The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.429

v3.c20.429

Muhammad was not regardless of the sufferings of his people. A daily ration of grain was issued for six months to all the citizens of Delhi, and cooked food was distributed at the wealthy college which his eccentric piety had endowed at the tomb of the worthless Qutb-ud-dīn Mubārak, and at other shrines in the city. Large sums of money were advanced to enable husbandmen to buy seed and plough-cattle, to sink wells, and to improve and extend their holdings, but the king insisted on the application of these grants or loans to the objects for which they were made, and to no other. In some cases the starving people were too weak to carry out the works for which the money was granted, in others they were convinced, by the continued failure of the rains of the futility of spending money on tilling and sowing the parched land, and they applied the grants to their own immediate needs. This was regarded as contumacy and Muhammad punished the miserable transgressors with such rigour that the tale of executions shocked and disgusted even those accustomed to his barbarous severity, and this measure of relief produced more misery than would have resulted from a policy of inaction.