The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.383

v3.c20.383

These rare displays, made probably in the early years of the reign, and possibly collusive, cannot palliate the arbitrary cruelty of a monarch whose punishments were as revolting as they were frequent, and whose gateway was seldom unpolluted by the corpse of a freshly slain victim, but they illustrate some of the extraordinary contradictions of his character. It may be that Muhammad thus compounded with his conscience for many barbarities. The severest condemnation of his cruelty is the remorse of his old servant Baranī, who bitterly laments his own cowardice and that of his fellow-courtiers. ‘We were traitors,’ he says, ‘who were prepared to call black white, though not devoid of that knowledge which ennobles a man. Avarice and the desire of worldly wealth led us into hypocrisy, and as we stood before the king and witnessed punishments forbidden by the law, fear for our fleeting lives and our equally fleeting wealth deterred us from speaking the truth before him.'