The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c14.114

c14.114

The sultans realized very early that their hold on the country could never be strong without good roads. One of the main duties of governors appointed by Quṭb-u'd-dīn Aibak was to protect the roads.¹ Īltutmish and Balban cut down forests and ran roads into the interior to open up the country and to make it difficult for the chieftains to rebel.² 'Alā-u'd-dīn Khaljī's success in maintaining peace should partially be attributed to his energetic measures for the safety of the roads.³ Ghiyāth-u'd-dīn Tughluq revived the policy; and, when, under Muḥammad bin Tughluq, Ibn Baṭṭūṭah came to India, he found a good system of long arterial roads.⁴ The road, for instance, between Dhār and Dehlī, a distance of twenty-four days' journey, was marked by kroh mīnārs all along the route.⁵ Sher Shāh is credited with much road construction; he is said to have built the road from Rohtās on the north-west frontier to Sonārgāon on the sea in Bengal.⁶ It is difficult to believe that Dehlī had no road connections either with Lāhor or Bengal before his reign; Bābur could not have posted relays of horses from Kābul to Dehlī without the existence of a road.⁷ However, Sher Shāh put the road communications of the Sultanate on a sound basis. Along with the roads, there was a network of khānqāhs and sarā'is where the traveller, Hindu or Muslim, could find free food and shelter.⁸ Indeed, we are told that every ulāgh post had mosques, reservoirs full of good water and shops where the traveller could buy food for himself and his mount.⁹ The great builder of sarā'is was Sher Shāh; he built one at every kroh of his famous roads. Each sarā'i had a mosque, a well, and food and drinking water for Hindus as well as Muslims. The travellers were provided with hot water and bedsteads, also with fodder for their horses.¹ Islām Shāh built more sarā'is, so that now there was a sarā'i at every half kroh.² In those days a cheaper method of communication was provided by the great natural waterways, the big rivers, which are such a feature of India; river traffic was guarded by a river police under the mīr bahr.