The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c16.s7.2

c16.s7.2

‘AFĪF (pp. 129-130) says that Fīrūz Shāh's canals brought a large area of waste land under cultivation; the sultan convened an assembly of lawyers, learned jurists and pious shaikhs and asked their opinion on the following question: “If a man, with personal and financial endeavour, digs irrigation channels from deep rivers and those canals flow into areas (of land), townships and villages, and the dwellers in these places get great profit out of it: is that man entitled to get something for his effort or not?” The jurists and others decided that such a man was entitled to “haqq-i-shirb, that is ten per cent.” “On this,” says ‘Afīf, “His Majesty Fīrūz Shāh brought the produce of that haqq-i-shirb entirely into his amlāk; similarly that pious monarch, like previous kings, populated many villages in ‘dead lands’ and put them into his amlāk. The produce of these areas was ear-marked for the learned and the pious and kept out of the bait-u’l-māl. Definite apportionments were made. During these days amlāk consisted of two items:—(i) the produce of haqq-i-shirb, (ii) the produce of newly populated villages. An amount of two lacs of tankahs was the revenue of His Majesty Fīrūz Shāh’s amlāk. Praise be to God! The extent of amlāk possessed by Sulṭān Fīrūz was so great that no other king of the Empire of Dehlī possessed so large amlāk. At last the amlāk became so extensive that a separate staff and a separate treasury were organized for them.”