The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c11.s2.1

c11.s2.1

According to W.H. Moreland the question really at issue was how to break the power of the rural leaders, the chiefs and the headmen of *parganas* and villages¹¹ Sultan Alauddin therefore undertook a series of measures to crush them by striking at their major source of power-wealth.¹² But in the process, leaders and followers, rich and poor, all were affected. The king started by raising the land tax (*Kharaj*) to fifty percent. Under rulers like Iltutmish and Balban, it does not seem to have been above one-third of the produce. Furthermore, under Alauddins system all the land occupied by the rich and the poor was brought under assessment at the uniform rate of fifty per cent. This measure automatically reduced the chiefs practically to the position of peasants. The king also levied house-tax and grazing tax. According to the contemporary chronicler Ziyauddin Barani, all milk-producing animals like cows and goats were taxed. According to Farishtah, animals up to two pairs of oxen, a pair of buffaloes and some cows and goats were exempted.¹³ This concession was based on the principle of *nisab*, namely, of leaving some minimum capital to enable one to carry on with ones work.¹⁴ But it was hardly any relief, for there were taxes like *kari*, (derived from Hindi word Kar), *charai* and *Jiziyah*. The sultans of Delhi collected *Jiziyah* at the rate of forty, twenty and ten *tankahs* from the rich, the middleclass and the poor respectively.¹⁵