Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c11.71

c11.71

Pires and Barbosa report about the Delhi of Sikandar Lodi's time and describe it as a "heavily populated country".⁵² More than a century later (1663) Bernier compares it with Paris. Paris in 1600 had 200,000 inhabitants.⁵³ Delhi's population in 1600 should be somewhere between 200 to 250,000. To Ralph Fitch (end of the sixteenth century) both Fatehpur Sikri and Agra were much larger than London. According to Jourdain, who was in India in 1608-09, Agra was one of the biggest cities in the world.⁵⁴ A year later Joseph Salbanke (1609-10) also says that Agra was as great as London, and "very populous".⁵⁵ In c. 1600 Father Xavier estimated the population of Agra at 500,000.⁵⁶