History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c10.2

Language: English

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The year 1335 A.D. marks the beginning of decline in the fortunes of Muhammad Tughluq. His policy was largely responsible for the rebellions that broke out in all parts of the empire. The failure of his administrative measures accompanied by a heavy financial loss made him unpopular, and did not a little to shake the foundations of his power. The drastic punishments which he inflicted upon his subjects, sorely tried by famine, gave a shock to the confidence which they had previously reposed in him. The provincial satraps, whose authority Muhammad had restricted within very narrow limits, tried to use the failures of their sovereign to their own advantage. Fully aware of the difficulties into which the Sultan had been plunged by his idealism, they began to organise their resources and make preparations for independence. The half-subdued and discontented men all over the empire profited by his misfortunes, and the *amirs Sadah* who had settled in the provinces did all they could to foster sedition and conspiracy against his authority. The jealousy that prevailed between the foreign and the native *amirs* greatly hampered the progress of orderly government. One thing remarkable throughout the history of the Muslim domination in India is the tendency to revolt on the part of the governors in the outlying provinces of the empire.

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These governors often acted as independent rulers, and in an age when the means of communication were far from adequate, and the highways mostly unsafe, the treasures of the state accumulated in the provinces, and furnished sinews of war to those who wished to shake off the yoke of the sovereign power. The two rebellions that occurred in the early part of the reign were ruthlessly put down, but the sentences which the Sultan inflicted upon the malefactors were seared upon the minds of other governors who trembled for their safety, and felt certain of their doom unless they stirred betimes to guard themselves against royal wrath. The disintegrating forces that lie beneath the surface in a feudal state began to operate, and derived fresh strength from every mistake of the Sultan. The ‘infidel’ majority that had acquiesced in Muslim domination simply because Kaithali, the father of Malik Ibrahim, a feoffee of the Sultan, who was generally known as Hasan Kangu, and who eventually obtained the sovereignty of the Deccan with the title of ‘Ala-al-Din Bahman Shah fomented a revolt in Ma‘bar on the grounds of severity of the Sultan's governors, and the innovations introduced in the laws and the number of executions, and gained over to his own party nearly all the great men of Dihli who had been appointed to that district.’⁵ Firishta who probably copies Badaoni assigns 742 A.H.

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as the date of the rebellion⁶ and this is accepted by the French translators of Ibn Batūtah⁷ and by Edward Thomas. Yule in his ‘*Cathay and the Way Thither*’ accepts 1338-9 as the date of this rebellion.⁸ Hajji-ad-Dabir who follows Barani in this respect writes that the Sultan heard the news of the revolt of Sayyid Ahsan, while he was still in the neighbourhood of Kanauj.⁹ Barani who places the revolt after Fakhrā’s rebellion corrects himself by saying that the Sultan heard the news while he was busy in the districts of Kanauj and Dalmau. The date of Indian historians is proved to be wrong by the testimony of Ibn Batūtah and the evidence of coins. Dr. Hultzsch who carefully examined the coins of the Sultans of Madura has come to the conclusion that Muhammad Tughluq’s authority was recognised in the Deccan till 734 A.H.¹⁰ It is clear from the coins cited by him that they were issued by Muhammad, because they bear upon them the superscription الامام العادل العادل of which the emperor was so fond.¹¹ The first coin of Jalal-al-Din Ahsan Shah is dated 735 A.H. As to the identity of this coin (No. 4 in Dr. Hultzsch’s collection plate opposite to page 680) there can be no doubt, for it bears the same superscription on it as is mentioned by Ibn Batūtah. Further, Ahsan Shah boasted of being a descendant of the Prophet, as the appellation Sayyid signifies, and the superscription contains the words Tāhā and Yāsīn, which occur also in Ibn Batūtah.

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Ibn Batūtah’s testimony is reliable, because he had married Hoornasab, a daughter of the Sharif,¹² and must have been intimately acquainted with him. He started from Dihli on the 17th Safar, 743 A.H. (July 22, 1342 A.D.) and after having passed through many vicissitudes reached the Maldive Islands, which he left on the 15th Rabi-'al-Sani, 745 A.H. (August 26, 1344 A.D.) for Ceylon from which place he went to Ma'bar. He must have reached Ma'bar sometime in 745 A.H. His account is as follows:—