The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c7.44
The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehlī c7.44
- Language
- English
c7.44.1
For the Ghaznavids, a knowledge of whose institutions is essential, there are two main sources; the Tārīkh-i-Yamīnī by 'Utbī is not so rich in administrative details and anecdotes as Abū-'l-Faḍl Baihaqī's Tārīkh-i-Baihaqī which is only a fragment of his greater work, the *Tārīkh-i-āl-i-Sabuktigīn*, now unfortunately lost. Baihaqī was a member of the *dīwān-i-inshā* under Mas‘ūd and had opportunities of personal contact with the sultan; he was acquainted with most of the state secrets. He writes in a gossiping style and gives the reader a rare insight into court life as well as into the working of the central government. *Al-Kardīzī’s Zain-u’l-akhbār* is a brief and dry chronicle. For the earlier period of the sultanate (587-614 A.H. ; 1191-1217 A.C.). Ḥasan Niẓāmī’s *Tāj-u’l-ma’āthir* is the primary authority. The author has a most tedious and flowery style, but his facts are correct and sometimes he records matters of administrative interest. The *Tārīkh-i-Fakhr-u’d-dīn Mubārakshāh* is valuable as a contemporary record, though the author was not the famous poet Fakhr-u’d-dīn Mubārakshāh Marw-a’r-rūdī as Sir Denison Ross calls him, but Fakhr-u’d-dīn Mubārakshāh alias Fakhr-i-Mudabbir who usually resided at Lāhor and Dehlī and was attached to the court.¹ This book deals with Quṭb-u’d-dīn Aibak only. Minhāj-u’d-dīn bin Sirāj-u’d-dīn’s *Ṭabaqāt-i-Nāṣirī* is a compendium of Muslim history;
c7.44.2
but he discusses the main facts of the reigns of various sultans of Dehli in greater detail. He brings his history down to 658 A.H. (1261 A.C.) when Nāṣir-u’d-dīn Maḥmūd was the reigning monarch. Minhāj was, for some time, the chief *qāḍī* of the realm, but unfortunately he was not interested in administration. His sketches of the leading nobles are, however, useful, for he indicates the various stages in their careers; many of them had started as ordinary household slaves, so it is possible to visualize the various offices and posts they held as they progressed. The story is then taken up by Ḍiyā-u’d-dīn Baranī, whose *Tārīkh-i-Firūz Shāhī* carries it to the first six years of Fīrūz Shāh’s reign. Baranī was a retired official and understood the administration; he has recorded the main developments which took place in his time. His chronology is unreliable; his likes and dislikes are too strong; his arrangement is faulty; but he was faithful in recording administrative reforms. The first part of his history is based on the result of his diligent enquiries from eye-witnesses; during the later period he was an eye-witness himself. Shams-i-Sirāj ‘Afīf, another official, wrote a history of Fīrūz Shāh’s reign and called his book by the same title, *Tārīkh-i-Fīrūz Shāhī*. He is fond of jingling, rhyming prose and many of his observations are platitudes. Yet his chronicle is extensive and, being confined to one reign, gives many administrative details.
c7.44.3
Fīrūz Shāh’s own composition, the *Futūḥāt-i-Fīrūz Shāhī*, originally inscribed on a tower of the sultan’s chief mosque, but later preserved in manuscript, records the administrative achievements of the monarch. Then there is the anonymous *Sīrat-i-Fīrūz Shāhī* of which a unique manuscript exists in Bankipore Public Library. This book contains a brief history of the sultan’s reign as far as the expedition into Gujrāt; it deals adequately with the character, reforms and building activities of Fīrūz Shāh. It also throws welcome light on the relations of the sultanate with the House of ‘Abbās. The *Sīrat* was written in 772 A.H. and claims to have been dictated by the sultan himself.¹ The details of Tīmūr’s invasion are found in the two *Ẓafar-nāmahs*, one by Niẓām-u’d-dīn Shāmī and the other by Sharf-u’d-dīn Yazdī who mainly follows Shāmī, as well as in Shihāb-u’d-dīn Aḥmad’s *‘Ajā’ib-u’l-maqdūr fī akhbārāt-i-Tīmūr*. The period of the anarchy and the rule of the earlier Sayyids are described in Yaḥyā bin Aḥmad a’s-Sahrindī’s *Tārīkh-i-Mubārak Shāhī* which, however, begins with the reign of Muḥammad bin Sām and finishes in 838 A.H. (1434 A.C.). There is no contemporary chronicle of the Afghān dynasties, and one has to rely on books written under Akbar or even Jahāngīr.