The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c15.53

c15.53

articles like sugar, cloth and arms.¹ Livestock was plentiful,² food was cheap.³ Trade was officially encouraged.⁴ Hindu traders, called Multānīs, were an integral part of the economic life of the empire; when ‘Alā-u’d-dīn Khaljī set about controlling prices, he had to enlist the support of these merchants.⁵ Indeed they advanced loans on interest to Muslim nobles; the sultan’s government enforced their claims.⁶ We read of the financial power of the Hindus throughout the period; even when Humāyūn reconquered the Panjāb, Afghān soldiers had to be rescued from the clutches of the money-lender.⁷ Practically everything that they possessed had been mortgaged by these Muslim soldiers. Of the great affluence of Hindu chiefs and their life of comfort and ease, ‘Alā-u’d-dīn gave a vivid picture in his conversation with Qāḍī Mughīth. “The *khūts* and the *muqaddams* ride beautiful horses and don elegant dresses,” said the sultan, “they use Persian bows, fight one another and go out hunting . . . they gather in assemblies of pleasure and drink wine.”⁸ The result of ‘Alā-u’d-dīn’s special measures was that the chiefs were reduced to comparative poverty. In the days of Muḥammad bin Tughluq they more than regained their lost position. “The infidels and poly-