The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.379

v3.c20.379

The delineation of a character so complex and contradictory as that of Muhammad Tughluq is no easy task. He was one of the most extraordinary monarchs who ever sat upon a throne. To the most lavish generosity he united revolting and indiscriminate cruelty; to scrupulous observance of the ritual and ceremonial prescribed by the Islamic law an utter disregard of that law in all public affairs; to a debasing and superstitious veneration for all whose descent or whose piety commanded respect a ferocity which when roused respected neither the blood of the prophet nor personal sanctity. Some of his administrative and most of his military measures give evidence of abilities of the highest order, others are the acts of a madman. His protégé Ziyā-ud-dīn Baranī, the historian, whom he admitted to a considerable degree of intimacy and whom he often deigned to consult, attributes many of the atrocities which he commanded or sanctioned to the evil influence of twelve wicked counsellors, stigmatized as ‘miserable,’ ‘accursed,’ or ‘most accursed,’ whose delight was to shed the blood of Muslims, but Muhammad Tughluq was no weakling, and was never a tool in the hands of his counsellors. If his advisers were vile and bloodthirsty men it was he that chose them, and if he followed evil counsels he did so because they commended themselves to him. In like manner Baranī attributes his disregard of the Islamic law in administrative and punitive measures to his early association with Sa‘d, the heretical logician, ‘Ubaid, the infidel poet, and ‘Ālim-ud-dīn, the philosopher, but this is mere special pleading. His association with these freethinkers never diminished his faith in Islam, his careful regard in other respects for its laws, or his veneration for its traditions. It was not the fault of logicians, poets, or philosophers that he scandalised the orthodox by deliberately preferring human reason to divine revelation as a guide in mundane matters, and by openly avowing his preference. His private judgement misled him, but this was due to his temperament. His peculiar vice as a judge and administrator was his inordinate pride, which deprived him of the power of discriminating between offences. All his commandments were sacred and the slightest deviation from an impracticable regulation and the most flagrant act of defiance and rebellion were alike punished by a cruel death. This policy acted and re-acted with cumulative effect on the monarch and his people. Disgusted by their sovereign’s barbarity they grew ever more refractory; exasperated by their disobedience he grew ever more ferocious. His wide dominions were seldom free from rebellion during his reign, and at his death the whole kingdom was in a ferment.