The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c11.114

c11.114

The beginning. This question, however, would have remained in the realm of conjecture but for fresh evidence which has now come to light. The *Tārīkh-i-Fakhr-u’d-dīn Mubārakshāh* says that Sulṭān Quṭb-u’d-dīn Aibak left the (landed) property of the Muslims in their hands and “abolished the *kharāj* which was taken from their lands against the *shar‘* and the injunction of God and amounted to one-fifth, and fixed in some places the *‘ushr* and in other areas the *nīm-‘ushr*.”³ The writer is using legal terminology. The sultan’s measure was that the Muslims were excused from *kharāj* and were henceforth asked to pay *‘ushr*; but the author also definitely informs us that the *kharāj* was one-fifth of the produce. Of course the ordinance applied to the small population of Muslims in Lāhor. Later sultans were very niggardly in recognizing new lands as *‘ushrī*; but the importance of the passage lies in the fact that it confirms the opinion that the state demand was fixed at one-fifth of the gross produce. This is the only clear and unambiguous mention of the state demand in normal times under the sultanate of Dehlī. The only other explicit mention is that ‘Alā-u’d-dīn Khaljī demanded one-half of the produce.¹ This he did in times of great difficulty, because the state had to deal with foreign invasion and internal trouble; the demand is abnormal. This excessive rate could not be continued indefinitely and we read that Sulṭān Quṭb-u’d-dīn Mubārak Shāh “abolished the heavy *kharāj* and heavy demands.”² It is not undue restraint which induces the usually loquacious Baranī to keep silence about the new demand; he does not mention it for there is nothing new to say. The old normal demand was restored, and the historian has left us to infer this.