgrimage, even for the laity. So are the tombs of his chief desciples like Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (died in 1235) at Delhi, Fariduddin Shakargunje (died in 1256), at Pakpattan, Nizamuddin Budauni (died 1325) at Delhi, every one of whom left a large number of equally honoured desciples. In Sind, the influence of Bahauddin's successors. Sadruddin, Jalaluddin and Ruknuddin, was equally great, the last named person's tomb being one of the finest extant specimens of Muslim architecture in Multan. Devotion to the *sufi* and his mystic cult thus formed an important feature of Muslim religious life under the Memelukes. Barani's account lists a large number of such *sufis* and *walis*, who, as a measure of their importance, have special chapters devoted to them by Ferishta and the historians of the Mughal period.

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Whether one agrees or not with the view that Indian Vedantism was largely responsible for its growth, it is undeniable that the mysticism of the *sufi* furnished Islam's philosophical point of contact with Hinduism. It is through such contacts, fostered by the simplicity and broad humanism of the *sufi* that Islam obtained its largest number of free converts and it is in this sense that he is considered a missionary. On the behest of the *murshid*, he travelled to distant countries and settled down with a true missionary zeal amongst unfamiliar and even hostile people. An instance is afforded by Jalaluddin Tabrezi, one of Muinuddin's companions, who took up his residence under the Sena king of

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Sufi missionaries.

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Bengal. In Gujrat, then under Hindu rule, a *sufi* established his head quarters¹; Muinuddin himself is reported to have arrived in Ajmer several years before Muizzuddin’s invasion². In the *sufi’s* pantheistic outlook and engrossment with the soul which transcended the formalism of religion, the spiritualist Hindu recognised a familiar cult; his modesty and absence of religious pedantry coupled with his supposed miraculous power born, no doubt, from the strength of his faith, held out a powerful appeal. Islam’s social values and the material prospects it then held out finally made this appeal irresistible, specially to those suffering from Brahminical caste-tyranny.

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¹ Titus: *Indian Islam*, p. 122-23.

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² See note 1, p. 304, *infra*.

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No evidence is forthcoming at this period to enable us to a make any precise statement as to the mutual borrowings of popular Islam and Hinduism. The examples afforded by the Tughluq chronicles of definitely Hindu practices and Hindu inspired sects among the Muslims, may have had an earlier beginning. That Indian converts would retain some of their Hindu notions and practices needs little proof. The worship of the saint and his shrine, which gradually increased and became a source of great social evil in latter times, is a phenomenon which undoubtedly had its origin in the 13th century reverence for the *sufi*, but in whose wide incidence the Hindu predilection of worshipping local and tribal gods must have had no little share. To what extent the higher intellects of the two people reacted to each other’s ideas is, however, a question whose answer the 13th century could be hardly expected to provide.

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Hindu influences on popular Islam.

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With its highly unsettled conditions the Memeluke Sultanate could boast of no great cultural activity. More than a century was to elapse before Muslim letters found its bearings in the new environment and exhibited, under the Tughluqs, a vigorous, creative spirit. What was produced in the 13th century had necessarily trans-Indian tradition behind it; Indian ideas and life could enter but little in the Muslim’s intellectual make up. The new phase was to be started by the great Amir Khusrau whose contribution to the Indianization of Muslim culture was many sided. The use of Hindi poetical imagery and themes, his admiration and addition to India’s music, and his spirited defence of Indian cultural values, are only a few of the services of this versatile poet, the first great creative writer of Muslim India¹. The spirit of the greatest medieval Muslim savant al-Beruni breathes through his writings, but while the latter’s pleading for scientific appreciation of Indian philosophy and sciences evoked little response from his contemporaries, Khusrau’s genius held out a living example in the domain of *belles lettres* which caught on and went to enrich the culture-content of medieval India.

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¹ See Mirza: *Life and Works of Amir Khusrau* for details; also Habib: *Hazrat Amir Khusrau*, p. 5.

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Military preoccupations notwithstanding, the Memeluke ruler however, showed great awareness to the enduring virtues of literature; indeed, the pen no less than the sword was an integral component of his mental life. Some of it was no doubt inspired by practical needs; religious administration demanded works on theology and law, while politics needed chronicles and treatises on statecraft. But a devotion to poetry, stories, literary histories and essays proves more than mere utilitarian outlook. It is true that the Mamelukes were only the inheritors of this tradition and that the Mongol scourge brought in a large number of foreign writers to Delhi; but in the development of what may be called a culture-state they must have had a large share. Under every ruler Barani gives a long list of poets, theologians, lawyers, historians and masters of the epistolary art. Among prose writers the Delhi state could boast of such eminent names as that of the literary historian Nuruddin Muhammad Aufi, the historian and political theorist Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah, and the chroniclers Hasan Nizami and Minhaj Juzjani. Ziauddin Barani himself had more versatility than that of a mere historian; a later account ascribes to him, besides works on history, also treatises on state-craft, law, scriptural commentaries and religious practices¹. Poetry was a universally practised art and ability to compose verses was almost an essential complement to literary education. It is hardly necessary to single out names from among the hosts of poets maintained on the state's pension list or in the company of every prince and noble. Nor is it possible to distinguish the poet from the essayist, the historian from the theologian, for those were the days of encyclopaedic accomplishment. Balban's court was specially rich not only in eminent divines and poets but also in physicians and astronomers who in their special branches "had no equals." Badruddin Damashqi and Husamuddin Marikla are honoured names in the annals of medicine; Hamiduddin Mutriz was as much well versed in mathematics and astronomy as in the healing art¹. The crown of the 13th century poets was Khusrau who with his friend Amir Hasan Sanjari, an equally accomplished writer, made even the Iranians jealous of the classic excellence of Indo-Persian poetry. Amir Khusrau himself speaks appreciatively of yet another of his contemporaries, named Rukn Muhmerah of Budaun².

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¹ Matlubut-Talibin, cited in Ethe: oc. cit. entry No. 655.

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¹ Barani, p. 112.

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² Quoted in Qureshi, p. 169, note 9; see also Budauni, I, p. 70 for quotations from his work.

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Translation from Hindu works does not appear to have found a place in the literary interest of the time until Firoz Tughluq’s reign when we find for the first time a number of Sanskrit works rendered into Persian. But if a later report is correct, the century can boast of at least one such translation, a work on Brahminical philosophy named Amritakunda, rendered into Arabic, remarkably enough, by a converted Brahmin from Assam, during the early years of Firoz Khalji’s reign³.

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³ Muhammad of Gwalior; Bahrul Hayat, a Persian translation of the same work, cited in Ethe: Catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the India Office Library, entry No. 2002.

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It is hardly necessary to stress that such diffusion of and devotion to literature pre-supposes a high level of general education and the existence of widely patronised educational establishments. Among the first institutions established in any newly occupied place was a madrasah, while every mosque housed a primary school. There were privately run schools as well as state-financed seminaries. Iltutmish founded a richly endowed college at Delhi named after his eldest son Nasiruddin; another was at Multan called the Firozi madrasah⁴. The Khalji conquerors in Bengal established similar institutions. Barani speaks of a large number of eminent professors teaching in colleges all over the kingdom¹. Under the Tughluqs, the capital alone is said to have possessed a thousand madrashs and two thousand muktabs (attached to mosques)² a statement which give a comparative indication of the state of affairs under their Memeluke predecessors.

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⁴ Minhaj was himself the principal of the Nasiri Madrasah for a number of years, p. 188.

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¹ pp. 110-11.

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² *Masalikul Absar*; Elliot: III, p. 578.

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Of cultivation of the arts, contemporary writings furnish little definite evidence. Architecture occupied their whole interest; in its decorative scheme, as evidenced by the surviving monuments, mural painting entered but little. Stray references to ornamental figures, both animate and inanimate, painted on walls or engraved or embroidered on furniture, flage, tents saddles and arms³, on the other hand, lead us to assume that the visual arts also reached high excellence under the Memelukes. Whether the protraits of the Sultans as found in the Mongol miniature albums were copied from earlier originals must remain a matter of speculation. Firuz Tughluq at any rate interdicted the practice of decorating the walls by coloured representation of living objects. The feeling for colour found concrete expression in the *unwan* of manuscripts produced for the nobles and royalties. Calligraphy was a widely diffused art which, when transferred to stone and paper, can embody almost as sensuous a beauty as that of the plastic art. Music has an irresistible appeal and despite the supposed legal ban it formed an essential part of festivities. With music went dancing, but one should hardly expect at this period that these two arts were cultivated for anything approaching intellectual satisfaction. With increased dependence on Indian performers the Muslims, it is reasonable to presume, rapidly acquired a taste for the Indian form of these arts and the inter-mingling, notably in music, had a highly enriching effect. Amir Khusrau was an accomplished musician himself; he not only set some of his poems to Indian tunes but is the reputed inventor of new *Ragas*.

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³ *Futuhat-i-Firozshahi*, Elliot: III, pp. 381-82; see Afif. pp. 290, 374.

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In manners and customs a rapid de-Turkicization is observable. It did not take the Tughrils, Ughul Baks, Aetigins etc. long to shed their Turkish mannerism and adopt Persian and even Indianised Muslim names. One can suppose the compatriots of Aibak and Iltutmish speaking ordinarily in Turki, but against the ever expanding Persian it could have had only a shortlived vogue; no literary work in Turki, in any case, is known to have been produced in India. It is true, Balban's emphasis on Turki racialism would imply a revival of Turkish cultural elements. The long-continued device of the Turki horsemen on the currency pieces seems to point to the same direction. For the first time in Barani we find some of the state functionaries referred to in their Turkish designations². But Balban was too deeply committed to Persianism to bring about a real revival of Turki customs. His monarchical ideals were the ancient kings of Iran whose precepts and examples gave form and content to his autocracy; he could think of no illustrious names for his grandsons but Kaikhusrau, Kaikaus, Kaiqubad and Kaiumars. Turkestan obviously could not heighten the cultural glory of his court; Persian was the only channel through which he could reach the intellectual world of Islam and thus buttress his claim to the championship of civilisation against Mongol barbarism. For the eastern Muslims it was impossible to get away from Persian influence; in India it was to exercise an abiding tyranny.

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¹ Faqirullah: *Rag-darpah*, quoted in Shibli Nomani: *Sherul Ajam*, p. 137.

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² e.g. Barbek, Dadbak, Qirbeg, Ilagchi, etc. Barani, p. 126.

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But to escape the environmental influence was equally difficult; the Indian Turk was not even circumstantially equipped to attempt it. Significant of the new trend is the adoption by high born Muslims, even of pure Turkish descent, of such Indian names as Chajju, Kachchan, Hamidraja, etc.¹. Chewing the betel leaf, a peculiarly Indian habit, found its way early among the nobles and Barani notes the excessive addiction to it of Balban's ariz². Under the Tughluqs, Ibn Battuta noticed another Indian custom of offering the bira of pan to the bride as a part of the marriage ceremony³. In daily conversation Indian terms inevitably seemed to find a place; Barani consistently uses the Hindi word barshkal for the rainy season⁴. Firoz Tughluq earned piety and gratitude by providing funds to pay for the marriage dowry of Muslim orphan girls⁵; it is difficult to interpret this dowry as anything but a Hindu-inspired custom, for Muslim law knows of no money payable by the bride.

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¹ Barani, pp. 170, 173; TA, trans. I, p. 140.

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² P. 116-117.

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³ Rahlah, Def. et. Sang, III, p. 277.

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⁴ See for example, p. 86: Fatawai-Jahandari, ff. 116a, 117. For the use of the Indian term khat, (bed stead) see Barani, Tarikh, p. 117.

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⁵ Afif, pp. 350-52.

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In recreation and amusements a taste for chess (shatranj) and gambling (qammarbazi) was probably an earlier acquisition. So was also the out-door game of chaughan, a kind of polo. The royalty combined amusement with military exercise in hunting excursions. Wine was almost an indispensible constituent of gaity; holding of convivial parties with friends (nadims) was considered almost a royal convention. Balban is said to have given up wine altogether after his accession; it was clearly inspired by political expediency as in the case of Alauddin, rather than anxiety to observe the law, for the lawyers themselves were scarce disinclined to allow the monarch some latitude in this matter¹. Music and dancing girls were another means of diversion which, as time went on, became indispensible like wine, and from private amusement, became a conventional court practice. The employment of professional performers and couresans seems to be a development inspired by Indian practice, for in central Asia and even in the Arabian countries, free-born professional musician of the female sex was a rare social phenomenon. The Indian courtesan and nawtch-girl was not paralled by the trained jariya.

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¹ See Afif. pp. 145-147, for an incident about the pious Firoz and the author's attempt to gloss over it.

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An enquiry into the wealth-producing activities under the Memelukes yields little satisfying result, for these seem to have least interested the contemporary writers. To what extent and in what manner commerce and industry were fostered or the regime affected the country's economy, are questions whose answer must necessarily contain a fair amount of conjecture. We hear of merchants dealing in horses, slaves and in clothes, big importers and exporters, who appear to have nearly always been Iranian and Arabian Muslims². The Turk also dealt in horses imported from southern Turkistan (Khita) and had been a familiar figure in Hindu mercantile world. The Memeluke state had no sea-port and the sea-borne trade, filtering through to the Delhi markets, would touch only indirectly the land-locked kingdom's economic life. The *Tabaqat-i-Akbari* mentions, under Alauddin Khalji, an officer called the *tajerbagi*, but it is perhaps too early to expect the militarist Memelukes to make a conscious effort to increase or even regulate the foreign commerce¹.

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² Minhaj, pp. 138, 159, 167-68.

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¹ Trans. I, p. 154.

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This is not intended to mean that trade had no place in the economic life. On the contrary the government earned not a little income from taxes on traders and shop-keepers and also from transit duties on mercantile commodities. The luxury living of the nobility undoubtedly quickened the demand for consumers' goods and the middlemen as well as the craftsmen did good business. In Alauddin's reign we hear more about the traders on whom he sought to impose his economic regulations. Under Balban is, mentioned an *amir-i-bazar*². Firoz Tughluq's list of the taxes he abolished would give us an idea of the variety of sellers who supplied the growing needs of the cit-folk³. The army department had no commissariat service and was dependent for provisions on the grain merchants who accompanied the compaigning force. We hear of no regular slave markets as in other Islamic countries, but the human merchandise was a recognisel means of making money and was even used as a side business by members of the *ulema*⁴. A highly profitable business was money-lending, confined almost exclusively to Hindus whose mounting rate of interest, enforced by the state, enabled them to impoverish the Profligate nobles⁵. Amir Hassan mentions Muslim traders from Lahore (*saudagar*) in Bahram's reign journeying to do business with the Hindus of Gujrat and making huge profits therefrom¹.

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² Barani, p. 33-34; he seems to have possessed some official status and is also called *Rais-i-Bazar*, like Alauddin Khalji's controller of markets.

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³ For a list see Qureshi, op. cit. p. 228-29; it includes also those mentioned by Afif.

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⁴ See *Fawadul Fawaid*, f. 8a for an incident in which a saintly Afghan, joining the prayers behind such an Imam, admonished him for his mental preoccupations with this busness during the prayers.

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⁵ See, Barani, p. 120.

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¹ Fawadul Fawaid, f. 63 b.

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With regard to industry it is reasonable to hold that the Hindu craft-guilds and professional castes functioned also in Muslim administered territories. In manufacture, India's self-sufficiency and exporting role seemed little disturbed by the conquest. To provide for the nobleman's luxury kept the craftsmen busy. The king's various needs not only kept the wheels of industry moving but even caused the setting up of state manufactories (*karkhanah*). We hear of these early in the 14th century but their earlier beginning cannot be ruled out². The builder and stone worker, the tent-maker and the saddler, the perfumer and the oil-man, the upholsterer and cloth-maker, the metal worker and armourer, all were in great demand. Manufactured articles, to whose excellence Amir Khusrau pays warm tribute³, found ready buyers and the city markets never had a dull moment. If rising price of the manufactured article is any indication of the demands made on industry, the Khalji control would prove the flourishing condition of the craftsmen in the 13th century. The majority of these was Hindu; a small percentage came from the lower class Muslims, mostly Indian converts.

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² Abbas: Masalikul-Absar; Elliot, III, p. 578.

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³ Quoted in Qureshi, p. 211, note 4.

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The main-stay of the state's economy was of course agriculture. The Memelukes showed an early realisation of their dependence on the peasantry. Ghiyasuddin Tughluq's great concern for their welfare only stressed an attitude that was shared by his predecessors. "The peasant is the back bone of the state," Balban used to say; "while he should not be allowed to develop into a rich potential rebel, ruinous exaction on him would cause a falling off in agriculture and the consequent impervishment of the state." "Follow the middle course in realising the kharaj" said he to Bughra Khan¹. We possess no details respecting assessment and collection of the land revenue; we at least hear of no agrarian discontent. One can perhaps postulate large agricultural holdings and plenty of live stock. Except for military operation due to political trobules, the peasant in the countryside lived in contented isolation leading a communal life in his self-sufficient villages, selling his surplus grain in the market town and paying the revenue through the headman. The Memeluke Sultanate covered a transitional period continuing, as it did, many of the old ways of life; it is reasonable to think that the rural economy, as a result, felt no sharper turning in its course than it did under the eternally warring Rajput².

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¹ Barani, p. 100. See also p. 574.

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² For the agrarian practices in pre-Muslim India see Ghoshal: *Agrarian System of Ancient India*. The systems of assignment, group-assessment and collection, which feature the Muslim revenue practice in India, were all known to the Indian peasants and were thus only a continuation of earlier practices.

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The inference is difficult to resist that as yet, in the period under review, the Muslim was merely a tax-receiver and took little direct part in the production and increase of the country's agricultural wealth. We find very few recorded instances of Muslim cultivators. One is mentioned in the story by Hamid Fazlullah of a poor desciple of Bahauddin Zakaria who tilled a small plot near Labor and who, unable to pay the revenue, had to compound for it by performing a miracle³. Another is, as noted already, the account of Balban’s settlement of Afghan soldiers on the land to garrison the fortresses on the newly opened highways through Hindustan. To these should of course be added the converts from the rural Hindu population who, in all likelihood, unless forcibly ejected by the caste fraternity, retained their holdings. A peasant was a valuable asset and unless he elected to choose some urban calling, the feudatory prince or the paramount ruler would endeavour to keep him to his profession. But the interest of the Muslim ruling class in land was undeniably the revenue. Either as a *muqti* or as an *iqtadar* he derived his income from the revenue payable by the peasant cultivator. Even the *ahl-i qalam* held such assignment¹.

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³ *Siarul Arefin*, f. 17a.

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¹ See Minhaj, p. 214, for his *iqta*; also p. 195.

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It is unnecessary to enter into the vexed question of who was the legal owner of the land; in practice the sovereign demanded of the peasant along with a share of his produce, an unfailing devotion to agriculture. The kind felt entitled to eject him if he neglected his duty². The century affords no concrete evidence of irrigation and other facilities provided to the peasant by the tax-receiver; probably the urgency of military and political problems was all absorbing. But tanks excavated and caravansarais built by the Memelukes point to an attitude of benevolence which was not restricted to the urban population. Ghiyasuddin Tughluq is noted for his active interest in increasing rural prosperity³; his was clearly the application of a formerly conceived idea.

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² Barani, p. 430; also p. 574.

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³ Barani, p. 442.

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Position of the peasant.

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