The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c21.5

v3.c21.5

The chronicles of the Sayyid dynasty are chiefly a history of expeditions of this nature. Khizr Khān was the most powerful ruler of a house the influence and dignity of which decayed with an unvarying and unchecked rapidity seldom surpassed in the most ephemeral of eastern dynasties, and even in his reign military force was the normal means of collecting the revenue. Recalcitrants were not treated as rebels, and the only punishment inflicted was the exaction of the taxes due from them and of a promise, which they usually violated on the first opportunity, to make regular remittances in the future. Thus, in July, 1416, a most inconvenient season for the collection of revenue, Tāj-ul-Mulk was sent to Bayāna and Gwalior, not with a view to the reduction of these fortresses but merely to recover, by plundering at random the unfortunate cultivators, the equivalent of the tribute which should have been paid. With this, and with arrears of tribute which he collected from Kampila and Patiālī, he returned to Delhi.