Twilight of the Sultanate c12.s2.46

c12.s2.46

'Ālam Shāh's abdication brought to an end the rule of the Saiyyad dynasty. It had ruled for thirty-seven years. Of its four rulers, Khizr Khan was the first and the greatest. His accession had reunited the Punjab to the Sultanate of Delhi. But while his kindness, which did not treat recalcitrants as rebels, endeared him to all, it encouraged many to rise against him. The extent of rebelliousness during his reign and after can be gauged from the fact that only military expeditions could collect the yearly tribute from as nearby regions as Katehar in the north-east, Mewat in the south and Etawah in the east of Delhi. "There were, of course, the ordinary concessions to expediency . . . submission for the moment in the presence of a superior force . . . or desertions of fields and strongholds easily regained; but there was clearly no material advance in public security or in the supremacy of the Central government".⁸⁹