The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c11.125

c11.125

giving advances of money and encouraging cultivation.¹ In other areas the sultan demanded a fifth of the produce.² Some historians believe that Fīrūz Shāh charged a tenth; a more critical examination of the evidence shows that this sultan as well maintained the old proportion. Baranī tells us nothing beyond saying that the monarch exercised great moderation.³ The belief that he charged a tenth is based on Fīrūz Shāh’s own statement contained in *Futūḥāt-i-Fīrūz-shāhī*, where he has been taken to speak of the *kharāj* from ‘the tithes paying lands’, so-called by the sultan for they were assessed for revenue on the scale recommended by the jurists for tithes.⁴ This reading seems to be incorrect; even it were correct, the word *kharāj* would obviously be used in the general sense of revenue, which, according to the tithes system, would be half a tenth, a tenth and a fifth from different kinds of land. On the *‘ushrī* lands the former two rates would apply and on the *kharājī* lands, the last. However, the parallel passage in *Sīrat-i-Fīrūzshāhī* makes this reading of the text doubtful; it is more probable that Fīrūz Shāh is referring to *kharāj* and *‘ushr* separately. The evidence contained in *Dastūr-u’l-albāb fī ‘ilm-i’l-ḥisāb*, when examined critically, also confirms the opinion that except for a few well defined areas, which paid the half or single tithe, the general charge on land was a fifth of the produce, which was maintained from the earliest days of the sultanate until, at least, the end of Fīrūz Shāh’s reign; the only