Twilight of the Sultanate c7.s5.1

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.