History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c12.147

c12.147

There was no law of evidence and no definite procedure. Summary trials were common, and cases were started without sufficient investigation.⁴⁹ Gross mistakes were sometimes made on account of haste and want of proper investigation, as is shown by the case of Malik-al-Iltijār who was murdered on a charge of treason. The Sultan afterwards regretted his action and cast into prison the informant and confiscated all his goods. The Diwān-i-Siyāsat worked vigorously, and every day hundreds of culprits were brought for punishment.⁵⁰ Outside the first gate of the Hazār Situn (the thousand-pillared palace) there were platforms on which the executioners were seated. When any person was slain, his head was suspended outside the gate for three days.⁵¹ The corpse of the victim was removed after three days by the Kafirs who were specially appointed to do this work and was thrown into a ditch outside the city. The Kafirs lived near the ditch and did not allow the relatives of the deceased persons to bury their dead bodies unless they were offered some bribe.⁵² The corpse of such a man as Ibrahim Kharitadār was buried after the payment of a bribe. Punishment for lapses from virtue was severe, and the mother of Prince Masud was ordered by the Sultan to be stoned to death⁵³ for adultery, and the verdict was pronounced by Qazi Kamal-al-Din. Mutilation was common, and Sultan Fīrūz writes in his Fatūhāt that he appeased by means of gifts the heirs of those who had been deprived of a limb, nose, eye, hand or foot in the time of his late Lord and patron Sultan Muhammad Shah.⁵⁴ Flogging was in vogue, and Ibn Batūtah relates that on one occasion he himself as judge gave eighty stripes to one Rāzi of Multan for making himself drunk and stealing five thousand dinars from the house of the treasurer of ‘Aziz Khummār where he had put up.⁵⁵ The punishments inflicted upon foreigners were comparatively lighter, and Ibn Batūtah relates instances in which they were excused even when they were guilty of serious offences.⁵⁶