The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c15.72

c15.72

These considerations lead us to believe that the care of the sultans embraced all their subjects; indeed tolerance was an abiding feature of the government of the sultanate.¹ It is true that feelings were sometimes aroused and visions clouded by a spirit of vengeance; but these were only passing storms. This was only to be expected in a state where the level of culture was so high Stone and mortar reveal but little of the story of the cultural glory that was Dehlī. Khusraw, Ḥasan and Badr-i-Chāch are only the taller trees in a forest; if Indian music had been written and preserved, more Tān Sens and ʿĀdil Khāns would have survived; of the great colleges and eminent teachers nothing is left but a casual mention in chronicles and travellers' tales; the paintings on the walls of royal palaces are gone; all that remains is a jejune chronicle of revolutions, rebellions and wars. When the scrutinizing gaze of research penetrates the dust-clouds raised by trampling armies and fighting hordes, a vision of the real sultanate is granted to the student which reveals a pageantry of patient administrators, of earnest philosophers and teachers, of artists and master-builders, of religious thinkers and saintly reformers.