Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c12.s5: 5. The Kingdom of Mālwa

Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c12.s5

Language: English

5. The Kingdom of Mālwa

c12.s5.1

Sulṭān Maḥmūd Khiljī of the royal dynasty of Mālwa was a great promoter of learning and

literature. During the whole of his long rule for over thirty years, he gave encouragement to learned men, so that Mālwa rose to a great resort of literary men. Many distinguished philosophers and maulānās not only came from other countries to the place but were also turned out by the many colleges that Maḥmūd founded in the different parts of his dominions. Mālwa, according to Ferishta, could bear a fair comparison with Shīrāz or Samarqand in literary excellence.¹

c12.s5.3

¹ Ferishta vol. iv, pp. 196, 197.

c12.s5.4

One of the many colleges that owed their existence to this ruler stood in Mandu opposite to the Masjid of Sulṭān Ḥūshang. It was in front of this college that he built a beautiful pillar seven storeys high after his return from a combat with Rānā Kumbha of Chitor.²

c12.s5.5

² Ibid., p. 210.

c12.s5.6

A very learned man of this time in Mālwa was Shaikh Chānd.³

c12.s5.7

³ Ibid., vol. iv, p. 213. N.K.T. has S. Jā'ilda.

c12.s5.8

Maḥmūd was of literary tastes. He used to devote his leisure hours to hearing histories, and memoirs of kings of the world.⁴

c12.s5.9

⁴ Ibid., p. 234.

c12.s5.10

In the reign of Ghiyāṣuddīn of Mālwa, we find that the education of the ladies in his harem was cared for. “Schoolmistresses” were appointed to instruct them.⁵

c12.s5.11

⁵ Ibid., pp. 236, 237.

c12.s5.12

This king was "righteous and religious," but at the same time enjoyed much the pleasures of the world. It was his practice, we are told, to sleep every night with some thousand gold *mohars* under his pillow, which in the day he gave away to deserving people.¹ In his harem there were seventy women who knew the *Qur'ān* by heart and had to recite it while the Sulṭān was putting on his clothes, and continue it until he finished dressing.²

c12.s5.13

¹ N.K.T. has "100 gold *mohars*."

c12.s5.14

² *Wāqi'āti-Mushtāqī*, Elliot iv, p. 554.

c12.s5.15

Bāz Bahādur of Mālwa, the contemporary of Akbar, was noted for his taste for music. In Mālwa, this art reached its height at this time and the king devoted himself entirely to its cultivation and encouragement, to the neglect of State affairs. This ardent follower of Orpheus had to pay the penalty for this neglect by losing his kingdom, which was conquered by Akbar.³

c12.s5.16

³ *Ferishta* vol. iv, pp. 277, 278.