The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.442

v3.c20.442

Had he only had patience he might have maintained at his court, like the Mamlūks of Egypt, a submissive Caliph of his own, for in this year there arrived at Delhi from Transoxiana, where he had been living under the protection of the Mughal Khān, ‘Alā-ud-dīn Tarmāshīrīn, Ghiyās-ud-dīn Muhammad, son of ‘Abd-ul-Qāhir, son of Yūsuf, son of ‘Abd-ul-‘Azīz, son of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustansir of Baghdād, who reigned from 1226 to 1242. His descent having been verified he was received with great honour. To the two messengers who arrived at the court seeking permission for their master to visit it the king gave 5000 *tangas*, to which were added 30,000 *tangas* for Ghiyās-ud-dīn himself. The leading ecclesiastics and theologians of the court were sent as far as Sirsa to meet him, and the king himself met him at Mas‘ūdābād, now Bahādurgarh. After a ceremonious interchange of gifts he held Ghiyās-ud-dīn’s stirrup while he mounted and they rode together, the royal umbrella being held over the heads of both. Ghiyās-ud-dīn received extraordinary privileges at court, and the profusion of the king’s liberality to him is not to be reconciled with sanity. The vessels in his palace were of gold and silver, the bath being of gold, and on the first occasion of his using it a gift of 400,000 *tangas* was sent to him; he was supplied with male and female servants and slaves, and was allowed a daily sum of 300 *tangas*, though much of the food consumed by him and his household came from the royal kitchen; he received in fee the whole of ‘Alā-ud-dīn’s city of Sīrī, one of the four cities (Delhi, Sīrī, Tughluqābād, and Jahānpanāh) which composed the capital, with all its buildings, and adjacent gardens and lands and a hundred villages; he was appointed governor of the eastern district of the province of Delhi; he received thirty mules with trappings of gold; and whenever he visited the court he was entitled to receive the carpet on which the king sat. The recipient of all this wealth and honour was but a well-born beggar, mean and miserly almost beyond belief. He ate alone, not from pride or arrogance, but because, as he confessed to Ibn Batūtah, he could not bear to see other mouths eating his food, and grudged even a lamp in his palace, preferring to sit in darkness. He personally collected sticks in his garden for firewood, and stored them, and compelled his personal servants to till his land. He was dishonest as well as parsimonious, and Ibn Batūtah vainly demanded payment of a debt which the descendant of the Caliphs owed him.