The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.508.1

v3.c20.508.1

Indian historians praise Fīrūz as the most just, merciful, and beneficent ruler since the days of Nāsir-ud-dīn Mahmūd, son of Iltutmish, and there is some similarity between the characters of the two, though Fīrūz was in almost every respect superior. Both were weak rulers, but Fīrūz was far less weak and vacillating than Mahmūd, and both were benevolent, but the benevolence of Fīrūz was more active than that of Mahmūd. Fīrūz possessed far more ability than Mahmūd, and his weakness consisted largely in an indolent man's distaste for the details of business and in unwillingness to cause pain. His benevolence was indiscriminate, for he showed as much indulgence to the corrupt official as to the indigent husbandman, and his passion for constructing works of public utility was due probably as much to vanity as to benevolence. The discontinuance of the practice of demanding large gifts from placeholders was intended to relieve the poorer classes, on whom the burden ultimately fell, and was perhaps not wholly without effect, but placeholders continued to enrich themselves, and many amassed large fortunes. Fīrūz Shāh's connivance at corruption and his culpable leniency destroyed the effect of his own reforms. Old and inefficient soldiers were not compelled to retire but were permitted to provide substitutes of whose fitness they were the judges, and the annual inspection of cavalry horses was rendered futile by the many evasions devised by the king himself.