The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c13.111

c13.111

Closely allied to Art was Architecture. The sultans were great builders; the spirit of their rule has been preserved in the architectural achievements. Any detailed description or criticism of these buildings would be mostly a repetition of what that great archæologist and critic, Fergusson, has recorded; later writers have brought the information up to date. It is, however, necessary to say a few words about the Public Works Department in this age. Baranī applauds its efficiency in the time of ‘Alā-u’d-dīn Khaljī when it employed seventy thousand men on the building side alone.⁵ “These men,” the same authority affirms, “could build a palace in two or three days.” The chief engineer, styled mīr-i-‘imārat under Fīrūz Shāh, was an important officer. Each activity of the department was separately organized; for instance, there were distinctive officers over the stone-cutters, carpenters, blacksmiths.⁶ Dehlī with its thousand colleges, seventy hospitals, its extensive bazaars, public baths and palaces was the noblest city in the world of Islam under Muḥammad bin Tughluq.¹ Khusraw sings of beautiful palaces at Kilokhri, of edifices gleaming like jewels in the bright sunshine of India.² Ibn Baṭṭūṭah bears striking testimony by recording that the palace in Tughluqābād was covered with gilded tiles, so that when the sun rose, they glittered brightly and flashed with such a dazzling light that the eye could not rest on them.³ The city was guarded by a massive wall—eleven cubits in width—strengthened by numerous towers.⁴ On three sides of the city—the fourth was flanked by the river—extended gardens and orchards for twelve miles to supply the populace with fruits as well as to take the sting out of the hot summer winds.⁵ The people, drawn by the cooler air, thronged them on summer afternoons when, in the words of the immortal Khusraw, the melodies of the ‘ūd and the rubāb intoxicated the trees and made the fountains drowsy.⁶ Fīrūz extended the gardens and replanted those which were ruined during the exodus from the capital.⁷ Within this emerald ring lay that jewel of glittering brilliance, the metropolis of a great empire. It hardly sounds like an exaggeration when Khusraw calls the city ‘a twin sister of the blessed heaven, a very paradise on the earth.’⁸ Dehlī was the largest city in the Muslim world, combining strength with beauty, elegance with comfort.⁹ It covered a space of forty miles in circumference; the houses were built of stone or brick; the buildings were mostly two stories high, and their floors were paved with a marble-like white stone.¹⁰ The Public Works Department was autonomous but under the general direction and supervision of the wazīr.