History of the Khaljis, A.D. 1290–1320 c14.58

c14.58

The punishments inflicted by 'Alāūddīn as also by other sultans of the age were barbarous. Neither the dignity of high office nor piety nor wealth could save a man from the clutches of law. Even a *shahnāh* of the position of Malik Qabūl Ulugh Khānī, who possessed lands and cavalry, once received twenty stripes for suggesting to the sultan to raise the price of grain by half a *jītāl*. Flogging was very common, and on one occasion a man received one thousand stripes.³⁰ Decapitation, mutilation of limbs and putting an offender into fetters, were common forms of punishment. Ferishtah gives a graphic picture of the horrible punishments of the times of Fīroz Tughlaq. "It has been usual," says he ". . . to spill Muhammadan blood on trivial occasions, and for small crimes, to mutilate and torture them by cutting off the hands and feet, and noses and ears, by putting out eyes, by pulverising the bones of the living criminals with mallets, by burning the body with fire, by crucifixion and by nailing the hands and feet, by flaying alive, by the operation of ham-strings, and by cutting human beings to pieces.”²¹ Tortures were inflicted for extorting confession. ‘Alāuddīn was extremely severe in punishing the guilty; and for offences like smuggling wine into the city or drinking in public the offenders were imprisoned in abominable “wells” dug for that purpose. So horrible were these prisons that many people died in them and those who escaped alive were completely shattered in health. There were no regular jails and prisoners were incarcerated in some old forts. Brokers in horse trade, found guilty of contravening the sultan’s orders, were banished to distant fortresses.²² Amīr Khurd, the author of *Sairul Auliā*, describes the abominable conditions prevailing in such jails. He says that once his father Saiyyad Kamāl was imprisoned by sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq in Bhaksi jail, near Devagiri. It was reported about that place, says he, that no prisoner used to come out alive from it as it was full of rats and snakes.²³ The fraudulent shopkeepers who were found guilty of giving short weight were forced to make up the deficiency from flesh chopped from their bodies. Stoning to death for adultery, hanging of the body of the dead for days together on spear head, and parading it into the city were of common occurrence.