History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c13.31

c13.31

the love of cruelty. But this statement of the Fatūhat and the Sirat is not corroborated by Shams-i-Siraj ‘Afif, the official historian of Firuz, who must have heard much about Muhammad’s reign from eyewitnesses. He describes Sultan Muhammad as a great king, adept in everything, a wise man of sound understanding who displayed in the kingdom of Dihli great wisdom and excellence to the world.²¹ Firuz was a priest-ridden monarch and the author of the Sirat, a member of the clerical order, who approved of every orthodox act of his patron, rejoiced at the special favour shown to the heirs of the malcontents of his own class, whom Sultan Muhammad had tried to suppress during his reign. Assuming for the sake of argument that compensation was granted to the injured persons or their survivors, how was it possible to meet the claims of the heirs of those who had perished in the wholesale massacres which, according to Barani, occurred at Baran and in the neighbourhood of Kanauj and to obtain letters of satisfaction from them? The inevitable inference is that it was the members of the clerical order who were conciliated by the state in this manner. The influence of the ‘Ulama who asserted themselves immediately after the death of the masterful Muhammad is clearly manifest in the attempts made by Firuz to appease them by gifts and allowances and to restore them to their former position in the state.