Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c5.s4.t3.21

c5.s4.t3.21

¹ Compare the most flattering honours Muhammad Tughluq paid to the *Makhdum-zada* or descendant of the caliph who came to India (in Barani's account and in T.F., I, 271-272). More interesting in some ways is the attitude of Timur towards the Sayyids. According to all accounts of the Indian invasions he uniformly protected the lives of Sayyids and other Muslims of religious classes all along his march while making an indiscriminate and savage slaughter of all other human beings. In fact, it is soberly reported (*vide* M., 5) that when a chief of Transoxiana named ‘Abd-ullah had certain scruples in offering prayers for the soul of Timur whom he considered an ungodly savage whose hands were red with human blood, the Prophet of Allah himself came to assure him in a dream that his scruples were baseless, for had not Timur, while killing human beings in the service of the Lord, uniformly protected the lives of his descendants. Timur's love of the religious class and his spiritual attitude in general has drawn from the pen of his chronicler some very interesting verses which disclose the spiritual outlook of an average Muslim Sultan who believed in the power of the recluses and the ascetics and in the mediation of the ‘adepts’ in religion, similarly in the belssings of the Sayyids (*vide* Z.M., 6).