History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c8.31

c8.31

It was the centrality of the place that led to the transfer of which the contemporary chronicler has given such a pathetic description. Besides the centrality of the place Barani mentions another motive. Having described the evil effects of famine in the Doab, he goes on to say that the Sultan decided to transfer the capital with a view to put an end to the sufferings and difficulties of the respectable persons among his subjects.¹⁴ Firishta states that the Sultan broached the subject to his ministers, the majority of whom suggested Ujjain, the ancient capital of the Hindu king Vikramāditya, as a more convenient place, but their suggestions were overruled by him. Ibn Batūtah, whose account is obviously based upon hearsay, for he was no eyewitness of the unfortunate experiment, informs us that the people of Dihli wrote anonymous letters in which they said that none except the Sultan should open them.¹⁵ These pasquinades were dropped at night into the Hall of Audience, and when the Sultan opened them next morning, he found them full of abusive epithets. At this he was so much enraged that he decided to depopulate Dihli by way of punishment. This queer explanation of a measure, so serious and important in all its bearings, fails to carry conviction to the mind, for the Sultan, though terribly severe in his later life, was not so petulant in the early part of his reign as to order the transfer of the capital for punishing a few anonymous scribblers whom he could easily make an example of, if detected. He had done nothing so far to offend the people of Dihli, whom he had loaded with gifts and honours, and on whom he had conferred high offices and commands. There is no evidence to show that the Sultan had in any way injured the citizens of Dihli. The taxation in the Doab to which Yahyā attributes the second transfer coupled with famine had doubtless caused a great misery, but it does not seem to have been an evil of such magnitude as to upset the Sultan altogether. Assuming that the Sultan was led by his alleged unpopularity to leave Dihli, can it be said with reason that in Devagiri he would be more safe, for in that difficult and intractable region he would be surrounded by foes alien in race and creed? Besides, he had no large Muslim population in the Deccan to count