The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.427

v3.c20.427

During Muhammad’s absence from Delhi a heavy calamity had befallen northern India, and famine was sore in the land. It lasted, like that recorded in the Book of Genesis, for seven years, and was the most severe famine of which we have any record in India. It is attributed by historians to natural causes, and Budaunī goes as far as to say that ‘for seven whole years not a drop of rain fell from the heavens.’ This is, of course, mere hyperbole, and must be interpreted to mean that the rainfall was deficient for seven years, but it is certain that the famine was not due to natural causes alone, or the province of Oudh would not have been able to afford relief during that period to the inhabitants of Delhi and the Doāb. Muhammad’s exactions, which extinguished cultivation in large tracts of the Doāb, and his severity, which destroyed those who might have cultivated the land, contributed in no small measure to the calamity, which is always mentioned in connexion with, though not directly attributed to, his ill-treatment of his subjects in the Doāb.