The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.539

v3.c20.539

On the following day Tīmūr entered the city and held at the *‘Īdgāh* a court which was attended by the principal citizens, who obtained, by the mediation of the Sayyids and ecclesiastics, an amnesty which proved, as usual, to be illusory. Within the next few days the licence of the soldiery, the rigour of the search for fugitives from other towns, who had not been included in the amnesty, and the assessment of the ransom led to disturbances, and the people rose against the foreigners and in many instances performed the rite of *jauhar*. The troops, thus freed from all restraint, sacked the city, and the work of bloodshed and rapine continued for several days until so many captives had been taken that, in the words of the chronicler, ‘there was none so humble but he had at least twenty slaves.’ Pillars were raised of the skulls of the slaughtered Hindus, ‘and their bodies were given as food to the birds and the beasts, and their souls sent to the depths of hell.’ The artisans among the captives were sent to the various provinces of Tīmūr’s empire, and those who were stonemasons to Samarqand for the construction of the great Friday mosque which he designed to raise in his capital.