Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c10.41

c10.41

There was a good reason for foreign travellers to have been impressed with Indian cities. With the establishment of Turkish rule-urbanization had received a fillip. Muslims are city-dwellers, and everywhere they have preferred to live in urban areas. In India, Muslim rulers and officers lived in important cities and carried on administration from there. Muslim immigrants also mostly stayed in the cities, they did not spread out in rural areas. In short Muslim rule helped in the rehabilitation of some old decaying cities and establishment new ones. As pointed out earlier, Delhi itself was an insignificant place right upto the eleventh century, but by the time of Ibn Battuta, "it was a magnificent place with strong and beautiful buildings. No city, Islamic or un-Islamic, was so great in the east as Delhi."⁴² Daulatabad, the second capital, was equally impressive, and Ibn Battuta and Shihabuddin Ahmad speak about it in glowing terms.⁴³ Lahore probably still bore the scars of Mongol ravage and occupation, but Kanauj had completely recovered from the early eleventh century ravages.⁴⁴ According to al-Qalqashindi it had become 'the Cairo of India and the biggest place there.'⁴⁵ Somnath too had borne the brunt of Mahmud's invasion, but was now once again a renowned centre of pilgrimage and a place of active trade according to Marco Polo,⁴⁶ who, ironically enough, visited it only four years before its (once again temporary) destruction by Alauddin Khalji's forces. A new important town was Bahraich which was visited by Ibn Battuta in the company of Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq.