History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c13.44

c13.44

Like his predecessor Barani, he also reiterates the story of the Sultan's excursion to Baran where he went ‘ not to hunt beasts, but men and without any reason began to massacre the inhabitants.’ Thousands of human heads were brought and hung over the city walls. On another occasion the whole tract of land from Kanauj to Dalamau was laid waste. Some writers have highly embellished the picture drawn by Barani of the Sultan's atrocities. The author of the *Zubd-ut-tawarikh* speaks of man-hunts of the Sultan and the display of human heads from the battlements of the fort of Baran and writes: ‘In this way he utterly depopulated whole tracts of his kingdom and inflicted such vigorous punishment that the whole world stood aghast. In short the cruelties of this tyrant whom some men call the just pass all belief.’²⁸ This is a close paraphrase of Barani’s description of the Sultan’s character, which has been adopted by all later writers. None of these writers seems to have had a knowledge of independent contemporary writers like Ibn Batūṭah and the author of the Masālik, for they are not even incidentally mentioned by them. Even Ḥājji-ad-Dabīr who sometimes throws a new light upon vexed questions reproduces Barani’s account of the Sultan’s cruelties. We have to decide whether the Sultan was really a monster of cruelty, a blood-thirsty tyrant whose reckless disregard of human life bordered on insanity. Modern writers have all re-echoed the views of Barani and Firishta and in this jumble of truths and half-truths it is difficult to paint the Sultan as he really was without extenuating or setting down aught in malice.