History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c12.241

c12.241

As has been said before, the officers of the state combined civil and military functions and therefore we cannot point to any functionaries performing exclusively military duties. The officers mentioned in the *Masālik* are the Khans, maliks, amirs, Sipahsālārs and *Jund*. The officers of the highest rank were called Khans and below them came the maliks, then the amirs, then the *Isfahsālārs* or Sipahsālārs, and last of all the *Jund*, a military officer whose rank was below the Sipahsālārs. The Khans were about eighty in number, and held grants which yielded two lakhs of *tankahs* a year, each *tankah* being equal in value to eight *dirhams*. The Khan was a commander of ten thousand horse. Under the Khans were the maliks who held a Jagir which yielded between fifty and sixty thousand *tankahs* a year and commanded one thousand horse. The amir held a grant which brought him an income of thirty to forty thousand a year, and had one hundred horse under his command. The Sipahsālār was allowed an income of about twenty thousand and commanded a smaller number of horse than the malik and the amir. The pay of the *Jund* varied from ten to one thousand *tankahs* and the Jagir allotted to him sometimes yielded an income double of its estimated value.¹⁰² These officers were paid by assignment of the government revenue from land, and as Irvine rightly says in describing the Mughal army, the central government which was strong at the centre, but weak at the extremities, was glad to be relieved of the duty of collecting and bringing in the revenue from distant places.¹⁰³ The soldiers and *mamluks* were given no lands and drew their pay from the public treasury. The grant of the officers was liable to be reduced or stopped at the pleasure of the Sultan. This finds confirmation in Ibn Batūṭah who, in speaking of Amir Bakht Sharaf-al-Mulk, writes that the Sultan, being displeased with him, reduced his rank from forty thousand to one thousand.¹⁰⁴ The pay of a soldier was fixed at five hundred *tankahs*, besides food, clothes and fodder for his horse. This was certainly higher than the pay allowed by ‘Ala-al-Din to his troops, which was 234 *tankahs* for a *murattab* (well-equipped man) with an addition of 78 for a man with two horses,¹⁰⁵ but it must be remembered that the prices of the necessaries of life were extremely low in ‘Ala-al-Din’s time on account of the Sultan’s control of the market. Besides the officers mentioned in the *Masālik*, there were in the military department other officers such as the Bakhshi (paymaster of the forces), Nāib-i-Fauj (commander-in-chief) and the ‘Ariz-i-Mamālik (muster-master).