The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c4: Preface to the Second Edition
The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c4
- Language
- English
Preface to the Second Edition
c4.1
The welcome accorded to this book by students and teachers in our colleges and universities has encouraged the author to bring out its second edition. The first edition was exhausted within a year and a half of its publication and the present edition should have been in the hands of the reader before the end of 1952, but circumstances beyond the control of the author delayed its publication for about eight months.
c4.2
In this edition the book has been carefully revised. Thanks to Mr. K.M. Munshi’s enquiry, the riddle of Nasir-ud-din Khusrav Shah’s origin, which baffled all previous writers, has been successfully solved by the author and is being given in this book for the first time. A few mistakes of dates and facts have been corrected and Chronology of the Delhi Sultans, geneological tables of the ruling dynasties and some illustrations of the period have been added.
c4.3
Since the publication of the first edition of this book which for the first time laid down in unambiguous words that the rulers of the Sultanate period were foreigners, one or two scholars have tried to show that that was not so. In the introduction to the second edition of the second volume of Elliot and Dowson’s *History of India as told by its own Historians*, Professor Muhammad Habib has asserted that the Muslim rule was not foreign rule and the only argument advanced by him in support of his view is that the Muslim rulers of the period had no ‘home government’ outside India. He forgets that nearly all the rulers of the period recognised at least in theory the foreign *Khalifa* to be their sovereign, and the Sultanate as a mere dependency of the Caliphate. They sent cash and presents of enormous value to the Khalifa and large sums of money to be spent in Mecca, Medina and other places sacred to Islam. True, they had made India their home, but their aim was to convert it into an Islamic country. The personnel of their government was foreign; the religion and culture which they wanted to impose on India was foreign; their system of government and their way of life were foreign. They looked to Arabia and Central Asia for inspiration. They had little sympathy with the religion, culture, tradition and way of life of the people of this country which they held in military occupation. They were unwilling to become Indians and generations’ sojourn in this country failed to Indianise them completely. Professor P. Hardy is of opinion that the government of the Sultans discharged socialistic functions because it interfered with the religion of the Hindus. This interference might have amounted to socialistic work in the eyes of Muslims, but to the Hindus who formed a vast majority of the population, it was nothing less than cultural and national destruction. The author regrets his inability to accept the views of the above scholars.
c4.4
The present edition has been seen through the press by the author’s son Daya Bhanu, without whose genuine help it would have been delayed for months.
c4.5
Agra College, Agra. Sept. 20, 1953.