The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c20.56

c20.56

The best evidence on the zimmi's position should however be his own writings. These are almost non-existent except the records of his hostile military contact. What he thought of his own position under the new regime we can only guess. Initially for a conquered people it is only natural, as al-Beruni found early in the 11th century¹, to have a feeling of inveterate enmity towards those whose process of conquest had unavoidably to be attended with a certain measure of destruction of life and property, and above all, social values. That the innate exclusiveness of Hinduism would only aggravate this feeling and that the Hindu would, in proud isolation, retire within his caste retrictions, is understandable; to consider the conqueror as an unclean, fearsome mleccha is the only manner in which a beaten people could retaliate. But the measure of the conqueror's success lies in the extent to which he is able to assuage this bitterness and ultimately to win the native's sympathy and support. Of this, unfortunately, we have not many dependable records, records of the ordinary native's estimate of the Muslim ruler and his administration, as we have of latter periods and of other provincial kingdoms. The ruling class at any rate did their best not to create any further bitterness but the protracted nature of the conquest could have hardly made for success in this attempt. To a modern citizen, the jazia would be undoubtedly an insufferable humiliation but argument is possible as to whether this was so to the people of the early middle ages². The Brahmins' protest to Firoz Tughluq was based more on its financial burden than on its implied insult³. A remarkable inscription of Balban’s reign, put up in Sanskrit by a Hindu individual, however, depicts the Muslim king in a pleasing light. Although allowance should be made for the conventional phraseology of a Sanskrit panegyrist composing a dedicatory inscription in a Muslim dominion, yet the sentiments have an unmistakable sincerity and genuine respect. In the Palam inscription, which is dated in 1280-1, the king of Joginipura is compared, in the goodness of his administration, with Vishnu who “has retired from the care of the world (entrusting it to the king) and gone to sleep in the ocean of milk”; the king “has ensured peace and security to all and throughout his contented realm....everywhere the earth bears the beauty of sylvan spring””. In another inscription, dated in the reign of Alauddin Khalji, at Jodhpur, the Hindu author pays tribute to the king’s just and efficient government through whose god like valour the earth was rid of all tyranny and impurities². A literary work of a slightly later period, that of the famous poet Vidyapati, speaks appreciatively of the Turushka king’s generosity and sense of justice³.