The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c19.73

c19.73

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.