The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c10.46

c10.46

The *wazīr*'s department was called the *dīwān-i-wizārat*, and mainly dealt with finance.¹ He was assisted by a *nā'ib wazīr* who acted as his general assistant.² Next to him was the *mushrif-i-mumālik* who was the accountant-general for the empire.³ The *mustaufī-i-mumālik* was the auditor-general. Originally the *mushrif*'s duty was to enter up the accounts received from the provinces and the various departments and the *mustaufī* audited them. Separate copies of the statements of accounts were sent to the *mushrif* as well as to the *mustaufī* and naturally resulted in unnecessary duplication of work; though there was the advantage that the accounts were checked by two independent authorities.⁴ In Fīrūz Shāh's reign, however, the work was redistributed. The *mushrif* dealt with income and the *mustaufī* with expenditure; the text seems to imply that this division of work had taker place some time before and that Fīrūz Shāh only clarified a situation which had been somewhat obscure and undefined.⁵ The *mushrif* was assisted by a *nāzir* who supervised, through a large staff distributed all over the empire, the collection of revenue; he also audited the local accounts.⁶ Sulṭān Jalāl-u'd-dīn Khaljī, anxious to find a pōst for a relation in the *dīwān-i-wizārat* and being faced with the situation that there was no vacancy, created the office of the *waqūf* who was given the duty of supervising the expenditure incurred by local authorities. The office proved so useful that the staf was soon increased and the institution made permanent.⁷ The *wazīr* received the reports from the *mustaufī* and the *mushrif*; his staff compared them with each other and with the fuller reports submitted direct by local agencies.¹ The *mushrif-i-mumālik* and the *mustaufī-i-mumālik* were both officers of ministerial rank and had direct access to the monarch. Under Fīrūz Shāh's scheme the *waqūf* must have been placed under the *mustaufī-i-mumālik*, though the fact has not been mentioned. Al-Qalqashandī's informants probably refer to the chief *mushrif*, the chief *mustaufī*, the *nāzir* and the *waqūf* when they speak of the *wazīr*'s four deputies. Each of these officers is said to have about three hundred clerks under him.² This number was by no means too large, for the passage refers to the reign of Muḥammad bin Tughluq. The *wazīr* was generally styled *ṣadr-i-ʿālī* which was gradually replaced by the more honorific *khwājah-i-jahān*.³