The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.455

v3.c20.455

The king’s attention was now turned to the Deccan where the revenue collections had fallen by ninety per cent. The decrease was probably due to the introduction of the farming system and to consequent rebellions, but Muhammad was easily persuaded to attribute it to the sloth and peculation of the collectors appointed by Qutlugh Khān. On December 8, 1344, the poet Badr-i-Chāch was sent from Delhi to recall Qutlugh Khān from Daulatābād, and his brother, Maulānā Nizām-ud-dīn, a simple man devoid of administrative experience, was sent from Broach to succeed him, but with restricted powers. Muhammad, ever ready to remedy disorders by new devices, now divided the Deccan into four revenue divisions (*shiqq*) to each of which was appointed a governor upon whom the enforcement of new regulations and the extortions of the uttermost *tanga* of the revenue were strictly enjoined. The removal of the mild and pious Qutlugh Khān, whose benevolent rule and readiness to stand between the people and the king’s wrath had won the love of Hindu and Muslim alike, excited the gravest apprehensions, and a discontent which might at any moment burst into the flame of rebellion; and the king’s avowed intention of collecting annually 670 millions of *tangas* from the four divisions, and the selection of the agents who were to enforce the demand, increased the people’s alarm. Mālwa was included in the Deccan and formed with it one *shiqq*, to the government of which was appointed ‘Azīz Khammār¹, a low-born, unscrupulous and extortionate official who had won an evil reputation as revenue collector in the ‘thousand’ of Amroha, a tract containing about 1500 villages, and whose propensity to cruelty was now stimulated by the express injunctions of the king, whose fury stigmatised all officials and farmers in the Deccan, but above all the ‘centurions,’² as traitors and rebels. In respect of this class ‘Azīz received special instructions. Impelled by the hope of plunder and profit the ‘centurions,’ said the king, were the instigators and fomenters of every revolt and rebellion, and ‘Azīz, liberally supplied with troops and funds, was to use his utmost endeavour to destroy them. These injunctions fell upon willing ears, and ‘Azīz, immediately after his arrival at Dhār, the seat of his government, caused eighty-nine ‘centurions’ to be put to death before his official residence. This barbarous act excited among the ‘centurions’ of Gujarāt and the Deccan a horror which was enhanced by the king’s official approval of it. Not only did Muhammad himself send ‘Azīz a robe of honour and a *farmān* praising his services to the state, but the courtiers and great officers at the capital were commanded to follow their master’s example.