Twilight of the Sultanate c7.s1.36

c7.s1.36

Tīmūr halted at Janjān for four days and then marching via Sehwāl and Aswān he arrived at Jahwāl where he encamped.³⁹ There he began preparations for punishing the people of Deopalpur, who had not only retracted their promise of loyalty to Pīr Muhammad, but had killed the Timuride governor Musāfir Kabuli and his one thousand men.⁴⁰ The news of the approach of Tīmūr now greatly scared the people of Deopalpur. After the fall of Sārang Khan, they had no leader to guide or protect them. Abandoning the city they took refuge in the fortress of Bhatnīr, then considered to be one of the strongest forts of India. Tīmūr appointed Amīr Shāh Malik and Daulat Tīmūr Tawāchī to lead the main force to Delhi via Deopalpur and Samana while he himself marched via Ajodhan (modern Pāk Patan)⁴¹ with a body of 10,000 picked cavalry.⁴² At Ajodhan though most of the Saiyyads and 'Ulema, encouraged by the preferential treatment meted out to their section at Tulamba, waited upon Tīmūr, there were patriots like Shaikh Sa'āduddīn and Shaikh Munawwar⁴³ who exhorted the people not to submit to the blackmailer but to accompany them to Bhatnīr on their way to Delhi. After paying a visit to the mausoleum of the celebrated saint Shaikh Farīd Shakargunj⁴⁴ and appointing Khwājā Muhammad and other officers to protect the 'Ulema and the Saiyyads whose conduct must have annoyed the people of the city, Tīmūr left Ajodhan early in November, 1398.⁴⁵ Crossing the river Gharra he halted at Khālis Khatoli,⁴⁶ now known as Pīr Khālis, fifty *kos* from Bhatnīr. Next morning, at about breakfast time, he arrived at Bhatnīr having marched fifty *kos* in less than twenty-four hours⁴⁷ which was deemed to be an extraordinary feat in those days.