Twilight of the Sultanate c7.s5: Visitation in Retrospect
Twilight of the Sultanate c7.s5
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Visitation in Retrospect
c7.s5.1
A careful study of Tīmūr’s invasion leads to the conclusion that it symbolises little more than the fulfilment of an ambition without a distinct object. After all why did he invade India? If conquest of the country was his object, he had certainly not achieved it. The fact of the matter was that Sultan Mahmūd and Iqbāl Khan were alive and unsubdued. According to himself and his chroniclers it was to destroy idolatry and to obtain a rich booty that he had invaded India. Now so far as his destruction of idolatry is concerned, there is no mention of the razing of any temples in the course of his Indian campaign. What we may gather from the writings of his historians is that not only was he lukewarm in this direction, but on the other hand he had in his army Turks who worshipped and carried their idols with them, and “men who worshipped fire, soothsayers and unbelievers”.¹⁷⁹ This was because Tīmūr observed the precepts of Chingīz Khan and preferred them to the laws of Islam;¹⁸⁰ so that two doctors, Hafizuddīn Muhammad Bazāzī and ’Alāuddīn Muhammad Bukhārī declared that he should be considered an infidel.¹⁸¹ Sure enough, contemporary opinion was sceptic about his avowed profession of Islam.
c7.s5.2
¹⁷⁹ Saunders, *Tamerlane the Great*, 321.
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¹⁸⁰ *Ibid.*, 298-99. Also Z.N., II, 29, 30 and M.T., E and D, III, 408.
c7.s5.4
¹⁸¹ Saunders, 299.
c7.s5.5
To the complacent mind of the conqueror, he had come to wage war against the infidels. But the fact is that Hindu rulers in northern India, save in Rajputana, were no more than petty landlords and defeat of a few of them had little effect on Hinduism in India. On the contrary, the overthrow of the Muslim Sultan of Delhi and its terrible sack wrought much harm to the strength of Muhammadan rule and gave rise to a number of strong Hindu kingdoms. “No wonder then that warriors fighting against Tīmūr are given the rank of martyrs by the Indian Muhammadan historians”¹⁸² and the ruthless conqueror is himself cursed as an “infidel” by the Muhammadans.¹⁸³
c7.s5.6
¹⁸² Pringle Kennedy, I, 97.
c7.s5.7
¹⁸³ An inscription on the Idgāh built by Mallū Iqbāl Khan in A.D. 1404-5 (807 H) on the east side of the Delhi-Qutb Road, some 200 yards to the south of village Kharera, reads: **چون قبه السلام دارالملك دهلى في بلاد ممالك از شر مغل ملاعين و فساد كفره و شياطين روی بخرابی آورده** ("When the pious city of Delhi, the metropolis of the country, was desolated by the evil of the accursed Mughals and the mischief of the infidels and Satans ... Iqbāl Khan ... was able ... to repopulate the capital of Delhi and other parts of the country"). *List of Monuments*, III (Mahrauli Zail), 164-66.
c7.s5.8
One cannot again be sure of Amīr Tīmūr's gains in terms of gold. The wealth that Mahmūd of Ghaznī had carried away from India had impressed all contemporary historians. Mahmūd himself was dazed by the booty he had collected. The wealth 'Alāuddīn Khaljī brought from the Deccan, again, had amazed the contemporary historians whose computation of it varied both in description and in imagery. But Tīmūr's booty did not attract much notice. The motive of loot is certain, but how much was looted is not so certain.
c7.s5.9
Still more amazing is the haste with which Tīmūr returned to his country. He did have problems in Samarqand needing his immediate attention, but this does not justify his indifference to receiving tribute from the king of Kashmir, or his surrendering the reins of his acquisitions into the hands of Khizr Khan, without leaving any army to help him. He left the country as if he had nothing more to do with it. More than a century later a descendant of his house found it convenient to lay claim to Hindustan on the basis of Tīmūr's victory, but one is compelled to conclude that in spite of what he or his chroniclers have written, his was an aimless visitation, and its memory lingered for long. The victor had hardly gained much, but the vanquished had lost everything. The Sultan of Delhi was a fugitive, the nobles were dispersed, and the Tughlaq monarchy, which had rapidly declined during the last decade, was now beyond any hope of redemption.
c7.s5.10
But even in the deepest darkness light persists. Tīmūr's gruesome invasion had a silver lining. Hindus and Muslims all stood up to a man to fight him wherever he went. The days of Mahmūd of Ghaznī were a story of the past, and Tīmūr met resistance everywhere. The people of India were known for their disunity in the face of a foreign invader. But they stood united against Tīmūr. At Tulamba, Ajodhan, Deopalpur, Bhatnīr, Meerut and Delhi—nay everywhere—the Hindus and Muslims fought shoulder to shoulder against the invader. Shaikh Sa‘āduddīn interceded with Tīmūr on behalf of the Hindu chief of Bhatnīr. At Meerut, Ilyās Afghān, a Muslim, burnt his womenfolk in the fire of *jauhar*. During Tīmūr's visitation the Hindus and Muslims learnt to sink their differences and stand united.