Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c6.s1.17

c6.s1.17

Ziyauddin Barani is an eye-witness historian, but his figures and data are not always precise. When sometimes he means to convey 'a very large number', he gives the figure of 100,000. That in 1297-98 the Mongol leader Kadar invaded India with 100,000 horse,¹¹ may be acceptable, but when he says that the Mewatis, during Balban's reign, killed 100,000 royal troops¹² he definitely exaggerates, for neither the Mewatis were such well-organized fighters nor Balban so weak a king as to have let them destroy a hundred thousand of his troops. It may be said that Barani's '100,000' only conveys an idea of the immensity of numbers, and he is usually casual with his figures. For example, at one place he says that the army of Qutlugh Khwaja, the Mongol leader who invaded India in 1299, was 200,000 (*ba bist tuman*), while at another that it was only 100,000 (*yak lak sawar darand*).¹³ Similarly, during Targhi's invasion (1303), according to Barani, the Mongol army was 120,000 horse (*dawazdah tuman*), but a little later, on the same page of his narrative, it becomes 30 to 40 thousand (*ba si chahal hazar*).¹⁴ But this very chronicler, in many other cases, is quite moderate in his estimates and is reliable. The whole story of Alauddin Khalji's Market Control as given by him together with the price lists of foodgrains, cloths, horses, slaves, etc. appears to be true.