The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c14.1
The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehlī c14.1
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c14.1.1
MUSLIM jurists classify governorships into two broad divisions: *imārat-i-‘āmma* or *tafwīḍ* and *imārat-i-khāṣṣah*. The former carries limited and the latter unlimited authority. If unlimited governorship has been acquired by force as the result of successful rebellion, it is called *imārat-i-istīlā*. The *amīr*, as the jurists call the governor, exercised, if his powers were unlimited, all the authority of a semi-independent monarch within his dominions. He organized and posted the army; he appointed the judicial officers, raised the taxes, managed the finances and enforced the *shar‘*; he was the protector and defender of the Faith. The governor with limited powers was entrusted only with the supervision of the troops, the punishment of criminals and rebels, and home defence. He was not allowed to intervene in the administration of justice or the levy of taxes. Nor was he given the right to lead prayers or act as the spiritual head of the people. The *qāḍīs* and the revenue officials were appointed by the sovereign.¹ The sultanate of Dehlī possessed governors of all three types in the course of its history. Lakhnautī, because of its inaccessibility and distance, was for a long time in the hands of an almost independent governor, and then became the capital of independent Bengal.
c14.1.2
Balban after suppressing Tughril’s rebellion could have brought the province under direct control, but he appointed his son Bughrā Khān the new governor with the authority of a semi-independent monarch.¹ 'Alā-u'd-dīn Khaljī, in spite of his strength, contented himself with obtaining a recognition of suzerainty and a considerable tribute from Laddar Deva of Warangal. This was the result of policy; when the sultan sent Malik Kāfūr to the Deccan, he instructed him not to push matters to extremes.² It is true that there is considerable legal difference between a Muslim governor with unlimited powers and a non-Muslim tributary, yet their political status is identical. When Nāṣir-u'd-dīn Maḥmūd of the Qarāwinah dynasty gave Khwājah Jahān the supreme power over the Sharqī provinces, the sultan only acquiesced in what he could not prevent; this was an illustration of an involuntary appointment.³ When 'Alā-u'd-dīn Khaljī was satisfied with formal recognition of his suzerainty by Kaikā'ūs of Bengal, in appointing whom he had had no voice, he was only accepting the legal fiction of governorship by usurpation.⁴ The relations between the central government and the provinces did not depend so much on legal definitions as on political reality; nevertheless legal and political thinkers had provided patterns of behaviour which could be applied to particular needs.
c14.1.3
The grant of extraordinary power was the recognition of an exceptional situation involving peculiar difficulties or it was an attempt to save the legal vestige of authority. Such grants were naturally more frequently made by weak or preoccupied sultans, and they often paved the way to the establishment of independent provincial dynasties. Numerous governorships of this nature arose in the troubled days of the later Tughluqids, and facilitated the growth of minor kingdoms on the ruins of the empire. It would, however, be wrong to think that the bestowal of unlimited power always implied weakness on the part of the central government; sometimes it was a useful device to keep a distant possession under control by entrusting it to a good and reliable administrator. When there was anarchy at the centre, it mattered little whether a governor possessed limited or unlimited powers if he had the will and the resources to rebel; it needed great vigilance and effort to combat the centrifugal tendencies. The internal administration of a province was everywhere the same in structure, except, of course, in Hindu tributary states which mostly maintained their traditional institutions. The difference between the provincial governments did not lie in their organization but in the sources of control and supervision. There can be little doubt that there was a natural desire on the part of the sultans to increase their power even in the outlying provinces;
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in spite of the setbacks received owing to the weakness of the successors of Īltutmish and to dynastic revolutions, centralization steadily increased until it reached its climax in the earlier part of Muḥammad bin Tughluq's reign.¹ This monarch, however, was a stranger to the saving grace of moderation; his eccentric severity demolished the edifice his own ability and the foresight of his predecessors had built.² Fīrūz could stem the ebbing tide only for a while; power was swept away through the incapacity of his successors and because of Tīmūr's invasion, and the Lodīs had to start afresh. The inexperienced and impatient Ibrāhīm lost his throne in the endeavour to gain respect for his ideal of a centralized monarchy; even the capable Sher Shāh and the impetuous Islām did not reach the level attained by Muḥammad bin Tughluq, though they inspired widespread and wholesome respect for the central government. The tribal principle introduced by the Lodīs of reliance upon hereditary chiefs and heads of clans for the maintenance of peace in provincial areas survived even under the Sūrs whose civil administration was mostly centralized.³ Sher Shāh and Islām Shāh curbed Afghān tribalism by maintaining large standing armies and supervising the relations between the soldiers and their commanders.¹