The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c7.164

c7.164

indiscriminately and the author of the Rājāwalī for Hindu rājahs like Yudhishtra and Vikramādittya.¹ This curious alteration in the significance of the word was the result of a fundamental change; the monarch was no longer the representative of the supreme sovereign of the Muslim world, but an independent ruler of one of its parts. Even legal quibbles could not keep an institution alive which had been reduced to mockery by its political weakness; no legal concept of sovereignty can survive if it comes into conflict with the reality of power. The fact that it did live so long shows how deep was the attachment of Muslim peoples to their sacred law.