The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c24: Chapter XI. The Kingdom of Bengal
The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c24
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Chapter XI. The Kingdom of Bengal
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IT must not be supposed that the province of Bengal, conquered for Muhammad *bin* Sām and Qutb-ud-dīn Aibak by Muhammad Bakhtyār the Khalj, was conterminous with the Lower Provinces of Bengal which were governed until 1905 by a Lieutenant Governor. Before the Muhammadan conquest Bengal was divided into five regions, (1) Rādha, the country west of the Hughlī and south of the Ganges; (2) Bāgdī, the delta of the Ganges and Brāhmaputra; (3) Banga, the country to the east of the delta; (4) Bārendra, the country to the north of the Padma and between the Karatoya and the Mahānandā rivers; and (5) Mithila, the country west of the Mahānandā. Muhammad Bakhtyār took possession of the south-eastern parts of Mithila, Bārendra, the northern districts of Rādha, and the north-western districts of Bāgdī. The Muhammadan province and kingdom of Bengal was long confined to this territory, which was commonly known, from the name of its capital, as Lakhnāwatī, but was subsequently extended into Banga and the western districts of Rādha, which included Jhārkhand, or Chota Nāgpur.
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The course of events in Bengal during the period of its dependence on Delhi, which was its normal condition until 1338, has already been traced. Although the country was regarded until that time as a province the loyalty of its governors was always, owing to the distance which separated Lakhnāwatī from Delhi, and climatic conditions which rendered military operations impossible for many months in each year, a very uncertain quantity. It depended almost entirely on the king’s ability to command obedience, and the dubious attitude of the governors of Lakhnāwatī to the central authority became a byword at Delhi. The royal title was occasionally assumed, as by ‘Alī Mardān, who obtained the government from Qutb-ud-dīn Aibak after the death of Muhammad Bakhtyār, and by Ghiyās-ud-dīn the Khalj, who succeeded ‘Alī Mardān. The first serious rebellion against a strong king of Delhi was that of Tughril against Balban, and the first instance of the unquestioned use of the royal title in Bengal was that of Nāsir-ud-dīn Mahmūd, the contemptible father of the still more contemptible Mu‘izz-ud-dīn, Balban’s successor on the throne of Delhi. The father was content with the sovereignty of Bengal, and outlived the son, who was unfit to wield the sceptre of Delhi. Mahmūd, on his death in 1291, was succeeded by his next surviving son, Rukn-ud-dīn Kaikāūs, who, though he used the royal title and coined money in his own name, owned allegiance to ‘Alā-ud-dīn Khaljī of Delhi.
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Kaikāūs died in 1302, and was succeeded by his next brother, Shams-ud-dīn Fīrūz, who reigned obscurely until his death in 1318, when his eldest son, Shihāb-ud-dīn Bughrā, and his third son,
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SKETCH MAP OF THE ANCIENT DIVISIONS OF BENGAL
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Ghiyās-ud-dīn Bahādur, contended for the kingdom. The Muslims had by this time extended their rule into Bang, or Eastern Bengal, and Bahādur had established himself, before his father’s death, at Sonārgāon, in the present district of Dacca, and when Bughrā ascended the throne in Lakhnāwatī he attacked and defeated him. Bughrā died, or was slain, and his next brother, Nāsir-ud-dīn, who was older than Bahādur, ascended the throne and in 1324 sought the assistance of Ghiyās-ud-dīn Tughluq¹ of Delhi against his brother. Tughluq marched into Bengal, established Nāsir-ud-dīn on the throne of Lakhnāwatī, and carried Bahādur a captive to Delhi.
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¹ See Chapter VI.
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Muhammad Tughluq, immediately after his accession, restored Bahādur to the government of Sonārgāon, or Eastern Bengal, but associated with him, as a precautionary measure, Tātār Khān, better known by his later title of Bahrām Khān. Shortly afterwards Muhammad appointed Malik Bīdār Khaljī, Qadr Khān, to the government of Lakhnāwatī and ‘Izz-ud-dīn A‘zam-ul-Mulk to that of Satgāon.
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In 1330 Bahādur rebelled in Sonārgāon, but was defeated and put to death and Bahrām Khān remained sole governor of Eastern Bengal. Muhammad Tughluq displayed the vindictive temper for which he afterwards became notorious by causing Bahādur’s skin, stuffed with straw, to be exhibited throughout the provinces of the kingdom as a warning to disaffected governors.
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The history of Bengal during the period immediately preceding and following Bahrām’s death in 1336 is extraordinarily obscure. Bahrām either died a natural death or was slain by his chief armour-bearer, who had acquired great influence in the state and on his master’s death assumed in Sonārgāon the royal title of Fakhr-ud-dīn Mubārak Shāh. In 1339 Qadr Khān died at Lakhnāwatī, and the muster-master of his forces caused himself to be proclaimed king of Western Bengal under the title of ‘Alā-ud-dīn ‘Alī Shāh, and removed his capital from Lakhnāwatī to Pāndua.
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Neither rebel had much to apprehend from Muhammad Tughluq, whose long course of tyranny was now bearing fruit in these rebellions which led to the disintegration of his kingdom, and ‘Alā-ud-dīn ‘Alī’s transfer of his capital to Pāndua seems to have been a strategic move calculated to bring him within striking distance of his rival’s capital at Sonārgāon. Hostilities between the two continued for some years, and in 1349 Mubārak disappears from the scene. He can hardly have been defeated and put to death, as stated by the chroniclers, who place the event some years earlier, by ‘Alī, for he was succeeded in Eastern Bengal by his son, Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn Ghāzī Shāh, and ‘Alī himself was no longer reigning in 1349, for his foster-brother, Malik Iliyās, who had been contending with varying success for the crown of Western Bengal ever since ‘Alī had assumed the royal title, caused him to be assassinated in 1345, and ascended the throne under the title of Shams-ud-dīn Iliyās Shāh. He was nicknamed *Bhangara* from his addiction to the preparation of hemp known as *bhang*. There is some authority for the statement that he captured and slew Mubārak of Sonārgāon, but he did not obtain possession of Sonārgāon until 1352, when Ghāzī Shāh was expelled. Iliyās is also said to have invaded Jājnagar, as the Muslim historians style the kingdom of Jājpur¹ in Orissa, and there to have taken many elephants and much plunder.
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He also invaded the south-eastern provinces of the kingdom of Delhi and overran Tirhut, thus incurring the resentment of Fīrūz Tughluq, whose punitive expedition against him has already been described². Iliyās was compelled to leave his capital, Pāndua, at the mercy of the invader, and to retire to Ikdāla, where he offered a successful resistance. The victory described by the sycophantic historians of Delhi was infructuous, for Fīrūz was obliged to retreat without obtaining from Iliyās even a formal recognition of his sovereignty, and, though he is said to have remitted tribute to Fīrūz in 1354 and 1358, the truth seems to be that he merely accredited envoys to Delhi who bore with them the complimentary presents which eastern custom demands on such occasions. In December, 1356, Fīrūz formally recognised the independence of Bengal, and the gifts borne by his mission were at least as valuable as those received by him from Iliyās. These gifts, however, never reached their destination, for the envoy, Saif-ud-dīn, heard when he reached Bihār of the death of Iliyās and the accession of his son Sikandar, and applied to his master for instructions regarding their disposal. Fīrūz, notwithstanding his treaty with Iliyās, directed that they should be distributed among the nobles of Bihār and recalled Saif-ud-dīn to Delhi to assist in the preparations for an invasion of Bengal. Some pretext for this breach of faith was furnished by a refugee who had recently arrived at his court.
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This was Zafar Khān, son-in-law to Mubārak of Eastern Bengal, whom, according to his own account, he had had some expectation of succeeding. The conquest of Eastern Bengal by Iliyās had compelled him to seek safety in flight, and after many vicissitudes he reached Delhi, where he was well content with the position of a courtier until his wrongs suggested themselves to the king as a pretext for invading and conquering Bengal. His advance to Bengal has already been described in Chapter VII, and while he halted at Zafarābād, engaged in superintending the building of Jaunpur, he received envoys from Sikandar, bearing valuable gifts. These he meanly retained, while persisting in his design of invading Bengal. Sikandar, like his father, took refuge in Ikdāla, and so completely baffled Fīrūz that when he opened negotiations for peace he demanded and obtained most favourable terms. He is said to have been obliged to agree to send to Delhi an annual tribute of forty elephants and to surrender Sonārgāon to Zafar Khān. The latter condition was never fulfilled, owing, as the Delhi historians say, to Zafar Khān's preferring the security of Delhi to the precarious tenure of a fief in Sikandar's dominions, and if the tribute was ever paid Sikandar obtained an equivalent in the formal recognition of his independence, a jewelled crown worth 80,000 *tangas*, and 5000 Arab and Turkmān horses; and Bengal was no more molested.
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¹ In 20° 51′ N. and 80° 20′ E.
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² See Chapter VII.
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Sikandar had seventeen sons by his first wife, and only one, Ghiyās-ud-dīn A‘zam, the ablest and most promising of them all, by his second. A‘zam's stepmother, in order to secure the succession of one of her own sons, lost no opportunity of traducing him to his father, and at length succeeded in arousing his apprehensions to such an extent that in 1370 he fled to Sonārgāon and assumed the royal title in Eastern Bengal. Sikandar, who had never believed the calumnies against A‘zam, left him unmolested for several years, but in 1389 marched against him. The armies of the father and the son met at Goālpāra, and although A‘zam had given orders that his father was to be taken alive, Sikandar was mortally wounded, and died, after the battle, in his son's arms, forgiving him with his latest breath. The throne was the victor's prize, and one of A‘zam's first acts after his accession was to blind all his stepbrothers and send their eyes to their mother. He is more pleasantly remembered as the correspondent of the great poet Hāfiz¹, who sent him the ode beginning:
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¹ Dr Stanley Lane-Poole, at p. 307 of *The Mohammadan Dynasties*, gives 1389 as the date of A‘zam's accession in Pāndua, but Hāfiz died in 1388 so that unless A‘zam's accession in Pāndua is antedated it must be assumed that he enjoyed royal honours in Sonārgāon before his father's death. There is no doubt as to the identity of the king addressed by Hāfiz, for the poet, after saying that he is sending some Persian sugar to Bengal for the parrots of India, closes his ode thus:
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ساقى حديث سرو وگل ولاله ميرود * وين بحث با ثلاثة غساله ميرود
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Of the circumstances in which the ode was composed and sent a graceful story is told. A‘zam, stricken down by a dangerous malady, abandoned hope of life and directed that three girls of his harem, named ‘Cypress,’ ‘Rose,’ and ‘Tulip’ should wash his corpse and prepare it for burial. He escaped death and, attributing his
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حافظ زشوق مجلس سلطان غياث دين * خامش مشو كه كار تو از ناله ميرود
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recovery to the auspicious influence of the three girls, made them his favourites. Their advancement excited the jealousy of the other inmates of the harem, who applied to them the odious epithet *ghassāla*, or corpse-washer. One day the king, in merry mood with his three favourites, uttered as an impromptu the opening hemistich for the ode, ‘Cupbearer, the tale now runs of the Cypress, the Rose, and the Tulip,’ and finding that neither he nor any poet at his court could continue the theme satisfactorily, sent his effusion to Hāfiz at Shīraz, who developed the hemistich into an ode and completed the first couplet with the hemistich:
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‘And the argument is sustained with the help of three morning draughts,’
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the word used for ‘morning draught’ being the same as that used for ‘corpse-washer’¹. The *double entendre*, said to have been fortuitous, was more efficacious even than the king’s favour, and secured the three reigning beauties from molestation.
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¹ The analogy is apparent.
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Another story also exhibits A‘zam in a pleasing light. One day, while practising with his bow and arrow he accidentally wounded the only son of a widow. The woman appealed for justice to the *qāzī*, who sent an officer to summon the king to his court. The officer gained access to the royal presence by a stratagem and unceremoniously served the summons. A‘zam, after concealing a short sword beneath his arm, obeyed the summons and, on appearing before the judge, was abruptly charged with his offence and commanded to indemnify the complainant. After a short discussion of terms the woman was compensated, and the judge, on ascertaining that she was satisfied, rose, made his reverence to the king, and seated him on a throne which had been prepared for his reception. The king, drawing his sword, turned to the *qāzī* and said, ‘Well, judge, you have done your duty. If you had failed in it by a hair’s breadth I would have taken your head off with this sword!’ The *qāzī* placed his hand under the cushion on which the king was seated, and, producing a scourge, said, ‘O king! You have obeyed the law. Had you failed in this duty your back should have been scarified with this scourge!’ A‘zam, appreciating the *qāzī’s* manly independence, richly rewarded him. If this story be true Bengal can boast of a prince more law-abiding than Henry of Monmouth and of a judge at least as firm as Gascoigne.
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It is said that A‘zam, alarmed by the growth of the power of the eunuch Khvāja Jahān of Jaunpur remitted to him the arrears of tribute due to the king of Delhi, but there is no evidence that tribute had ever been remitted to Delhi, and the sum sent to Khvāja Jahān was perhaps a complimentary present.
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Little more is known of A'zam except that he died in 1396, and even the manner of his death is uncertain. Most historians mention it casually, as though it were due to natural causes, but one author asserts that it was brought about by Raja Ganesh of Dinājpur, a Hindu chieftain who is styled Raja Kāns by most Muslim historians and ultimately ruled Bengal for several years. A'zam was, however, peaceably succeeded by his son, Saif-ud-dīn Hamza Shāh, the obscurity of whose reign ill accords with the grandiose title of *Sultān-us-Salātīn*, or king of kings, bestowed upon him by some chroniclers, though it does not appear on his known coins. He was defeated in 1404 by Ganesh, but continued to reign until his death in 1406, though it appears that the influence of Ganesh was dominant in Bengal from the time of his victory. Shams-ud-dīn, a son or adopted son of Hamza, was permitted to ascend the throne, but exercised no power, and died after a reign of little more than three years. Muslim historians describe Ganesh as a sovereign ruling Bengal in his own name, but he has left neither coins nor inscriptions, and it would seem that he was content with the power of royalty without aspiring to its outward tokens, for coins prove that the puppet Shams-ud-dīn was succeeded by another puppet, Shihāb-ud-dīn Bāyazīd, whose parentage is doubtful. There is no less difference of opinion regarding the character than regarding the status of Ganesh. According to some accounts he secretly accepted Islam, and according to one tolerated it and remained on the best of terms with its professors, while remaining a Hindu, but the most detailed record which has been preserved represents him as a Hindu bigot whose persecution of Muslims caused Qutb-ul-'Ālam, a well-known Muslim saint of Bengal, to invoke the aid of Ibrāhīm Shāh of Jaunpur. Ibrāhīm invaded Bengal, and Ganesh is said to have sought, in his terror, the intercession of Qutb-ul-'Ālam, who refused to intercede for a misbeliever. Ganesh considered conversion as a means of escape from his difficulties, but eventually compounded with Qutb-ul-'Ālam by surrendering to him his son, Jadu or Jatmall, in order that he might be converted to Islam and proclaimed king, by which means the country might escape the horrors of a religious war. Qutb-ul-'Ālam accepted the charge, but discovered, after he had, with great difficulty, prevailed upon Ibrāhīm Sharqī to retire, that he had been the dupe of Ganesh, who treated the proclamation of his son as a farce, persecuted Muslims more zealously than ever, and attempted to reclaim the renegade. The ceremonial purification of the lad was accomplished by the costly rite of passing him through golden images of cows, which were afterwards broken up and distributed in charity to Brāhmans, but the young convert obstinately refused to return to the faith of his fathers, and was imprisoned. The discredited saint suffered for his folly by being compelled to witness the persecution of his nearest and dearest, but in 1414 death came to the relief of the Muslims of Bengal and the convert was raised to the throne under the title of Jalāl-ud-dīn Muhammad, and persecuted the Hindus as his father had persecuted the Muslims. The Brāhmans who had arranged or profited by the ineffectual purification of the new king were permanently defiled by being obliged to swallow the flesh of the animal which they adored, and hosts of Hindus are said to have been forcibly converted to Islam.
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The general attitude of the Muslim rulers of Bengal to their Hindu subjects was one of toleration, but it is evident, from the numerical superiority in Eastern Bengal of Muslims who are certainly not the descendants of dominant invaders, that at some period an immense wave of proselytisation must have swept over the country, and it is most probable that that period was the reign of Jalāl-ud-dīn Muhammad, who appears to have been inspired by the zeal proper to a convert, and by a hatred of the religion which had prompted his imprisonment, and had ample leisure, during a reign of seventeen years, for the propagation of his new faith.
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On his death in 1431 he was succeeded by his son, Shams-ud-dīn Ahmad, who reigned until 1442, but of whose reign little is known, except that Bengal suffered at this time from the aggression of Ibrāhīm Sharqī of Jaunpur. Ahmad is said to have appealed to Sultān Shāhrukh, son of Tīmūr, who addressed to Ibrāhīm a remonstrance which proved effectual. Towards the end of Ahmad's reign his tyranny became unbearable, and he was put to death by conspirators headed by Shādī Khān and Nāsir Khān, two of his principal officers of state, who had originally been slaves and owed their advancement to his favour. Each had designs upon the throne, but Nāsir Khān forestalled his confederate and, having put him to death, assumed the sovereignty of Bengal under the title of Nāsir-ud-dīn Mahmūd. He claimed descent from Iliyās, and in his person the line of the house which had compelled Delhi to recognise the independence of Bengal was restored.
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Mahmūd reigned peacefully for seventeen years, for the warfare between Jaunpur and Delhi relieved Bengal of the aggressions of its western neighbour, and left the king leisure for the indulgence of his taste in architecture. He rebuilt the old capital, Gaur, and built a mosque at Satgāon, but we know little else of him. He died in 1459, and was succeeded by his son, Rukn-ud-dīn Bārbak, who died in 1474. He was the first king in India to advance African slaves in large numbers to high rank, and is said to have had no less than 8000 of these slaves, who afterwards became a danger to the kingdom. He was succeeded on his death by his son Shams-ud-dīn Yūsuf, a precisian who insisted on the rigid observance of the Islamic law and prohibited the use of wine in his dominions. On his death in 1481 the courtiers raised to the throne his son Sikandar, a youth whose intellect was so deranged that he was almost immediately deposed in favour of his great-uncle, Jalāl-ud-dīn Fath Shāh, a son of Mahmūd. Fath Shāh was a wise and beneficent ruler, but incurred the hostility of the African slaves who thronged the court by curbing their insolence and punishing their excesses. The malcontents elected as their leader a eunuch named Sultān Shāhzāda, and took advantage of the absence from court, on a distant expedition, of Indīl Khān, who, though an African, was a loyal subject of Fath Shāh and an able military commander, to compass the king’s death. The guard over the palace consisted of no less than 5000 men, and it was the king’s custom to appear early in the morning at the relief of the guard and receive the salutes of both guards. The eunuch corrupted the officers of the palace guards, and one morning in 1486, when the king came forth, as usual, to take the salute, caused him to be assassinated and usurped the throne under the title of Bārbak Shāh.
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Indīl Khān, at his distant post, heard of the tragedy and was considering on what pretext he could lead his troops to the capital to avenge his master’s death when he received a summons from Bārbak. He welcomed the opportunity and hastened with his troops to Gaur, where his influence and the armed force at his command rendered his position secure. He found that the eunuch’s rule was already unpopular, and allowed it to be understood that he was a partisan of the old royal house, which was not yet extinct. Bārbak was apprehensive of his designs, and when he appeared at court insisted that he should take an oath not to injure or betray him. A copy of the Koran was produced, and Indīl Khān, who could not refuse the oath, added to it the reservation that he would not injure Bārbak so long as he was on the throne; but he interpreted the reservation literally, and, having bribed the ushers and doorkeepers of the court, awaited an opportunity of avenging the murder of Fath Shāh. This soon presented itself when the eunuch fell into a drunken slumber. Indīl Khān forced his way into the royal apartment, but finding that Bārbak had fallen asleep on the cushions which composed the throne, hesitated to violate the letter of his oath, and was about to withdraw when the drunkard rolled heavily over on to the floor. Indīl Khān at once struck at him with his sword, but the blow failed of its effect, and Bārbak, suddenly waking, sprang upon him and grappled with him. His strength and weight enabled him to throw his adversary and sit on his chest, but Indīl Khān called to Yaghrush Khān, a Turkish officer whom he had left without, and who now rushed in with a number of faithful Africans. The lamps had been overturned and extinguished in the struggle, and Indīl’s followers hesitated to strike in the darkness, lest they should injure their master, but he encouraged them by shouting that their knives would not reach him through the eunuch’s gross body, and they stabbed Bārbak repeatedly in the back. He rolled over and feigned death, and they retired, satisfied that their task was done. After they had left a slave entered to relight the lamps, and Bārbak, fearing the return of Indīl Khān, lay still. The slave cried out that the king was dead, and Bārbak, recognising his voice, bade him be silent and asked what had become of Indīl Khān. The slave replied that he had gone home, and Bārbak, who believed the man to be faithful to himself, issued an order for the execution of Indīl Khān. The slave left the chamber, but instead of delivering the order to any who might have executed it, went at once to Indīl Khān and told him that his enemy yet lived. Indīl Khān returned to the palace, stabbed Bārbak to death, and, sending for the minister, Khānjahān, consulted him regarding the filling of the vacant throne, the rightful heir to which was a child of two years of age. In the morning the courtiers waited upon Fath Shāh’s widow, who urged the avenger of her husband’s blood to ascend the throne. Indīl Khān, after a decent display of reluctance, accepted the charge, and was proclaimed, a few months after the assassination of Fath Shāh, by the title of Saif-ud-dīn Fīrūz. His elevation established an unfortunate precedent, and historians observe that it was henceforth an accepted rule in Bengal that he who slew a king’s murderer acquired a right to the throne.
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Fīrūz had already distinguished himself as a soldier and administrator, and during his short reign of three years he healed the disorders of the kingdom and restored the discipline of the army. His fault was prodigality, and despite the warnings and protests of his counsellors he wasted the public treasure by lavishing it on beggars.
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On his death in 1489 the nobles raised to the throne, under the title of Nāsir-ud-dīn Mahmūd II, the surviving son of Fath Shāh. Owing to the king’s youth the administration was necessarily carried on by his counsellors, and all power in the state fell into the hands of an African entitled Habash Khān, whose monopoly of power excited the discontent of the other courtiers, one of whom, an African known as Sīdī Badr the Madman, slew him and took his place. Sīdī Badr’s ambition was purely selfish, and in 1490 he caused the young king to be put to death and himself ascended the throne under the bombastic title of Shams-ud-dīn Abu-Nasr Muzaffar Shāh. This bloodthirsty monster, in the course of a reign of three years, put most of the leading men in the kingdom to death. The only measure in which he displayed wisdom was his choice of a minister, which rested on ‘Alā-ud-dīn Husain, a Sayyid of a family which came from Tirmiz, on the Oxus, and a man respectable alike by reason of his lineage, his ability, and his personal character. He probably restrained Muzaffar’s violence, and he served him faithfully as long as it was possible to do so, but the African developed the vice of avarice, fatal to a ruler whose authority depends upon the sword, and committed at once the crime of enhancing the burdens of his people and the blunder of diminishing the emoluments of his army. Sayyid Husain could no longer maintain his master’s authority, and, wearied by protests against the tyranny with which his position in a measure identified him, withdrew his support, and immediately found himself the leader of a revolt. The troops, placing him at their head, besieged the king for four months in Gaur. The contest was terminated by the death of the king, who perished in a sortie which he led from the fortress. The nobles, after some consultation, elected Sayyid Husain king in 1493, on receiving from him guarantees which bore some resemblance to a European constitution of 1848.
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The new king’s full title appears from inscriptions to have been Sayyid-us-Sādāt ‘Alā-ud-dīn Abu-’l-Muzaffar Shāh Husain Sultān *bin* Sayyid Ashraf al-Husainī, and it is possible that to his father’s name Ashraf may be traced the belief of some historians that he was descended from or connected with the Sharīfs of Mecca. He proved to be worthy of the confidence reposed in him, and inaugurated his reign by issuing orders for the cessation of plundering in Gaur. The orders were not at once obeyed, and the punishment of the refractory was prompt and severe, though the statement that he put 12,000 plunderers to death on this occasion is probably an exaggeration. The booty recovered from those who suffered for their disobedience enriched the royal treasury.
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Husain Shāh transferred his capital from Gaur to Ikdāla, probably with the object of punishing the people of Gaur for their support of Muzaffar’s cause, but his successor restored Gaur to its former pre-eminence.
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Husain was, with the exception of Iliyās, the greatest of the Muslim kings of Bengal. Among his earliest reforms were two very necessary measures, the first of which was the destruction of the power of the large force of *pāiks*, or Hindu infantry, which had long been employed as the guards of the palace and of the royal person, and had gradually, during several preceding reigns, acquired a position analogous to that of the Praetorian Guards at Rome. A great part of the corps was disbanded, and the remainder was employed at a distance from the capital, and the duty of guarding the king’s person was entrusted to Muslim troops. The second reform was the expulsion from the kingdom of all Africans, whose numbers had greatly increased and whose presence, since some of them had tasted the sweets of power, was a danger to the throne. During the seventeen years preceding Husain’s accession three kings of this race had occupied the throne, and there was some reason to fear that the negroes might become a ruling caste. The exiles in vain sought an asylum in Delhi and Jaunpur, where they were too well known to be welcome, and most of them ultimately drifted to the Deccan and Gujarāt, where men of their race had for many years been largely employed.
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In 1495 Husain Shāh, the last of the Sharqī kings of Jaunpur, having been driven from his kingdom by Sikandar Lodī of Delhi, fled for refuge to Bengal, and was hospitably accommodated by ‘Alā-ud-dīn Husain Shāh at Kahalgāon (Colgong), where he lived in retirement until his death in 1500.
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Husain, having established order in the neighbourhood of the capital, carried his arms into those districts which had formerly been included in the kingdom of Bengal, but had, during the disorders of the six preceding reigns, fallen away from a trunk too feeble to support branches. He recovered the lost provinces as far as the borders of Orissa to the south, and, having thus established his authority at home, turned his attention to foreign conquest, and in 1498 invaded the kingdom of Assam, then ruled by Nīlāmbar, the third and last reign of the Khen dynasty. Husain led his army as far as Kāmrūp and, after a long siege, captured Kāmalapur, Nīlāmbar’s capital, by stratagem. Other rulers, Rūp Nārāyan, Māl Kunwar, Gosāl Khen, and Sachhmī Nārāyan, are mentioned by a Muslim historian as having been overcome in this campaign. They were probably governors of provinces of Nīlāmbar’s kingdom.
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Husain, on returning to his capital, placed one of his sons in command of his new conquest, but the raja, who had fled to the hills, took advantage of the rainy season, when the state of the roads and rivers rendered the arrival of reinforcements and supplies impossible, to descend into the plains and attack the foreign garrison, which he put to the sword. Husain made no attempt to avenge this defeat or to recover Assam, but devoted his attention to securing his frontiers, and to the building of mosques and almshouses, for the maintenance of which he provided by endowments of land. He died a natural death in 1518, after a reign of twenty-five years, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Nasīb Khān, who assumed the title of Nāsir-ud-dīn Nusrat Shāh.
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Nusrat Shāh, who had, before his accession, exercised almost regal power as governor of Bāgdī, or the Ganges delta, and had coined money in his own name, was a prince of gentle disposition and strong natural affections, for he not only refrained from following the barbarous eastern custom of slaying, mutilating, or imprisoning his brothers, but doubled the provision which his father had made for them. Early in his reign he invaded Tirhut, attacked, defeated, and slew the raja, and appointed ‘Alā-ud-dīn and Makhdūm-i-‘Ālam, his own brothers-in-law, to the government of the reconquered province.
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Nusrat had occupied the throne for seven years when Bābur invaded India, and having defeated and slain Ibrāhīm Lodī, seated himself on the throne of the kingdom of Delhi. Numbers of the Afghān nobles of Delhi and many of the late royal family fled to Bengal, and were well received by Nusrat, who bestowed fiefs upon them for their support, and married the daughter of Ibrāhīm Lodī. He made a demonstration against Bābur by sending Qutb Shāh, one of his nobles, to occupy Bahrāich, but when Bābur established his authority in Jaunpur attempted to conciliate him with gifts which would not have turned him from his purpose had the time been ripe for the invasion of Bengal. In 1532, after Bābur’s death, Nusrat was alarmed by rumours of the hostile intentions of Humāyūn, and sent an envoy to Bahādur Shāh of Gujarāt in Māndū to form an alliance. The envoy was well received, but his mission was fruitless.
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The Portuguese now made their first appearance in Bengal. In 1528 Martim Affonso de Mello Jusarte was sent by Nuno da Cunha, governor of the Portuguese Indies, to gain a foothold in Bengal, but was shipwrecked, and fell into the hands of Khudā Bakhsh Khān of Chakiria, south of Chatgāon (Chittagong), where he remained a prisoner until he was ransomed for £1500 by Shihāb-ud-dīn, a merchant of Chittagong. Shihāb-ud-dīn was soon afterwards in difficulties with Nusrat Shāh, and appealed to the Portuguese for help. Martim Affonso was sent in command of a trading expedition to Chittagong, and sent a mission, with presents worth about £1200 to Nusrat Shāh in Gaur. The misconduct of the Portuguese in Chittagong, and their disregard of the customs regulations incensed the king, and he ordered their arrest and the confiscation of their property. The governor of Chittagong treacherously seized their leaders at a banquet to which he had invited them, slew the private soldiers and sailors who had not time to escape to the ships, confiscated property worth £100,000, and sent his prisoners to Gaur. Nusrat Shāh demanded a ransom so exorbitant that the Portuguese authorities refused to pay it, but punished the king by burning Chittagong. This measure of reprisal in no way benefited the captives, who had from the first been harshly treated, and were now nearly starved.
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Nusrat Shāh’s character deteriorated towards the end of his reign, probably as a result of his debauchery, and his temper became violent. One day in 1533, as he was paying a visit to his father’s tomb at Gaur he threatened with punishment for some trivial fault one of the eunuchs in his train. The eunuch, in fear of his life, persuaded his companions to join him in an attempt to destroy the tyrant, and on returning to the palace the king was put to death by the conspirators. He was succeeded by his son ‘Alā-ud-dīn Fīrūz, who had reigned for no more than three months when he was murdered by his uncle, Ghiyās-ud-dīn Mahmūd, who had been permitted by Nusrat to wield almost royal power throughout a great part of the kingdom.
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Mahmūd usurped his nephew’s throne in 1533, and was almost immediately involved in trouble by the rebellion of his brother-in-law, Makhdūm-i-‘Ālam, who held the fief of Hājīpur in Bihār and was leagued with the Afghān, Sher Khān Sūr of Sasseram, who had established himself in Bihār on the death of Muhammad Shāh, the Afghān who had been proclaimed by the refractory Lodī nobles king in Eastern Hindūstān. The two rebels defeated and slew Qutb Khān, governor of Monghyr who was sent against them by Mahmūd, and Sher Khān captured the elephants, material of war, and treasure of the defeated army, by means of which he was enabled immediately to increase his power and extend his influence.
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The successful issue of this rebellion and the great profit reaped by Sher Khān emboldened Makhdūm-i-‘Alam again to rise against Mahmūd without seeking, on this occasion, a partner who might again appropriate all the spoils, but the task was beyond his power, and he was defeated and slain. Sher Khān resolved to avenge the death of his former confederate, sent his advance guard towards Bengal, and followed it with all his available forces. The position which Mahmūd elected to defend was the narrow passage between the Rājmahall hills and the Ganges, which is strengthened by the fortress of Teliyagarhī on the south and Sikrīgalī on the north bank of the Ganges, and was known as the gate of Bengal, and he turned for assistance to his Portuguese captives, all of whom, except four, preferred action with a chance of freedom to their lingering captivity.
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In this chosen position the troops of Bengal were able to stem the advance of Sher Khan’s army for a whole month, and the Portuguese were the life and soul of the defence, but the invaders at length forced the position and advanced against the main body of Mahmūd’s army, which met them at some spot between Teliyagarhī and Gaur, and was defeated. Mahmūd fled to Gaur, whither Sher Khān followed him, and the capital was invested. The siege, which was vigorously pressed, suffered little interruption from a rising in Bihār, for Sher Khān, who returned to suppress the disorder, was able to leave his son Jalāl Khān and Khavāss Khān, one of his officers, in charge of the operations, which did not languish in their hands, and the garrison was reduced to such straits by famine that on April 6, 1538, Mahmūd led them forth and attacked the besiegers. He was defeated and put to flight, his sons were captured, and Gaur was sacked and occupied by Jalāl Khān.
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Sher Khān, having restored order in Bihār, returned to Bengal and pursued Mahmūd, who, when closely pressed, turned and gave him battle, but was defeated and grievously wounded. Sher Khan entered Gaur in triumph and assumed the royal title, while Mahmūd fled for protection to Humāyūn, who, in response to an appeal from him, had taken advantage of Sher Khān’s preoccupation in Bengal to capture Chunār from his officers, and had now advanced to Darvīshpur in Bihār. Sher Khān sent Jalāl Khān and Khavāss Khān to hold the gate of Bengal, and Humāyūn sent Jahāngīr Qulī Beg the Mughal to attack it. Jahāngīr Qulī’s force was surprised at the end of a day’s march and routed, the commander himself being wounded. Humāyūn then advanced in force to attack the position, and during his advance Mahmūd, the ex-king of Bengal, died at Kahalgāon, after learning that Sher Khān had put his two sons to death.
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Jalāl Khān, who feared to encounter the whole strength of Humāyūn’s army, avoided it by escaping into the hills to the south of his position, and fled thence to Gaur, where he joined his father, while Humāyūn advanced steadily towards the same place. Sher Khān, alarmed by his approach, collected his treasure and fled into Rādha, and thence into the Chota Nāgpur hills. Humāyūn entered Gaur without opposition, renamed the place Jannatābād, caused the *khutba* to be recited and coin to be struck in his name, and spent three months there in idleness and pleasure while his officers annexed Sonārgāon, Chittagong, and other ports in his name. He foolishly made no attempt to pursue Sher Khān, and lingered aimlessly at Gaur until the climate bred sickness in his army and destroyed many of his horses and camels. In the meantime Sher Khān descended from the Chota Nāgpur hills, captured the fortress of Rohtas, raided Monghyr, and put the Mughul officers there to the sword. At the same time, in 1539, Humāyūn received news of Hindāl Mīrzā’s rebellion at Delhi, and was overwhelmed by the accumulation of evil tidings. After nominating Jahāngīr Qulī Beg to the government of Bengal and placing at his disposal a contingent of 5000 picked horse, he set out with all speed for Āgra, but Sher Khān intercepted his retreat by marching from Rohtas to Chausa, on the Ganges. Here he was able to check Humāyūn’s retreat for three months, and extorted from the emperor, as the price of an undisturbed passage for his troops, the recognition of his sovereignty in Bengal. Having thus lulled Humāyūn into a sense of security, he fell upon his army and defeated and dispersed it.
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On his return to Bengal he was harassed for some time by the active hostility of Humāyūn’s lieutenant, Jahāngīr Qulī Beg, but ultimately disposed of his enemy by inveigling him to an interview and causing him to be assassinated. He thus became supreme in Bengal, and the increasing confusion in the newly established Mughul empire enabled him to oust Humāyūn and ascend the imperial throne.
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When he marched from Bengal in 1540 to attack Humāyūn he left Khizr Khān behind him as governor of the province. Khizr Khān’s head was turned by his elevation, and though he refrained from assuming the royal title he affected so many of the airs of royalty that Sher Shāh, as soon as he was established on the imperial throne, marched into Bengal with the object of nipping his lieutenant’s ambition in the bud. Khizr Khān, who was not strong enough to try conclusions with the conqueror of Delhi, welcomed his master with the customary formality of the East, and was immediately seized and thrown into prison. Sher Shāh obviated a recurrence of his offence by dividing Bengal into a number of small prefectures, the governors of which were responsible, for the regular collection and remittance of the revenue, to Qāzī Fazīlat of Āgra, who was appointed supervisor of the now disintegrated kingdom of Bengal.
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The independence of Bengal, due partly to the weakness and preoccupation of the sovereigns of Delhi between 1338 and 1539, and partly to the existence, between 1394 and 1476, of the buffer state of Jaunpur, dated from the later days of the reign of Muhammad Tughluq, and endured, despite the two abortive attempts of Fīrūz Tughluq to subvert it in the reigns of Ilyās and his son Sikandar, until Humāyūn destroyed it by establishing himself, for three months in 1539, on the throne of Gaur. It was restored by Sher Khān’s defeat of Humāyūn at Chausa, but again destroyed by Sher Shāh after his ascent of the imperial throne.
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The annals of Bengal are stained with blood, and the long list of Muslim kings contains the names of some monsters of cruelty, but it would be unjust to class them all as uncultured bigots void of sympathy with their Hindu subjects. Some certainly reciprocated the attitude of the lower castes of the Hindus, who welcomed them as their deliverers from the priestly yoke, and even described them in popular poetry as the gods, come down to earth to punish the wicked Brāhmans. Others were enlightened patrons of literature. At the courts of Hindu rajas priestly influence maintained Sanskrit as the literary language, and there was a tendency to despise the vulgar tongue, but Muslim kings, who could not be expected to learn Sanskrit, could both understand and appreciate the writings of those who condescended to use the tongue in which they themselves communicated with their subjects, and it was the Muslim sultan rather than the Hindu raja that encouraged vernacular literature. Nāsir-ud-dīn Nusrat Shāh, anticipating Akbar, caused the *Mahābhārata* to be translated from Sanskrit into Bengali, and of the two earlier versions of the same work one possibly owed something to Muslim patronage and the other was made to the order of a Muslim officer at the court of Sayyid ‘Alā-ud-dīn Husain Shāh, Nusrat’s father, who is mentioned in Bengali literature with affection and respect.
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ISLAM was introduced into Kashmīr at the beginning of the fourteenth century of the Christian era by Shāh Mīrzā, an adventurer from Swāt, who in 1315 entered the service of Sinha Deva, a chieftain who had established his authority in the valley of Kashmīr. Sinha Deva was overthrown and slain by Rainchan, a Tibetan who also was in his service and is said to have accepted Islam, probably at the suggestion of Shāh Mīrzā, whom he made his minister, entrusting him with the education of his children. On Rainchan’s death Udayana Deva, a scion of the old royal house, who had found an asylum in Kishtwār during the ursurpation, returned to the valley, married Kota Devī, Rainchan’s widow, and ascended the throne. He died after a reign of fifteen years, and his widow called upon Shāh Mīrzā to place upon the throne her son, but the minister, during his long tenure of office, had formed a faction of his own, and was no longer content with the second place in the state. The circumstances in which he obtained the first are variously related. According to one account he proposed marriage to the widowed queen, who committed suicide rather than submit to the alliance, but the more probable story is that on Shāh Mīrzā’s hesitating to obey her command she assembled her forces, attacked him, and was defeated. Shāh Mīrzā then forcibly married her, and before she had been his wife for twenty-four hours imprisoned her and ascended the throne in 1346, under the title of Shams-ud-dīn Shāh.
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The new king used wisely and beneficently the power which he had thus acquired. The Hindu kings had been atrocious tyrants, whose avowed policy had been to leave their subjects nothing beyond a bare subsistence. He ruled on more liberal principles, abolished the arbitrary taxes and the cruel methods of extorting them, and fixed the state’s share of the produce of the land at one-sixth. He was obliged, however, during his short reign, to suppress a rebellion of the Lon tribe of Kishtwār. He died, after a reign of three years, in 1349, leaving four sons, Jamshīd, ‘Alī Sher, Shīrāshāmak, and Hindāl, the eldest of whom succeeded him, but reigned for no more than a year, being dethroned in 1350 by his next brother, ‘Alī Sher, who ascended the throne under the title of ‘Alā-ud-dīn.
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‘Alā-ud-dīn, with a confidence rare among oriental rulers, made his next brother, Shīrāshāmak, his minister, and seems to have had no reason to repent his choice. The events of his reign, which are very briefly chronicled, included a severe famine, a conspiracy which was frustrated, and the promulgation of a law, said to have been effectual, depriving women of light character of any share in the property left by their husbands.
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‘Alā-ud-dīn died in 1359¹, and was succeeded by his brother, Shīrāshāmak, who assumed the title of Shihāb-ud-dīn, which was probably his real name, for that by which he was known before his accession means ‘the little milk-drinker,’ and was probably a childish nickname.
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¹ The chronology of the kings of Kashmīr is bewildering. See *J.R.A.S.*, 1918, p. 451.
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Shihāb-ud-dīn has left a reputation both as an administrator and as a warrior. He founded two towns and caused landed estates to be carefully demarcated, to prevent encroachments on the crown lands. At the beginning of his reign he led an army to the borders of Sind, and defeated the Jām on the banks of the Indus. Returning thence, he gained a victory over the Afghāns at Peshāwar, and marched through Afghānistan to the borders of the Hindū Kush, but was compelled to abandon his enterprise, whatever its object may have been, by the difficulties which he encountered in attempting to cross that range. Returning to India he established a cantonment in the plains, on the banks of the Sutlej, where he met, in 1361, the raja of Nagarkot (Kāngra), returning from a raid on the dominions of Fīrūz Tughluq of Delhi. The raja, who is said to have conciliated Shihāb-ud-dīn with a liberal share of his spoil, suffered for his temerity², and received no assistance from Shihāb-ud-dīn, who returned to Kashmīr.
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² See Chapter VII.
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For reasons which have not been recorded Shihāb-ud-dīn disinherited and banished to Delhi his two sons, Hasan Khān and ‘Alī Khān, and designated as his heir his brother Hindāl, who succeeded him, under the title of Qutb-ud-dīn, on his death in 1378. A rebellion of some of his predecessor’s officers obliged him to send an expedition, which was successful, for the recovery of the fortress of Lokarkot³.
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³ In 33° 50′ N. and 74° 23′ E.
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Qutb-ud-dīn was for a long time childless and, recalling from Delhi his nephew Hasan Khān, made him his heir, but Hasan’s impatience exceeded his gratitude, and he conspired with a Hindu courtier against his patron. The plot was discovered, and Hasan and his accomplice fled to Loharkot, but were seized by the land-holders of that district and surrendered to Qutb-ud-dīn, who put the Hindu to death and imprisoned his nephew, of whom no more is heard.
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Two sons were born to Qutb-ud-dīn in his later years, Sikandar, known before his accession as Sakār or Sankār, and Haibat Khān.
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Qutb-ud-dīn died in 1394 and his widow, Sūra, placed Sikandar on the throne and to secure his undisputed retention of it put to death her daughter and her son-in-law. It was probably at her instigation that Rāi Madārī, a Hindu courtier, poisoned Sikandar’s brother, Haibat Khān, but this act incensed the young king, who called the Hindu to account for it. Rāi Madārī, in order to escape an embarrassing inquiry, sought and obtained leave to lead an expedition into Little Tibet. He was successful, and, having occupied that country, rebelled. Sikandar marched against him, defeated and captured him, and threw him into prison, where he committed suicide by taking poison.
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In 1398 the Amīr Tīmūr, who was then at Delhi, and proposed to retire by the road which skirted the spurs of the Himālaya, sent his grandson Rustam and Mu‘tamad Zain-ud-dīn as envoys to Sikandar. They were well received, and when they left Kashmīr Sikandar sent with them as his envoy Maulānā Nūr-ud-dīn, and left Srīnagar with the intention of waiting personally on the conqueror. The envoys reached Tīmūr’s camp in the neighbourhood of Jammū on February 24, 1399, and the rapacious courtiers, without their master’s knowledge, informed Nūr-ud-dīn that Tīmūr required from Kashmīr 30,000 horses and 100,000 golden *dirhams*. The envoy returned to his master and informed him of this extravagant demand. Sikandar, whose gifts did not approach in value those required by the courtiers, turned back towards Srīnagar, either in despair or with a view to collecting such offerings as might be acceptable, and Tīmūr, who was expecting him, failed to understand the delay in his coming. The members of Nūr-ud-dīn’s mission who were still in the camp informed him of the demand and he was incensed by the rapacity of his courtiers, and sent Mu‘tamad Zain-ud-dīn with the returning mission to request Sikandar to meet him on the Indus on March 25, without fear of being troubled by exorbitant demands. Sikandar again set out from Srīnagar, but on reaching Bāramūla learnt that Tīmūr had hurriedly left the Indian frontier for Samarqand, and returned to his capital.
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Hitherto the Muslim kings of Kashmīr had been careless of the religion of their subjects, and free from the persecuting spirit, but Sikandar amply atoned for the lukewarmness of his predecessors. He was devoted to the society of learned men of his own faith, whom his generosity attracted from Persia, Arabia, and Mesopotamia, and it was perhaps the exhortations of bigots of this class that aroused in him an iconoclastic zeal. He destroyed all the most famous Hindu temples in Kashmīr, and the idols which they contained, converting the latter, when made of the precious metals, into money. His enthusiasm was kept alive by his minister, Sinha Bhat, a converted Brāhman with all a convert’s zeal for his new faith, who saw to it that his master’s hostility extended to idolators as well as to idols. With many innocuous Hindu rites the barbarous practice of burning widows with their deceased husbands was prohibited, and finally the Hindus of Kashmīr were offered the choice between Islam and exile. Of the numerous Brāhmans some chose the latter, but many committed suicide rather than forsake either their faith or their homes. Others, less steadfast, accepted Islam, and the results of Sikandar’s zeal are seen to-day in Kashmīr, where there are no more than 524 Hindus in every 10,000 of the population. The ferocious bigot earned the title of Butshikan, or the Iconoclast.
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Linked texts (2)
- Rājataraṅgiṇī — Kalhaṇa, Sanskrit
- Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit