Page 93

Chapter 5 – First Deccan Conquests – Ala-ad-Din Khalji – 1280–1311 A.D.

Balban was one of those men who leave no successors. His very dominance checked the growth of even imitators, much more rivals. He had extinguished the powerful group of slaves who were the true inheritors of Altamish. He had trained no school of great ministers. His hopes were centred in his eldest son, who died before him; he had no confidence in Bughra Khan, and when he found, on offering him the succession, that this frivolous prince preferred returning to his amusements in Bengal to waiting by his father’s sick-bed for the splendid reversion of empire, Balban in his irritation left the throne to a son of his dead favourite, who never ascended it. A son of Bughra was set up by the chief officers, but never was a choice less fit. Kai-Kubad in his seventeen years had been so carefully brought up by tutors under his stern grand-father’s eye that he had never been allowed to catch sight of a pretty girl or to sip a wine-cup. He had been taught all the polite arts and knew nothing of the impolite.

Page 94

This was the youth who suddenly found himself absolute master of all that the most luxurious city of India, all that India itself, could offer to youth and desire. The result may be left to the imagination. In less than three years he had drunk and debauched himself into a paralytic; and when a ruffian was sent to murder him, he found him in the chamber of mirrors in his lovely palace at Kilughari on the Jumna, lying at his last gasp, and then and there literally kicked him out of this world.

The River Jumna at Mathura

His father had come from Bengal to try and save him, though he himself was not of a didactic nature; but he found him amiable and hopeless, utterly under the spell of a clever vizir, Nizam-ad-din, who encouraged the fool in his folly in the hope of succeeding to the throne. But Nizam-ad-din overreached himself. The crippling of the kingdom was more serious than the

Page 95

paralysis of the Sultan. The officers who remembered the stern order of Balban’s rule found even greater severity, but none of the order, under the arrogant vizir. A series of murders, beginning with Balban’s heir-designate, the son of the “martyr prince,” followed by an insidious inquisition from which no man was safe. roused an opposition which developed into a war of races.

Besides the Turks who had held most of the offices of state since the days of Aybek, there were a large number of adventurers of other races in the service of the Slave Kings. Many of these were Afghans, or Turks so mixed and associated with Afghans that they had absorbed their character and customs. These were known as Patans or Pathans, a term loosely used, much as Moghul was in later times, to describe the white men from the northwest mountains. The clan of Khaljis, named after the Afghan village of Khalj, though probably of Turkish origin, had become Afghan in character, and between them and the Turks no love was lost. Khaljis had conquered Bengal and ruled there, and Khaljis held many posts in other parts. These formed a strong party, and rallied round Jalal-ad-din, the muster-master or adjutant-general, an old Khalji who had been marked for destruction by the Turkish adherents of the vizir. The Khaljis were not popular, but the vizir was hated; the choice of evils, however, did not lid with the people, and on the death of the paralytic Sultan the reaction against the Turks brought the Khaljis into power, and set Jalal-ad-din upon the throne

Page 96

of Delhi. For a time at least the Turks had lost the empire.

It is characteristic of the adaptability of the Indian people that although the Turks were foreigners and their rule had been anything but conciliatory, their suppression was resented as a wanton innovation. No Khalji, they said, had ever been a king, and the race had no part or lot in Delhi. Conservative in everything, the Hindu cherishes even his oppressors. Nevertheless, the Khalji dynasty lasted thirty years and included six sovereigns, and among them was one great ruler, whose reign of twenty years contributed powerfully to the extension of the Moslem dominion in India. Jalal-ad-din Firoz Shah himself was the mildest king that ever held a sceptre. An old man of seventy years, preoccupied with preparations for the next world, he utterly refused to shed blood, even for flagrant crimes. When Chhaju, a nephew of Balban, led an army against the Sultan and the rebels were defeated and captured, Firoz forgave them freely, and kindly commended their loyalty to the fallen house. A thousand Thugs were arrested, but Firoz would not consent to the execution even of the members of a society of assassins, and merely banished them to Bengal. Traitors, conspirators, and thieves alike found mercy and forgiveness at the hands of the long-suffering king, who had never stained his soul with blood save in open battle, when, as against the Mongols on the Indus in 1292, he had shown himself valiant indeed. The execution of a fakir suspected of magic and sedition was his only act of capital punishment,

Page 97

but the exception was unfortunate; for superstitious folk saw in the black storm that darkened the world on the day of the holy man’s death under the elephant’s foot, and in the famine that ensued, omens of the fall of the crown.

The invincible clemency and humility of the Sultan were incomprehensible and exasperating to his followers. His was no ideal of kingship for an Eastern world. They resented his simplicity of life and even his familiar evenings with the old friends of his former obscurity. They did not appreciate his love of wit and learning. What they wanted was a fighting king, inexorable in his judgments and unsurpassable in his pomp. Sedition grew apace, and the Sultan’s nephew, Ala-ad-din, who had married his uncle’s daughter, put himself at the head of the malcontents. After a course of dissimulation – it was easy to deceive the kind-hearted unsuspecting old man – the nephew drew the Sultan unarmed and unguarded into a trap (1296), and as Firoz was stooping and actually fondling the traitor, Ala-ad-din gave the signal, and one of the basest murders in history was accomplished. The aged king was slashed, thrown down, and beheaded, and his white hairs cast at the feet of the nephew he had trusted.

“Although Ala-ad-din,” writes Barani in just horror, “reigned successfully for some years, and all things prospered to his wish, and though he had wives and children, family and adherents, wealth and grandeur, still he did not escape retribution for the blood of his patron. He shed more innocent blood than ever Pharaoh

Page 98

was guilty of. Fate at length placed a betrayer in his path, by whom his family was destroyed, and the retribution that fell upon it never had a parallel in any infidel land.” Nevertheless, for twenty years Ala-ad-din ruled Hindustan with unprecedented vigour, and broadened the borders of his kingdom. He had already a reputation as a soldier, and found no opposition worth mentioning to his accession.

Gold coin of Ala-ad-din, struck at Delhi, A.H. 698 (A.D. 1298–9).

The widow of Firoz, a woman who is described as “the silliest of the silly,” did indeed set up one of the late monarch’s sons as king at Delhi; but Ibrahim was a mere stripling, and a much more capable brother, Arkali Khan, was far away in Multan. The whole family were secured under promise of safety, and once caught were blinded and imprisoned. The mouths of the people were closed with gold. As Ala-ad-din marched to Delhi, a catapult showered pounds of “gold stars” among the crowd at every halt. Recruits flocked to such a Pactolian stream, and before he reached the capital he had a following of fifty-six thousand horse and sixty thousand foot. The officers and nobles of the late king, to their credit be it said, wavered before they threw in their lot with his assassin; but gold and numbers told in the end.

In November, 1296, Ala-ad-din entered Delhi unopposed, seated himself with all pomp upon the throne,

Page 99

and took up his residence in the Red Palace. His politic conciliation of the late king’s officers was abandoned as soon as the royal family were safely caged; but the new Sultan’s wrath, curiously enough, fell upon those of the officials and nobles who had deserted Firoz and taken his murderer’s money. All of them were arrested and locked up. “Some were blinded and some were killed. The wealth which they had received from Ala-ad-din, and their property, goods, and effects were all seized. Their houses were confiscated to the Sultan, and their villages were brought into the public exchequer. Nothing was left to their children; their retainers and followers were taken in charge by the amirs who supported the new regime, and their establishments were overthrown.” The only three of the officers of Firoz who were spared were three who had never abandoned him nor taken gold from his supplanter. “They alone remained safe, but all the other Jalali nobles were cut up root and branch.” It was a lesson for turncoats.

We have other details of the same kind preserved in the writings of Ziyad-ad-din Barani, the historian of the period. Barani’s father and uncle were both in Ala-ad-din’s employ, the one as deputy at Baran, the other at Karra and Oudh. The historian therefore had ample means of information regarding the Sultan and his manner of government, even if the statements be not always wholly trustworthy.

Sultan Ala-ad-din, who entered upon his reign with these trenchant measures, was first and foremost a soldier.

Page 100

So illiterate was he that he did not even know how to read. But he knew how to command an army and to carry it through an arduous campaign. Shortly before the murder of his uncle he had won great glory by his conquests in the Deccan.

The Narbada River at Jabalpur

Hitherto the utmost stretch of the kingdom of Delhi had been across the plains from the Indus to Bengal, and from the Himalayas to the Vindhya Mountains. No Mohammedan ruler had ventured to cross the Narbada River and the Satpura hills into the great plateau of Southern India, Maharashtra, the land of the Marathas. In 1294, however, after successfully dealing with insurrections in

Page 101

Bandelkhand and Malwa, Prince Ala-ad-din set out with eight thousand men from his government of Karra on the Jumna, bent upon more ambitious schemes. Forcing his way through the forests of the Vindhya range, by difficult passes, and ill-provided with men or supplies, the prince carried his small force seven hundred miles to Devagiri, the capital of the Maratha raja, which he took and pillaged unresisted. He had given out that he had quarrelled with his uncle, the Sultan of Delhi, and was seeking service with one of the southern rajas. The ruler of Devagiri was taken by surprise and fled to one of the hill forts. Here, by another lie, Ala-ad-din procured his submission and the cession of Elichpur, and thus the Moslems made their first step into the Deccan. It was from the boundless treasures won in this campaign that the conqueror procured the “golden stars” which lighted his road to Delhi.

The way to the south, thus opened, was never closed again, though in the earliest years of his reign Ala-ad-din had other work to do. After the suppression of the nobles came the invasions of those human locusts, the Mongols, who from 1296 to 1305 made repeated incursions over the Indus. The worst of these was in 1297, when Kutlugh Khwaja, starting from the Oxus and coining down the passes, marched upon Delhi, driving before him such a crowd of fugitives that the streets were blocked and a state of famine prevailed. The capital was in no condition for defence; but when urged to temporize with the enemy, the Sultan indignantly refused. “If I were to follow your advice,” he said,

Page 102

“how could I show my face, how go into my harem, what store would the people set by me, and where would be the daring and courage needed to keep down my own turbulent subjects? No: come what may, to-morrow I march into the plain of Kili.” There, at a short distance from Delhi, he found two hundred thousand Mongols drawn up. The Sultan’s right wing under his gallant general Zafar Khan, who had lately taken Siwistan from the Mongols by a brilliant coup de main broke the enemy’s left and pursued them off the field for many miles, mowing them down at every stride. But the left, under Ulugh Khan, the Sultan’s brother, jealously refused to support him, and Zafar was cut off by an ambush. Despising the Mongol leader’s offer of quarter, he shot his last arrows, killing an enemy at every twang of the bow, and was then surrounded and slain. Though the right wing of the Delhi army was thus rashly but gallantly lost, its valour was not thrown away. The Mongols had seen enough of the Indian horsemen, and in the night they vanished.

The Mongol inroads and the long establishment of these nomads on the frontier led to the settlement of many of the strangers in India, and their quarters at Delhi became known as Mughalpur, or Mongol-town. They adopted Islam and were called “the new Moslems.” Their fate was miserable. They were kept in great poverty, and eventually became a danger to the state. A conspiracy among them was discovered, and Ala-ad-din commanded that the whole of the “new Moslems” should be destroyed in one day. The order

The Gateway of Ala-ad-din in the Mosque at Delhi

Page 103

was carried out. Thirty to forty thousand wretched Mongols were killed in cold blood, their houses plundered, their wives and children cast adrift on the world.

Cruelty toward women and children was a new experience in India. “Up to this time,” says Barani, “no hand had ever been laid upon wives or children on account of men’s misdeeds.” To cast them into prison in revenge for their husbands’ and fathers’ rebellion was one of the unenviable inventions which made “the crafty cruelty” of Ala-ad-din detested.

There was undoubtedly a great deal of popular ferment, which may well have taxed the never easy temper of the Sultan and provoked severe retaliation. We read of a dangerous mutiny of the troops in 1298, after a successful campaign in Gujarat, where the Hindus had again become independent. Their raja was driven away into the Deccan, and the idol which had been set up at Somnath, in the place of the linga destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni, was cast down and carried to Delhi to be trodden under the feet of the faithful. An attempt to wrest from the army the legal fifth of the immense booty seized in this campaign led to the mutiny; some of the chief officers were killed, including a nephew of the Sultan, and the soldiers were allowed perforce to keep their spoil.

In spite of such checks, the wealth and prosperity of the Sultan were unbounded. To quote the words of the contemporary Barani: “In the third year of his reign Ala-ad-din had little to do beyond attending to his pleasures, giving feasts, and holding festivals.

Page 104

One success followed another; despatches of victory came in from all sides; every year he had two or three sons born; affairs of state went on to his satisfaction, his treasury was overflowing, boxes and caskets of jewels and pearls were daily displayed before his eyes, he had numerous elephants in his stables and seventy thousand horses in the city and environs. ... All this prosperity intoxicated him. Vast desires and great aims, far beyond him or a hundred thousand of his like, germinated in his brain, and he indulged fancies which had never occurred to any king before him. In his conceit, ignorance, and folly, he completely lost his balance, formed utterly impossible schemes, and cherished the wildest desires. He was a man of no learning and never associated with men of learning. He could not read or write a letter. He was bad-tempered, obstinate, and hard-hearted; but the world smiled upon him, fortune befriended him, and his plans were usually successful, so that he only became the more reckless and arrogant.” He dreamed of emulating the Prophet Mohammed himself, and of founding a new religion, and he contemplated setting up a viceroy in Delhi, and then, he would say in his cups at one of his frequent carousals, “I will go forth, like Alexander, in search of conquest, and subdue the world.” He caused his title to be proclaimed in the Friday prayers and engraved on coins and inscriptions as “the second Alexander.”

There were wiser men than Ala-ad-din, however, at the royal revels, and one of them, an uncle of the historian whom we have quoted, ventured to give the Sultan

Page 105

good advice. He counselled him to leave religion-making to the prophets, and instead of dreaming of universal conquest to set about reducing the many cities and districts of Hindustan, such as Rantambhor, Chitor, Chanderi, Malwa, Dhar, and Ujjain, which were still in Hindu hands; to “close the road to Multan” against the Mongols; and to give up wine and junketing. Instead of resenting this frank advice, the Sultan promised to adopt it, and handsomely rewarded the honest counsellor. The very first step toward mastering the still unsubdued parts of Hindustan showed Ala-ad-din that he had been living in a fool’s paradise. Instead of conquering the world like Alexander, he found that the mere siege of Rantambhor taxed all his energies; and while it was dragging on for many months, other events happened which caused reflection. He was very nearly assassinated in a conspiracy headed by a nephew, who, leaving the Sultan for dead, sat himself upon the throne, received the homage of the nobles, and was even about to enter his uncle’s harem, when the eunuch Malik Dinar faced him at the door and swore he should not go in until he produced Ala-ad-din’s head. The head all too soon appeared, but set alertly as ever on its own shoulders, as the living Sultan showed himself to the army on a neighbouring knoll. The rebel Akat Khan was beheaded instead of his uncle; the conspirators were scourged to death with wire thongs, and their wives and children were sent into captivity.

Nor was this the only sign of the times. Two other nephews raised the flag of insurrection, and though

Page 106

overpowered and cruelly blinded in their uncle’s presence, their failure did not discourage imitation. A mad revolt broke out at Delhi, led by a slave, who set up an unfortunate grandson of Altamish as Sultan, opened the prison doors, and rioted unchecked for days.

A street in the old capital Ujjain

Though the revolt was more like a mummery of the Abbot of Unreason than a political movement, and was suppressed with little difficulty, it showed the uneasiness and ferment of the people. Four mutinies or insurrections

Page 107

in a few months pointed to something amiss, and the Sultan determined to find out the causes of the discontent. After many consultations day and night with his chief counsellors, it was resolved that the main reasons were to be found in the Sultan’s disregard of the doings of the people; in the prevalence of convivial meetings where open political talk followed the wine-cup; in the seditious intimacy of the various amirs and notables; and in the fact that too many people had a superfluity of wealth with which they could suborn adventurers and set revolts on foot.

Whether these results were really the opinions of the council or merely the ex post facto deductions of the historian who records them, they were at least acted upon by the king. The evil effects of too much wealth among his subjects particularly impressed him: it was a disease admitting of easy and gratifying cure. “The Sultan,” says Barani, “ordered that wherever there was a village held by proprietary right, in free gift, or as a religious endowment, it should by one stroke of the pen be brought under the exchequer. The people were pressed and amerced, and money was exacted from them on every kind of pretext. Many were left without any money, till at length it came to pass that, excepting maliks and amirs, officials, the large traders from Multan, and the bankers, no one possessed even a trifle in cash. So rigorous was the confiscation that, beyond a few thousand tankas (a coin about equivalent in value to the modern rupee), all the pensions, grants in land, and endowments in the country were appropriated.

Page 108

The people were all so absorbed in obtaining the means of living that the very name of rebellion was never mentioned.”

In the next place he organized a universal system of espionage. “No one could stir without his knowledge, and whatever happened in the houses of nobles, great men, and officials was communicated to the Sultan by his reporter.” Nor were the reports shelved; they led to unpleasant investigations. “The system of reporting went to such a length that nobles dared not speak aloud even in ‘palaces of a thousand columns,’ and if they had anything to say they communicated by signs. In their own houses, night and day, the reports of the spies made them tremble. No word or action that could provoke censure or punishment was allowed to escape. The transactions in the bazars, the buying and selling, and the bargains made, were all reported to the Sultan and were kept under control.”

Nor was this all. Remembering the warning of his counsellors on the political influences of social revels, “he prohibited wine-drinking and wine-selling as well as the use of beer and intoxicating drugs. Dicing was also forbidden. Many prohibitions of wine and beer were issued. Vintners and gamblers and beer-sellers were turned out of the city and the heavy taxes which had been levied upon them were abolished and lost to the treasury. The Sultan directed that all the china and glass vessels of his banqueting-room should be broken, and the fragments of them were thrown before the Badaun gate, where they rose in a heap. Jars and

Page 109

casks of wine were brought out of the royal cellars and emptied at the same gate in such abundance that mud and mire was produced as at the rain season.” The Sultan himself renounced all wine-drinking, and many of the better sort followed his example, but of course there was a great deal of clandestine bibbing among the dissolute, and these when detected were thrown into pits dug outside the Badaun gate, where many perished miserably. It was found impossible wholly to suppress the use of wine, and the Sultan was obliged to wink at a certain amount of drinking, provided that it was private and the liquor brewed at home; but public drinking was for the time stamped out.

Still further to discourage conspiracy and privy understandings, the Sultan gave commands that “noblemen and grandees should not visit at each other’s houses, or give feasts, or hold meetings. They were forbidden to form alliances without consent from the throne, and they were also prohibited from allowing people to resort to their houses. To such a length was this last prohibition carried that strangers could not gain admittance into a nobleman’s house. Feasting and hospitality fell into total disuse. Through fear of the spies the nobles kept themselves quiet; they gave no parties and had little communication with each other. No man of a seditious, rebellious, or evil reputation was allowed to come near them. If they went to the palaces, they could not lay their heads together and sit down cosily and tell each other their troubles.”

Besides this system of espionage among the Moslems,

Page 110

great and small, the Sultan devised special measures against his Hindu subjects. The Hindu was to be so reduced as to be left unable to keep a horse to ride on, to carry arms, to wear fine clothes, or to enjoy any of the luxuries of life. He was taxed to the extent of half the produce of his land, and had to pay duties on all his buffaloes, goats, and other milch-cattle. The taxes were to be levied equally on rich and poor, at so much per acre, so much per animal. Any collectors or officers taking bribes were summarily dismissed and heavily punished “with sticks, pincers, the rack, imprisonment, and chains.”

An Indian court.

The new rules were strictly carried out, so that one revenue officer would string together twenty Hindu notables and enforce payment by blows. No gold or silver, not even the betel nut, so cheering and stimulative to pleasure, was to be seen in a Hindu house, and the wives of the impoverished native officials were reduced to taking service in Moslem families. Revenue officers came to be regarded as more deadly than the plague; and to be a government clerk was a disgrace worse than death, insomuch that no Hindu would marry his daughter to such a man – a state of affairs that showed their feeling against the power that ruled them. All these new enactments were promulgated without any reference to the legal authorities. Ala-ad-din

Page 111

held that government was one thing and law another, and so long as what he ordered seemed to him good he did not stop to inquire whether it was according to law. One day, however, he saw the learned kadi of Biana at court, and addressing him said he had some questions to ask to which he required truthful replies. “The angel of my fate seems to be at hand,” cried the kadi in alarm, “since your Majesty wishes to question me on matters of religious law.” The Sultan promised not to kill him, and a curious conversation ensued.

Ala-ad-din wished first to know the legal position of Hindus, and the kadi replied: “They are called payers of tribute, and when the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should, without question and with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt (or spits) into their mouths, they must unreluctantly open their mouths wide to receive it. By doing so they show their respect for the officer. The due submission of the non-Moslems is exhibited in this humble payment and by this throwing of dirt into their mouths. The glorification of Islam is a duty, and contempt of the Religion is vain. God holds them in contempt, for He says ‘keep them under in subjection.’ To keep the Hindus in abasement is especially a religious duty, because they are the most inveterate enemies of the Prophet.”

The Sultan said that he did not understand a word of the learned man’s argument, but he had taken his measures to reduce the pride of the Hindus, and had succeeded in making them so obedient that “at my

Page 112

command they are ready to creep into holes like mice.” “O Doctor,” he went on, “thou art a learned man, but hast no experience of the world. I am an unlettered man, but I have seen a great deal. Be assured then that the Hindus will never become submissive and obedient till they are reduced to poverty. I have therefore given orders that just sufficient shall be left to them from year to year of corn, milk, and curds, but that they shall not be allowed to accumulate hoards of property.”

The Gateway of Ala-ad-din in the Mosque at Delhi

So far the law and the Sultan were not at variance. When they spoke of the punishment of corrupt revenue officers, there was still not much difference; but when the Sultan touched upon the delicate question of his own claim upon war-booty and upon the public treasury,

Page 113

the kadi said, “The time of my death is at hand. If I answer your question honestly you will slay me, and if I give an untrue reply I shall hereafter go to hell.” Nevertheless he spoke out boldly and told Ala-ad-din that all treasure won by the armies of Islam belonged to the public treasury and not to the Sultan, and that if he wished to follow the highest example of the most enlightened caliphs he would draw no more from the treasury for himself and his family and establishment than was allotted to each fighting man in the army. This reply excited the Sultan’s wrath and he said, “Dost thou not fear my sword, when thou tellest me that all my great expenditure on my harem is unlawful? “The kadi replied, “I do fear your Majesty’s sword, and I look upon this turban as my winding-sheet; but your Majesty questions me about the law, and I answer to the best of my ability. If, however, you ask my advice from a political point of view, then I say that whatever your Majesty spends upon your harem no doubt tends to raise your dignity in the eyes of men; and the exaltation of a king’s dignity is essential to good policy.”

After many questions and answers, the Sultan said to the kadi, “You have declared my proceedings in these matters to be unlawful. Now see how I act. When troopers do not appear at the muster, I order three years’ pay to be taken from them. I place wine-drinkers and wine-sellers in the pits. If a man debauches another man’s wife, I effectually prevent him from again committing such an offence, and the woman

Page 114

I cause to be killed. Rebels, good and bad, old hands or novices, I slay; their wives and children I reduce to beggary and ruin. Extortion I punish with the torture of the pincers and the stick, and I keep the extortioner in prison, in chains and fetters, until every halfpenny is restored. Political prisoners I confine and chastise. Wilt thou say all this is unlawful?”

Then the kadi rose and went to the entrance of the room, placed his forehead on the ground, and cried with a loud voice: “My liege, send your unworthy servant to prison, or order him to be cut in two, but all this is unlawful and finds no support in the sayings of the Prophet or in the expositions of the learned.” The Sultan said nothing, but put on his slippers and went into his harem. The kadi went home, took a last farewell of his family, and performed the ablutions required of one about to die. Then he bravely returned to court; when to his amazement the Sultan gave him his own robe and a thousand tankas, with these words, “Although I have not studied the Science or the Book (the Koran), I am a Moslem of a Moslem stock. To prevent rebellion, in which thousands perish, I issue such orders as I conceive to be for the good of the state and the benefit of the people. Men are heedless, contumacious, and disobedient to my commands. I am then compelled to be severe to bring them into obedience. I do not know whether this is lawful or unlawful: whatever I think to be for the good of the state or opportune for the emergency, that I decree.”

We have given most of Barani’s account of this

Page 115

interview and of Ala-ad-din’s methods of administration because they present a valuable picture of Moslem rule in India, and such intimate views are rare in Eastern chronicles. The historian may perhaps have described what he himself thought rather than what the Sultan or the kadi really said; but as his relatives were officials in Ala-ad-din’s service, he had good means of knowing the truth. The Sultan did not stop at repressive measures: he interfered with trade, and even meddled with the laws of supply and demand. The occasion for these innovations was presented by an external danger. Another invasion of the Mongols in 1303, when they again threatened Delhi, camped on the Jumna, blocked the roads, and occupied the suburbs for two months, alarmed the Sultan. The Mongols retired without taking the capital, but not on account of any success of the Indian army. Never in fact had Delhi been less protected. The Sultan had just returned from taking the Rajput stronghold of Chitor, the siege of which in the rainy season had almost prostrated his troops. A second army sent to the Deccan to conquer Warangal in the same unfavourable season had suffered even more severely, and had returned diminished and discouraged. There was no force at his command capable of meeting the Mongols in the field, and their departure without conquering the capital was regarded as nothing less than a miracle.

This narrow escape concentrated Ala-ad-din’s care upon his defences. Abandoning for the time all thought of further conquest, he settled himself at his

Page 116

new palace-fortress of Sin, and set to work at preparations for repelling attack. He repaired and added to the forts of Delhi, constructed siege-engines, stone-slings, and mangonels, and collected arms and stores Strong garrisons were placed at Samana and Dipalpur, which had become the Moslem outposts on the threatened northwest frontier (for the Mongols still practically held the Panjab), and tried generals were set in command of all the posts on the Mongol track. The main difficulty was how to increase the army and maintain it in efficient order, well-mounted, well-armed, well-trained, and well supplied with archers. The pay of the soldier was fixed at 234 tankas (nearly £24), with an addition of 78 tankas (£8) for those who contributed two horses. In order to enable the soldier to live on this pay, support his family, and furnish himself with horses and arms, the Sultan ventured upon experiments in political economy. He resolved to keep down the cost of necessaries, and enacted that thenceforth there should be a fixed price for food. The principal items were thus fixed in the new tariff: Wheat, 7½ jitals (nearly 3d) per man (about a quarter, 28 lbs.) barley, 1½d; rice, 2d; pulse, 2d; lentils, id. This scale of prices was maintained as long as Ala-ad-din lived. As a matter of fact it may be taken to represent the average open market price in country towns, and the Sultan’s measures were evidently intended to counteract the tendency to inflated prices at the metropolis caused by an inadequate supply of provisions.

Page 117

To increase this supply and encourage larger importation he gave orders that the crown villages of the Doab and some other parts should pay their taxes in kind, and with these contributions he accumulated vast stores of grain in Delhi, from which in times of scarcity corn was sold at the tariff price to the inhabitants. The carriers of the kingdom were registered and encouraged to bring corn from the villages at the fixed price. Any attempts at regrating or holding up corn and selling it at enhanced . prices were sternly put down.

Doab villagers.

Inspectors watched the markets, and if the prices rose by so much as a farthing, the overseer received twenty stripes with a stick; the offence seldom recurred. Short weight was checked by the effectual method of carving from the hams of the unjust dealer a piece of flesh equivalent to the deficit in the weight of what he had sold. Everything was set down in the tariff: vegetables, fruits, sugar, oil, horses, slaves, caps,

Page 118

shoes, combs, and needles; and we learn that a serving girl cost 5 to 12 tankas, a concubine 20 to 40, slave labourers 10 to 15, handsome pages 20 to 30, and so forth.

These various measures show that the Sultan, though he might be wrong-headed and disdainful of the law, was a man of sense and determination, who knew his own mind, saw the necessities of the situation, met them by his own methods, and carried out those methods with persistence. They were undoubtedly successful. We hear of no more rebellions, and when next the Mongols tried issues with the Sultan’s new army they were effectually defeated. “The armies of Islam were everywhere triumphant over them. Many thousands were taken prisoners, and were brought with ropes round their necks to Delhi, where they were cast under the feet of elephants. Their heads were piled up into pyramids or built into towers.” It is related in sober fact that the blood and bones of the Mongols formed part of the building materials of the new walls and gates and defences with which the Sultan improved the capital. On one of the occasions of a Mongol inroad not a man went back alive, and the enemy “conceived such a fear and dread of the army of Islam that all fancy for coming to Hindustan was washed out of their breasts. All fear of the Mongols entirely departed from Delhi and the neighbouring provinces. Perfect security was everywhere felt, and the peasants carried on their agriculture in peace.” This was largely due to the successful

Page 119

frontier fighting of Ghazi Malik, afterwards Sultan Taghlak, the governor of the Panjab, a worthy successor of Sher Khan.

Freed by these reforms from the fear of conspiracy and invasion, Sultan Ala-ad-din resumed his plans of conquest. He had reduced two great Hindu fortresses, Rantambhor and Chitor, though at enormous cost. He now turned again towards the Deccan. An army under Malik Kafur Hazardinari (the “five-hundred guinea man”), a handsome castrato who had fascinated the Sultan, was sent in 1308 to recover Devagiri, where the Yadava ruler Rama Deva had reasserted his independence and neglected to pay the tribute he promised at the time of Ala-ad-din’s conquest fifteen years before. The campaign was successful. Kafur, assisted by the muster-master Khwaja Hajji, laid the country waste, took much booty, and brought the rebel Hindu and his sons to Delhi. The Sultan treated the captive raja with all honour, gave him a royal canopy and the style of “King of Kings,” and presenting him with a lac of tankas (£10,000) sent him back to govern Devagiri as his vassal.

In the following year Kafur and Hajji were despatched on a more ambitious errand: they were ordered to take the fort of Warangal, in Telingana, towards the eastern Ghats, the capital of the Kakatiya rajas. On the march through his territories Rama Deva displayed the dutiful behaviour of a vassal, assisted the army in every way, and contributed a contingent of Marathas, thus justifying the Sultan’s

Page 120

confidence. The mud fort of Warangal was taken by assault, the stone fort was invested, and the raja surrendered his treasures and agreed to pay tribute. Kafur returned to Delhi with a booty of a hundred elephants, 7,000 horses, and quantities of jewels. In 1310 the same generals pushed their way to the Malabar coast, took the old capital of Dvara-samudra, almost as far south as Mysore, destroyed the great temple of the golden idols in Ma’bar (probably Malabar), bringing home in the early part of 1311 no less than 612 elephants, 20,000 horses, coffers of precious stones and pearls, and 96,000 mans of gold, which, taking the man at no more than ¼cwt., amounts to 1200 tons of gold. Considering the vast wealth of the Hindu shrines, which had never before been despoiled in the Deccan, the sum, though doubtless exaggerated, is not absolutely incredible. The treasure was brought to the palace of Sin, and the Sultan thereupon presented the officers of the fortunate campaign with gifts of gold measured out by the hundredweight. The rajas of Devagiri and Warangal paid their tribute, and the northern part of the Deccan acknowledged the suzerainty of Delhi.

This was the climax of Ala-ad-din’s reign. He had done much. The Mongols were no longer the terror of the Panjab. The army was never stronger, as its victories in the Deccan proved, and never cheaper, owing to the regulated price of provisions. Rebellion had ceased to raise its head, and the severity of its repression had procured a security to the agriculturist

Page 121

and safety of the roads such as had never been known before. The control of the markets not only ensured cheap food at the capital, but also honest dealing, according to Barani, although the eulogy is probably relative. Temperance had been forced upon the people, and, with the example of the sober court, men of great learning and piety abounded. Such results testify to the greatness of a remarkable king.

A Deccan Type

The inevitable and swift reaction came from the Sultan’s own faults, exaggerated by an increasing disease. His violent temper led him to displace experienced governors; his infatuation for Kafur bred envy and disunion, and caused the death or imprisonment of trusted counsellors. His sons, prematurely emancipated from the schoolroom, took to drink and debauchery. The disputes of the nobles and the riotous behaviour of the heir encouraged revolts on all sides. In the midst of the confusion Ala-ad-din died (January, 1316) of dropsy. Though he was a bloody and unscrupulous tyrant and went to extremes of cruelty in carrying out

Page 122

his measures, none may refuse him the title of a strong and capable ruler.

The death of the strong man was followed by the results too common in Eastern history. There was no one fit to stand in his place. The favourite Kafur seized upon the government, and set up Shihab-ad-din Omar, a child of six years, on his father’s throne. Two elder sons of the late king were deprived of sight with atrocious cruelty. The chief queen was robbed and turned out of the palace. The miscreant was even plotting a general massacre of the great nobles, when one night some foot-soldiers fortunately contrived to murder him in his bedroom. His regency had lasted scarcely more than five weeks. Another son of Ala-ad-din, after acting for a few months as governor over his infant brother, sent him away blinded, and took the throne himself in April, 1316, with the title of Kutb-ad-din Mubarak Shah.

No more violent contrast to the stern and capable father could be imagined. Mubarak was an easygoing, good-tempered youth of seventeen, the slave of his own pleasures, and everything reverted to the old lax way. The genial new king opened the jails and let seventeen thousand prisoners loose, presented the army with six months’ pay, and distributed his grants and largesses promiscuously. All the new taxes and penalties were abolished, and all dread of the Sultan and of the revenue officer’s scourge vanished. “Men were no longer in doubt and fear of hearing ‘Do this, but don’t do that; say this, but don’t say

Page 123

that; hide this, but don’t hide that; eat this, but don’t eat that; sell such as this, but don’t sell things like that; act like this, but don’t act like that.’ ” Everyone took his ease and indulged his tastes like his sovereign. The wine-shops were reopened and all the world drank. Prices went up, the new tariff was forgotten, and the bazar people, rejoicing at the death of their persecutor, cheated and fleeced as they listed. Labourers’ wages rose twenty-five per cent.; bribery, extortion, and peculation flourished. The Hindus, relieved of the recent exactions, were “beside themselves with joy. They who had plucked the green ears of corn because they could not get bread, who had not a decent garment, and had been so harassed and beaten that they had not even time to scratch their heads, now put on fine apparel, rode on horseback, and shot their arrows.” In short, everyone did as he pleased and enjoyed himself to the full, and India was her old happy-go-lucky self again.

The Sultan set his subjects a bad example. Utterly careless and unspeakably depraved, he threw himself heart and soul into all the wretchedness of unclean living. Openly by night and by day he displayed his contempt for decency. So eager was the demand at court for mistresses that the price of a pretty girl, who could be bought in the late reign for a couple of pounds, ran up to as much as £200. Like his father, the young Sultan had a vile favourite, a Hindu Parvani, a pariah of the lowest caste from Gujarat, whom he styled Khusru Khan, and under his corrupt influence

Page 124

Mubarak became more shameless than ever: his very speech became foul and obscene, he tricked himself in woman’s clothes, and let his major-domo indulge his horse-play upon the nobles in full court stark naked.

Indian Dancing Girls

No more was the Sultan seen at the public prayers in the mosque of his forefathers, and the fast of Ramazan was openly violated.

With this wholesale abandonment of religion and

Page 125

morals, the reckless youth’s temper began to show the ferocity of his vindictive father. When Haripala Deva, the son of the late Rama Deva, rebelled at Devagiri, Mubarak had him flayed alive. When the king’s cousin Asad-ad-din, indignant at the way things were going, formed a conspiracy and was betrayed, not only were the plotters beheaded in front of the royal tent, but twenty-nine young brothers of the leader, children wholly innocent of the plot, were slaughtered like sheep, and the women of the family were turned out homeless into the streets. His own brothers did not escape his fury. Three of them, including the ex-child-king, were in the fort of Gwalior, blinded and helpless. All three were murdered. The governor of Gujarat was executed for no fault; the new Hindu raja of Devagiri, Yaklakhi, revolted, and had his nose and ears cut off; by the intrigues of the Hindu pariah the old and tried nobles of the late Sultan were disgraced, banished, blinded, imprisoned, and scourged. Finally, one night in March, 1321, the favourite murdered his master, and the headless trunk of Mubarak Shah was seen by the light of torches falling from one of the palace windows. He amply deserved his fate.

Then began a hideous reign of terror. Khusru mounted the throne as Sultan Nasir-ad-din, “the Helper of the Faith,” and there followed an orgy of blood and violence such as had never before been heard of in India. The harem of the Sultan was brutally ravished; every one worth killing was slain in the palace; three days after the murder of his sovereign Khusru took to

Page 126

wife the queen of his victim, a Hindu princess to whom such an alliance was an unspeakable profanation; the wives and daughters of the royal family and of the great nobles were delivered over to the scum of Khusru’s pariahs; “the flames of bloodshed and brutality reddened the sky.” The holy Koran was desecrated; idols were set up in the mosques. The reign of an unclean pariah was as revolting to the Hindus themselves as to the Moslems.

Scene in Gwalior

Had a Rajput attempted to rally the still powerful forces of his countrymen and to make a bid for the throne, the chaos of the times might have given him a chance of success. The stubborn defence of Rantambhor and Chitor showed that the Hindu chiefs were far from subdued. But no Indian of any race or creed, save the outcast sweepers of his own degraded and despised class, would follow a Parvani. The hope of the Moslems lay in one man, the only man of whom the Hindu upstart went in abject fear.

Page 127

This was Taghlak, the warden of the marches, who had held the frontier against the Mongols since the great days of Ala-ad-din’s victories, and had routed them in a score of battles. This hero placed himself at the head of all that was left of the old nobility, and set out from his frontier post to save Delhi from its obscene devourer. The affrighted pariah collected all the troops he could muster, emptied the treasury of every farthing, and scattered all the hoard among the soldiers. Most of the Moslems took his money, heartily cursed the giver, and went to their homes: they were not the men to take up arms against Ghazi Taghlak, the champion of the faith. With his Hindus and such few contemptible Mohammedans as his gold could buy, Khusru attempted to withstand his enemy’s march; but his forces were utterly routed, the Parvanis were slaughtered, and their master was caught hiding in a garden and beheaded (August, 1321). So ended four months of the worst tyranny that India ever knew.

Taghlak assembled the nobles and officers, and bade them bring forward any scion of the royal family that might have survived, and set him on the throne. There was not one left. “O Ghazi Malik,” they shouted with one voice, “for many years thou hast been our buckler against the Mongols and hast warded them from our country. Now thou hast done a faithful work which will be recorded in history: thou hast delivered the Moslems from the yoke of Hindus and pariahs, hast avenged our benefactors and hast earned the gratitude of rich and poor. Be thou our king.”

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
hosted by ibiblio Support Wikipedia