The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c12.216

c12.216

More important than the organization of law-courts was the spirit which governed them. The Prophet is reported to have said that a moment spent in the dispensation of justice is better than seventy years of devotion.⁵ "Dominion can subsist in spite of misbelief," says the Siyāsat-nāmah, "but it cannot endure with the existence of injustice."⁶ The sultans considered it their primary duty to maintain justice.⁷ No government could, in the Middle Ages, succeed completely in wiping out corruption and injustice, but the sultanate provided a well-organized department of justice; by making all proceedings public and dividing responsibility and power among different officials, it established an effective system of checks and balances. The officials were generally chosen for their learning as well as piety, and there can be little doubt that most of them approached their work in a spirit of devotion.¹ When ‘Alā-u’d-dīn Khaljī appointed a chief qāḍī as a reward for general services and not for character, it proved very unpopular.² Some sultans set a high example of justice. Balban inflicted the extreme penalty on a governor who was guilty of murder when he was drunk; Muḥammad bin Tughluq appeared as a defendant in a qāḍī’s court and after the case had been proved against him insisted on the penalty.³ Indeed Ibn Baṭṭūṭah mentions several occasions when this harsh monarch showed great humility and respect for law. Once a noble made a complaint before the qāḍī that the sultan had executed his brother unjustly; the sultan appeared unarmed before the qāḍī having walked to the court, and saluted the judge with great respect. The case went against the monarch who compensated the noble. The qāḍī had been instructed not to rise when the sultan entered the court. On another occasion a man complained that the sultan owed him money; the monarch appeared before the qāḍī and paid the debt.⁴ Fīrūz Shāh did not hesitate to execute a favourite who was found guilty of murder; nor did he allow a high state official to escape capital punishment for murdering an obscure student who tutored his children and was guilty of a love intrigue with a woman in the nobleman’s palace.⁵ The sultan showed this severity in spite of his abhorrence of capital punishnent.¹ When Jalāl-u’d-dīn Khaljī wanted Sayyidī Maulā, who was suspected of conspiracy and high treason, to vindicate himself by walking through fire, the lawyers vetoed the idea by saying that fire did not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty. The sultan bowed before the decision, though he instigated and connived at the Sayyidī’s murder. Though everyone believed in the truth of the allegation, the sultan’s action proved unpopular.² It is true that there are actions of illegal tyranny on record, but they contravene the real spirit of the government.