The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c10.s1.2

c10.s1.2

Muslim middle classes in general and Muslim scholars in particular lived as a privileged community under Muslim government. It was their own government and, by and large, they were at peace with the establishment. But that did not always deter them from protesting injustice. The lower middle classes like artisans, soldiers and the bazar people could remonstrate in a more candid way. Two examples of such protests, one each from the Sultanate and the Mughal periods, would suffice to bring home the point. The Ilbari sultans (of the so-called Slave Dynasty) had ruled from Delhi for almost a hundred years (1206-1290). Therefore when Jalaluddin Khalji ousted the last Ilbari prince, the gentry, commoners and soldiers, rose in a body, poured out of the many gates of Delhi and assembled at the Badaon Gate to march and rescue the abducted boy-king Shamsuddin. Malik Fakhruddin, the Kotwal of Delhi, succeeded in suppressing the tumult, but so apprehensive became the new Khalji king of the peoples resentment that he did not venture to enter the city of Delhi for many months and made Kilughari the seat of his government.³¹