[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [Twilight of the Sultanate](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963) › c19.s1.2 # Twilight of the Sultanate c19.s1.2 Twilight of the Sultanate c19.s1.2 - **Language:** English ### [c19.s1.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c19.s1.2) Tʜᴇ ғɪɢᴜʀᴇ ᴏғ the prisoners massacred by Tīmūr on the eve of the battle of Delhi has been magnified by foreign chroniclers. Sharafuddīn Yazdī says that on a very conservative estimate a hundred thousand Hindus were put to the sword. In the \*Mulfūzāt\*, Tīmūr also has one lac. Mīr Khwānd says the same thing.¹ But this figure is challenged by Indian historians and contradicted by other statements of Yazdī himself. Sharafuddīn, before giving the details of the massacre, says that by the time Tīmūr reached Delhi, "more or less" a hundred thousand prisoners had been captured.² According to the same authority, these included women and children also. According to all writers, including Yazdī himself, only men above the age of fifteen were killed; women and children were spared.³ Thus the massacred could not certainly have been a hundred thousand. Mīr Khwānd copies Yazdī verbatim, but he could see through the mistake and while following Yazdī in all other details, takes care to say that "more than a lac Hindus had been captured".⁴ But Indian writers, whose sources in all probability included the writings of the above authors also, have a different story to tell. Nizāmuddīn Ahmad and Yahyā say that between the Indus and the Ganga about 50,000 "people of India" had been taken captive.⁵ They certainly comprised both Hindus and Muslims; Indian writers nowhere say that only the Hindus were captured or massacred. Since the number of the captives was fifty thousand, the number of the massacred must have been less than that. Yahyā, Badaonī and Hajī Dabīr, however, put the number of the massacred at 50,000.⁶ - [Previous: c18.s6.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c18.s6.14) - [Next: c19.s1.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c19.s1.3) - [Up: c19.s1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c19.s1) ## Cites (1) - [Tārīkh-i Mubārakshāhī](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.sultanate.tarikh-i-mubarakshahi) — Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad Sirhindī --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c19.s1.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1963.c19.s1.2) · Pramāṇa