Twilight of the Sultanate c17.s7.2

c17.s7.2

In the study of medieval historical literature, itineraries of travellers as well as the numerous biographical notices of saints, one is struck by the cheapness of prices of foodstuffs in the fourteenth-fifteenth century India. While cloth seems to have been scarce and costly, food was extremely cheap; cheap not only in comparison with prices prevailing today, but also with those of the times. Thus Ziyauddīn Baranī praises the cheapness in his times, giving prices of various articles of food.⁸⁵ Equally favourable is the price structure at the time of Fīrōz Tughlaq.⁸⁶ Due to political upheavals in the first half of the fifteenth century, food prices might have gone up a little, but no foreign or Indian writer has said so. On the other hand; 'Abdullā, the author of the *Tārīkh-i-Dāūdī*, bears testimony to the extreme inexpensiveness of foodstuffs during the latter half of the fifteenth century.⁸⁷