The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c7.160

c7.160

The Mongols had, however, already, dealt a mortal blow to the caliphate. A school had grown up among Muslim thinkers which did not believe in the caliphate, though these men were neither Shi‘ahs who believed in the Fatimid succession nor extreme Khārijīs. Some reference has already been made to the believers in the idea of an independent sultanate and their influence at Dehlī. At other courts similar thinkers proved more influential. The Muslim descendants of the victorious Mongols were not slow to take advantage of the new theory, and the tradition that each emperor was also the caliph for his own territories had become firmly established in the House of Tīmūr when Bābur conquered Dehlī. Hence, under the Timurid emperors of India the concept that the empire was a part of an indivisible Muslim world not only grew weaker, but in time died out completely. The Sūrs who maintained a number of older traditions did refer on some coins of smaller value to ‘the commander, the supporter of the abiding Faith’ or even to ‘the just khalīfah of the age’; but there is no record of a real revival of faith in the necessity of recognition from any caliph.¹ Ibrāhīm Shāh Sūr is the only exception; he even read the khuṭbah in the name of ‘the khalīfah of Baghdād’!² The restoration of Humāyūn finally put the idea of a suzerain caliph to an end; the emperor was probably amused when Sīdī ‘Alī Ra’īs told him that no king could rule without his master’s permission.³ In the course of time the word khilāfat lost its original meaning in India; Sujān Rāi uses it for the sultans of Dehlī.