The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c9.s1.3

c9.s1.3

The Indian Muslim nobles, who were local converts, also rose to be officers in the upper cadres, but foreigners were always preferred. The fourteenth century Persian chronicler Ziyauddin Barani, who was born in India but traced his ancestry to a Turki Noble, credits the foreigner Turks with all possible virtues and the Indian Muslims with all kinds of imperfections.¹ The invectives he hurls on the converted Sultan Nasiruddin Khusrau Shah (C.E. 1320), are too well known to need repetition.² Muhammad Tughlaq always preferred foreign Muslims to Indians for appointment as officers. The rebellion of Ain-ul-mulk Multani (1339) during his reign was a symptom of the resentment felt by the India-born nobles against this policy of prejudice. In turn Khan-i-Jahan, a Telingana Brahmin convert, dominated the court of Sultan Firoz Tughlaq. The career of Mahmud Gawan, the minister of the Bahmani Sultan Muhammad III (1463-1482), illustrates both the reasons for which preference was given to foreigners and the jealousy it engendered. Foreign nobles looked down upon Indian Muslim nobles, and considered them as lowborn, although not all foreign Muslims were of high lineage.