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The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c28: Appendix A: Origin of Nasir-ud-din Khusrav Shah of Delhi

The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c28

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Appendix A: Origin of Nasir-ud-din Khusrav Shah of Delhi

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Nasir-ud-din Khusrav Shah who succeeded Qutub-ud-din Mubarak Khalji on April 27, 1320 and ruled upto 5th September, 1320 was the only Indian Muslim to sit on the throne of Delhi during the period known as the Sultanate of Delhi (1206—1526 A.D.). The most baffling problem about him is his origin. It is, however, certain that he was originally a Hindu from Gujarat and had fallen into the hands of Ain-ul-mulk Multani during the latter’s campaign in Malwa in 1305. He was converted to Islam and given the name of Hasan. He was enrolled as an attendant in the service of Sultan Ala-ud-din Khalji and placed in the custody of Malik Shadi, Deputy Hajib at the Court.¹ Regarding the caste to which he originally belonged contemporary writers have given three versions, namely, Barādo (बरादो), Barāo (बराव) and Barwār (बरवार), which seem to be variants of one and the same word. Amir Khusrav in his celebrated work entitled *Tughluqnama* calls Hasan ‘Barādo’;² Isami says that he was originally a ‘Barāo’,³ and Zia-ud-din Barani describes him as a ‘Barwār’.⁴ Later writers have simply adopted one or the other of the last two variants; some understood their meanings while others did not. For example, *Tarikh-i-Mubarakshahi* has Barao,⁵ *Tabqat-i-Akbari* has Barao,⁶ *Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh* has Barwar,⁷ and *Farishta* has Parwar⁸—no doubt a mistake for Barwar.⁸ The Medieval chronicles further describe Hasan as a man of a low caste from Gujarat whose members enjoyed a good reputation as dauntless fighters.⁹ But as he was an Indian Muslim and had the audacity to slay Qutub-ud-din Mubarak and capture the throne of Delhi, which had hitherto been the monopoly of foreign Turks from Central Asia, the chroniclers who belonged to the foreign Muslim stock and were of the clerical profession heaped upon him vile epithets, such as base, low-born, ungrateful, faithless and cunning. Misled by these unwarranted expressions and wrongly assuming that Barwar must be the same as modern Parwar or Parwari, some European historians have jumped to the conclusion that hasan alias Khusrav Shah was a Parwari or despised scavenger whose touch was a pollution to high-caste Hindus.

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¹ Barani’s *Tarikh-i-Firozshahi* (Persian Text), p. 391.

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² *Aurangabad Text*, p, 19.

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³ *Futuh-us-Salatin*, Agra Text, p. 362, has ‘parao’, which is no doubt the scribe’s error who has placed three dots instead of one.

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⁴ *Tarikh-i-Firozshahi* (Persian Text), Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta, p. 490.

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⁵ *Tarikh-i-Mubarakshahi*, p. 85.

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⁶ *Tabqat-i-Akbari*, Vol. 1, p. 175.

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⁷ *Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh*, Vol. I, p. 203.

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⁸ *Farishta*, p. 124.

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⁹ *Tughluqnama*, p. 19; *Barani*, p. 519; *Ibn Battuta*, Vol. III, p. 198; *Farishta*, p. 124.

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historians who do not attach any value to the foul abuse of the Muslim chroniclers, and are of the opinion that Khusrav Shah was a Parmar Rajput. For example, James Bird who translated *Mirat-i-Ahmadi* into English under the title of *History of Gujarat* says that *Parwar* is nothing else than *Parmar*.¹⁴ He is supported by Bayley¹⁵ and Talboys Wheeler.¹⁶ The main arguments are that (a) ‘Parmar’ has been misread as ‘Parwar’ by Briggs, and that (b) Khusrav Shah could not have belonged to a depressed caste as he and his castemen were noted for their bravery and martial talent, and in disregard of personal danger had taken valiant parts in a number of battles, and successfully managed the affairs of an empire, which it was not possible for scavengers to do.

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¹⁴ *History of Gujarat*, p. 167.

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¹⁵ *Local Muhammadan Dynasties, Gujarat*, p. 41n.

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¹⁶ *History of India from the Earliest Age*, Vol. IV, Part I, p. 68.

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Both these theories are based on mere guess or argumentation and are, therefore, untenable. In the first place, ‘Pramar’ or ‘Parmar’ in Arabic script cannot be read as ‘Parwar’, as one is written with م and the other with و. It is inconceivable that all the scribes and editors of nearly a dozen Persian works from Barani to Farishta should have committed such a gross error in spelling, and that it would have gone undetected by the modern Persian knowing historians. Secondly, had Khusrav Shah really been a Pramar, he would have been like the Sisodias, the Rathors and the Kachhwahas, designated by the general term ‘Rajput’ with which the medieval Muslim writers were so intimately familiar. At any rate, he would not have been dubbed a low-caste Hindu. It is too much to suppose that all the medieval Indian historians from Amir Khusrav to Farishta were ignorant of “the intricate and obscure nomenclature of Hindu tribes and castes,” as the late Professor Hodivala¹⁷ has attempted to argue; and, as we shall presently see, there is no doubt that at least Amir Khusrav, Barani, Nizam-ud-din Ahmad and Badauni were acquainted with the caste to which Khusrav Shah originally belonged. And finally the names of Khusrav Shah’s relatives who were Hindus, such as, Jaharia and Randhol (not Ramdhol as Professor Sri Ram Sharma wrongly supposes) are suggestive of a low origin and certainly not of Pramar or any other high caste among the Hindus.¹⁸

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¹⁷ *Studies in Indo-Muslim History*, p. 370.

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¹⁸ Barani in *Elliot and Dowson*, Vol. III, p. 222 ; and *Tabqat-i-Akbari*, Vol. I, p. 187.

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Nor does the theory of Khusrav Shah’s ‘Bhangi’ origin stand the test of historical criticism. Firstly, medieval authorities describe him as a man of low caste, but not one of them says that he or his ancestors belonged to the scavenger caste. This theory owes its origin to the fertile imagination of Briggs who has been unsuspectingly followed by some other European writers. Secondly, in Gujarat to which Khusrav Shah and his caste fellows belonged and to which province they fled after their defeat at the hands of Ghazi Tughluq in 1320 A.D., scavengers are not called Parwaris—the term which Briggs and Edward Thomas sought to identify with Barwar or Parwar—and the Gujaratis do not recognise it as a synonym of Dhed or Mahar. Thirdly, all authorities, contemporary and later, maintain that Khusrav Shah and his castemen were brave warriors and that some of them were well-to-do men of standing and reputation in the country. Scavengers who are a down-trodden people never enjoyed any reputation for courage in war and administration.

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Inspite of these obvious difficulties the present writer is unable to agree with Professor Hodivala, Dr. K.S. Lal and Professor Sri Ram Sharma that “the real name of the tribe or caste to which Khusrav belonged is *not known and cannot be ascertained*.”¹⁹ Any first-rate scholar of medieval Indian History acquainted with contemporary sources in original Persian will readily concede that the various terms used by our authorities to denote Khusrav’s caste are the variants of one and the same word, namely ‘Barwar’ which is employed by his exact contemporary Zia-ud-din Barani whenever he refers to Khusrav’s origin. It is equally certain that Barwar (बरवार) of Barani and other first-rate Persian chroniclers is nothing else but Bharwar (भरवार) or Bharvad (भरवाड़), all the three of which are written almost identically in Arabic script, and in Persian shikast (cursive writing of MS); they look absolutely alike and can be easily confounded. According to a standard Gujarati dictionary Bharvad or Bharvar means a shepherd,²⁰ and Bharvads abound in Gujarat, the home-province of Khusrav, and many of them were then, as now, well-to-do people and engaged in sheep-farming and agriculture. The shepherd is not a high caste among the Hindus; nor is it as low as ‘Chamar’, ‘Dhanuk’, ‘Pasi or ‘Bhangi’ (scavenger).

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¹⁹ *Studies in Indo-Muslim History*, p. 369; *History of the Khaljis*, p. 351; Nasir-ud-din Khusrav Shah in *Indian Historical Quarterly*, 1950.

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²⁰ *Jodnikosh* of Shri D. B. Kalekar, published by Gujarat Vidyapith.

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In social status Bharvad or *gadaria* (as he is called in Uttar Pradesh) is on par with ‘Ahir’, ‘Kurmi’ and ‘Lodha’, and is very hardy and brave. On account of these qualities Bharvads were employed by nobles and kings as attendants, gatekeepers, personal servants and troops. Nizam-ud-din Ahmad is right when he says that Bharvads were employed as household servants and were found in plenty in Gujarat.²¹ Yahiya is equally right in describing Khusrav a *pāsbān* or gatekeeper,²² and Farishta in designating him as one of the *pahalwāns* or wrestlers of Gujarat.²³ It is thus certain that Nasir-ud-din Khusrav Shah belonged originally to the shepherd or Bharvad caste of Gujarat.

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²¹ *Tabqat-i-Akbari*, Vol. I, p. 176.

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²² *Tarikh-i-Mubarakshahi*, p. 82.

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²³ *Farishta*, Vol. I, p. 124.

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Professor Sri Ram Sharma has recently added to the complexity of the problem by propounding yet another theory, namely, that Khusrav Shah on his accession repudiated Islam and attempted to re-establish Hindu domination in the country, though he did not assume for himself Hindu name and title. “It is but natural,” writes Professor Sharma, “that on his accession to the throne he should go back to his original faith. He lived in the royal palace of his predecessors, and with the accession of a Hindu king, Hindu rites of worship displaced Muslim rites in the palace. Like Ajit Singh of Jodhpur in the eighteenth century, Khusrav did not take a Hindu title as a reigning king…”²⁴ This view is not based on any contemporary or even later record and betrays a desire to read in the Persian texts more than what their authors intended to convey. No writer from Amir Khusrav down to Farishta anywhere says definitely or even by implication that Khusrav Shah had forsaken Islam or that he wanted to set up a Hindu Raj. On the contrary, the historian Nizam-ud-din Ahmad writes in clear terms that “as most of the Bharwars were Hindus, Islamic ways received a setback and the rites of the Hindus got encouragement and propagation. Idol-worship was publicised and the mosques were desecrated.”²⁵ This categorical evidence knocks the bottom out of Professor Sharma’s theory and proves conclusively that Khusrav Shah remained a Muslim as before, and the Hindu worship in the palace was conducted by those of his relatives who were Hindu by faith.

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²⁴ Vide his paper referred to earlier.

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²⁵ *Tabqat-i-Akbari*, Vol. I, p. 187.

Cites (4)