The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c19.76

c19.76

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.