The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c8.s2.11

c8.s2.11

With the fall of the Tughlaq dynasty the name of the Caliph was dropped from Delhi coins. To the Saiyyad rulers, Timur and his successors were the real Caliphs. More than once, robe of honour and flag came from (Shah Rukh) to Delhi for Khizr Khan and Mubarak Khan. In return annual tribute was sent to Shah Rukh.⁶⁵ Sultan Muhammad Saiyyad also remained loyal to him.⁶⁶ Henceforward it was Timur who provided source of inspiration to the Indian Muslim regime. Muslim regime in India depended for sustenance and strength not on the Indian people but on foreign Muslim Caliphs and potentates. For, while the Saiyyad Sultans were obliged to Amir Timur for installing them on the Delhi throne, the Mughal emperors descended directly from him. Timur or Tamerlane had carried fire and sword into Hindustan (1398-99) and his name revived horrendous memories among the Indian people, but to the Mughal emperors his name provided as good an inspiration for their Islamic rule in India as that of the Caliphs for the Delhi Sultans. Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur as a conqueror and a descendant of Amir Timur, assumed the title of Ghazi. But so also did Jahangir, although a true Indian,⁶⁷ adopt the lofty title of Nuruddin Mohammad Jahangir Padshah Ghazi.⁶⁸ Shahjahan, who was more Indian than even Jahangir, took the title of Abul Muzaffar Shihabuddin Muhammad Sahib-i-Qiran-i-Sani (or Timur the Second).⁶⁹ Right up to the end of the Mughal empire in India, the Mughal kings took pride in calling themselves descendants of Amir Timur and in belonging to the Chaghtai Turk clan of the Mongols. The last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar asked Mirza Ghalib to write a history of the Taimuria dynasty on a payment of rupees six hundred annually as noted by the poet in his *Dastanbuy*. Furthermore, after the collapse of Mughal power early in the nineteenth century, the name of the Sultan of Turkey began to be mentioned in *khutba* in Indian mosques.