The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c21.30

c21.30

This clearly un-Islamic sovereignty was not confined to the theorists but found concrete expression in the court etiquette and in the Sultan's absolutism. We have referred to Balban's court ceremonials and to the *zaminbos* and *paibos* system on whose unfailing observance he laid great emphasis; these were a recognised feature even in the time of his predecessors. Such assumption of divine honours did not always go unprotested; a leading ecclesiastic in Iltutmish's court condemned, in no ambiguous terms, all these practices which, he said, clearly amounted to *shirk* (denial of God's unity). But that such protests could always be circumvented is shown by the fact that the same divine was prepared to accord sanction to these practices only if the king tried to act up to what he called the four essential duties of *dinpanahi* (preservation of the Faith) one of which was the suppression of heresy¹.