Indian Muslims: Who Are They c6.s7.62

c6.s7.62

³⁹ *Tabqat-i-Akbari*, III, p. 351. Ferishtah, II, 255. Dr. U.N. Day op. cit., pp.244-46 thinks that the figure of Nizamuddin is exaggerated. Probably it is not. When it is realised that Ghayasuddin had two battalions of Habsh and Turkish women guards, each of 500, the figure of 1600 (given by Wolseley Haig) appears to be too small to be true. In fact according to Pires, who wrote between 1512 and 1515 the king of Malwa was said to have 2,000 women warriors who rode out to battle with him. (*The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires* (London, 1944), I, P.37 cited in Lach, I, p.420). A harem of 1600 inmates would have hardly aroused any comment from medieval chroniclers. But Ghayass saraglio was an unique institution. It was built with beauties collected from all over the world (Ferishtah). Girls were also abducted to supply its requirements. Besides the musicians, singers, and dancers, usually found in a royal seraglio there were goldsmiths, blacksmiths, shoemakers, weavers, potters, tailors, makers of bows, arrows, and quivers, carpenters, wrestlers, and jugglers, each of whom received fixed wages, their officers, also women, being paid at high rates. (W. Haig and Ferishtah). The wages - two seers of grain and two