Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c11.4

c11.4

The fifteenth century was a period of political disintegration. The states into which the country broke up, fought against one another with revenge and zeal. On a study of Muhammad Bihamid Khani's *Tarikh-i-Muhammadi*, one is forced to conclude that in the times of the later Tughlaqs even small towns like Kalpi had taken to warfare after the fashion of big States. It appears that medieval people fought just for the sake of fighting.² Whether it were the successors of Timur directing the pillage of the Punjab; or a Rai Sumer, a Jasrath Khokhar or a Tuhghan Rais defying the authority of the Sultanate; whether it was the constant warfare between Delhi and Jaunpur, the triangular contest between Malwa, Gujarat and Rajputana, or the Bahmani and Vijayanagar kingdoms were testing their strength, it only meant loss of population and that too on a large scale. Writing about the warfare among the states into which Bahmani kingdom had been divided, Nuniz says : "There is little faith among the Moors, and they bite one another like dogs, and like to see one after the other destroyed."³