History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c13.7

c13.7

Though a man of charitable disposition, he discouraged beggary and granted allowances to the needy and the indigent. According to the author of the Masālik forty thousand beggars were fed every day at the public kitchens, and every one of them was given one dirham and 5 ritals of bread of wheat flour or rice. He endowed large monasteries (Khānqāhs) for the benefit of the poor where food was distributed under the supervision of state officials.⁴ The mutwallis were properly controlled and cases of defalcation were severely punished. The public and private dinners of the Sultan have already been mentioned. Though magnificent on public occasions, he was personally a man of simple and abstemious habits. He abstained from drink, shunned the society of men given to unlawful acts and forbade the use of intoxicating liquor among his nobles and subjects.⁵ A breach of this rule was followed by heavy penalties and the author of the Masālik records the instance of a Khan of Dihli who was punished with confiscation of property when he persisted in this bad habit after he had received a warning from the Sultan. Barani who cannot be accused of partiality towards the Sultan highly praises his private character and dwells enthusiastically on his personal purity. In an age of drunkenness and licentiousness he was singularly free from unnatural lust and had no fondness for women.⁶ Ibn Batūtah and the author of the Masālik make no mention of any vice in the Sultan, although they write that he witnessed the performances of musicians and dancing girls which were a necessary concomitant of all state ceremonies in those days. Neither in his speech nor in his acts he was profane or vulgar and in private as well as in public he always observed the highest decorum. Though not a Puritan like Aurangzeb nor an ascetic like Nāsir-al-Din Mahmud, the Sultan was highly punctilious in matters of conduct. Decency was enforced in the palace, and when the Sultan went into the seraglio he used to send his eunuchs in advance so that women might seclude themselves behind the screens.⁷ So strict was he in these matters that during the revolt of 'Ain-al-Mulk Multani he issued an order that no woman should be permitted to stay in the camp, and himself set an example by removing the ladies of the royal haram to the fort of Kampil with a view to preserve the morale of the army.⁸