Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c10.222

c10.222

of the most absurd projects which entered his head was to make Deogir his capital as soon as possible, under the changed name of Daulatābād. To give effect to this whim, he at once ordered the people of Delhi to leave it on pain of death and to remove to Daulatābād. Some time after, however, they were allowed to return to the old capital, but were again compelled to leave it. These caprices of the Emperor not only caused the utmost misery to the people, but at the same time brought ruin upon Delhi as a great literary centre. The graphic description of Ziyā Barnī the historian, who lived at the Court of Sulṭān Fīrūz, depicting the utter ruin that fell upon the quondam capital, brings home to our mind the great loss that the country sustained at the time from the literary standpoint :—