History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c10.184

c10.184

از خلفاء عباسی سلطان از مسافران بسیار تتبع میکرد تا از بسیار مسافران شنید که خلیفه از آل عباس در مصر بر خلافت متمکن است - he opened negotiations with the Khalifah of Egypt, offered him allegiance and despatched for two or three months petitions regarding all his affairs. On coming to Dihli after the suppression of ‘Ain-al-Mulk’s revolt in 741 A.H. the Sultan suspended the Friday and ‘Id prayers and removed his name from the Khutbah and coins and substituted that of the Khalifah in its stead.¹¹⁶ For a few days, writes the author of the Sirat, he withdrew from all public business. Probably in 742 A.H. came to the Sultan’s court Ghiyas-al-Din, a great grandson of the Khalifah of Baghdad, Al-Mustansir billah. The Sultan extended to him his lavish hospitality and assigned to him ten lakhs of tankahs, the palace of Siri with its reservoirs and gardens and the fief of Kanauj. He behaved in his presence with a humility bordering on the ludicrous, and meekly apologised to him for having rendered biat to the Khalifah of Egypt.¹¹⁷ In 744 A.H. when Haji Sayyid came back with a robe of investiture and a farman, the Sultan walked an arrow’s distance bare-footed with his nobles, courtiers and learned men to receive him. He placed the robe of honour and the farman upon his head and kissed the feet of the Haji. The city was decorated, and gold was scattered among the people to commemorate the auspicious occasion. The Khalifah’s name was repeated in the Khutbah, and an order was promulgated that henceforward the Khalifah’s name was to be repeated in prayers on holy days. The names of those kings who had reigned without the authority of the Khalifah were removed from the Khutbah and they were regarded as suspended (mutghallib). So fulsome was the Sultan’s flattery of the Khalifah that his name was inscribed not merely on the coins, but in all important edifices of the state. This was followed by the arrival of another farman from the Khalifah through Haji Khalaf, which confirmed the farman previously