The Impact of the Arabs

*Islam* == *The Arab Conquest of Sind* == *Arab Administration* == *Intellectual

Achievements* == *Results of Arab Rule*
[[3]] ISLAM, the youngest of the three great Semitic religions, dates from the
early years of the seventh century./1/ Its founder, the Prophet Muhammad, was born
in 570 A.D. in Mecca, an important center on the caravan route along the western
coast of Arabia. At the age of forty he saw visions and received revelations which,
as embodied in the Quran, constitute the message and teachings of Islam. The
tremendous vision of the majesty and power of God which came to Muhammad
found expression in the central creed: "There is no God but God and Muhammad is
his prophet." This uncompromising declaration of faith in the unity of God was a
challenge to the polytheism that flourished in Arabia, especially in Mecca where the
main temple, the Kaaba, housed more than three hundred idols. While the
proclamation of God's oneness was originallythe main feature of Islam, other
characteristics gradually developed, particularly an emphasis on the brotherhood of
all believers and the equality of all men before God, irrespective of class, color, or
race. Specific injunctions, such as the prohibition of the use of intoxicants, also
became an essential feature of the Islamic way of life, helping to weld the believers
in Islam into a cohesive, self-conscious social group. These beliefs and practices
finally found vivid form in the "Five Pillars of Islam," an easily remembered summary
of ritual and doctrine. These are: 1) profession of faith in the unity of God and the
prophetic mission of Muhammad; 2) the observance of the five daily prayers; 3) the
giving of alms; 4) fasting during the month of Ramadan; and 5) the making of a
pilgrimage to Mecca. Each of these was open to interpretation and elaboration, but
they provided, in their simplicity and.inclusiveness, a framework that proved
capable of binding people of the most diverse races and of levels of cultural
achievement into a brotherhood that built, with astonishing rapidity, a civilization
that stretched from the Iberian peninsula to the islands of the Eastern Seas.
[[4]] Despite the special features it had from its birth and the others it
acquired in the course of its history, Islam essentially claims to be a continuation of
the earlier religions of western Asia, particularly Judaism and Christianity. According
to the Quran, prophets were sent to all nations and social groups to show them the
right path. Four of them, Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, find a frequent mention
in the Quran. The ritual code of Islam is, indeed, largely based on that of Judaism as
practiced in Arabia in Muhammad's time. There are, for example, ceremonial
prayers, with Friday taking the place of the Saturday Sabbath; a month of fasting
(Ramadan); festivals including the celebration of Old Testament events such as the
sacrifice of Isaac (Ismail, in the Islamic version). There is the Judaic conception of
"unclean meats," including the prohibition of pork. The references to Christianity
and Christians in the Quran are friendly; Jesus is referred to as the spirit of God and

many miracles are ascribed to him. But Islam firmly rejected belief in the Trinity as a
reversion to polytheism.
Muhammad received a very poor response in his own birthplace. He and the
few followers he was able to gather were persecuted, and in 622 he had to flee from
Mecca to Medina. This migration, known as the Hijra, proved highly propitious, for
from this time, Islam rapidly gained adherents. In Medina the Prophet was not only
the founder of a new religion, but he was also the head of a city-state. Gradually
Islam began spreading outside Medina, and before the Prophet died in 632, almost
the entire peninsula of Arabia had adopted Islam.
Muhammad left no male heir. On his death claims were made on behalf of his
son-in-law and cousin Ali, but senior members of the community elected as their
leader or caliph, the Prophet's companion, Abu Bakr, who was one of the earliest
converts to Islam. He successfully dealt with the local rebellions, and sent troops
against the Byzantine and the Persian empires, with whom disputes had arisen
during the last days of the Prophet. The two great empires had weakened
themselves by centuries of mutual warfare, and the ill-equipped Arab armies were
victorious. Abu Bakr died after only two years in office, and was succeeded by Umar
(r. 634-644 ), under whose leadership [[5]] the Islamic community was transformed
into a vast empire. Syria and Egypt in the west and Persia in the east were
conquered, and an administrative basis was devised for the organization of Islamic
territory. The sanctions for this governmental structure were the precepts of the
Quran and the example of the Prophet, but Umar's administration reflects his own
robust common sense and his knowledge of the experience of other rulers. After the
conquest of Iran, for example, he invited a group of Iranian officials to Medina to
explain its government under former rulers. His system of maintaining a bureau of
official registers was derived from Iranian practice, as was the idea of jizya, the poll
tax levied on non-Muslims. After ten years, Umar was succeeded by Usman (r. 644656), who was followed by Ali (r. 656-661), the last of the four "Righteous Caliphs."
Owing to his relationship with the Prophet as well as to personal bravery,
nobility of character, and intellectual and literary gifts, Caliph Ali occupies a special
place in the history of Islam, but he was unable to control the tribal and personal
quarrels of the Arabs. After his death, Muawiyah (r. 661-680), the first of the
Umayyad caliphs, seized power and transferred the seat of caliphate from Medina to
Damascus. In 680 occurred the tragedy of Karbala when Imam Husain, son of Ali
and grandson of the Prophet, fell a martyr. Three years later the succession passed
from Muawiyah's grandson to another branch of the Umayyad dynasty, which
continued in power until 750. During this period the Muslim armies overran Asia
Minor, conquered the north coast of Africa, occupied Spain (711), and were halted
only in the heart of France at Tours (732) .In the east the Muslim empire was
extended to Central Asia, and, as we shall see, it was during this period that a part
of the Indian subcontinent was annexed. In the course of these conquests, the Arabs
became subject to older civilizations. Damascus was located in the heart of Syria,

where Greek and Syrian culture had flowered for ages, and the Umayyad capital
displayed a cultural and social life quite different from that of puritanical Medina. As
heirs to the Byzantine civilization, the Umayyads developed the postal service,
introduced a new coinage, established a state archive in Damascus, and introduced
other changes in the organization of government.
[[6]] Religious schisms in Islam began early and often paralleled political
divisions. The two principal sects are Shia and Sunni. The former, more correctly
known as Shiah-i-Ali (the partisans of Ali), hold that Ali should have succeeded the
Prophet. The Sunnis, who make up the vast majority of the Muslim world, accept the
order in which the succession of the "Righteous Caliphs" actually took place. The
Shias were subdivided into two branches--the Ismailis, who played a more important
role in the early history of Islam than they do today, and the main Shia group,
whose
creed
is
the
state
religion
of
Iran.
The Arab Conquest of Sind
It was against this background of rapid expansion that the first contacts
between Islam and India took place. Since time immemorial spices and other
articles from India and southeast Asia had been in great demand in Egypt and
southern Europe, with the transit trade largely in the hands of Arabs, who brought
merchandise from the Indian ports to Yemen in southern Arabia. The goods were
then sent by land to the Syrian ports to be shipped again to Egypt and Europe. The
rise of Islam did not, therefore, give rise to the connection with India, but it added a
new dimension. Trade continued after the Arabs had embraced Islam, and the first
major conflict between the Indian subcontinent and Muslim Arabia arose out of
developments connected with Arab sailors plying their trade about the Indian
Ocean. They sailed as far as Ceylon, and when some of them died on that island,
the local ruler thought it expedient to send their widows and children to Arabia, with
gifts and letters of goodwill for Hajjaj (661-714), the powerful viceroy of the eastern
provinces of the Umayyad empire. Unfavorable winds drove the vessels carrying the
gifts and the survivors close to the shores of Debul (an inland port near modern
Karachi). Here pirates attacked them, plundered the gifts, and took the Muslim
women and children as captives. Hajjaj, on learning of this, protested to Dahar, the
ruler of Sind, and demanded the release of the prisoners and restoration of the
booty, but he received only an evasive reply. The enraged Hajjaj, famous in Arab
history as [[7]] much for his severity as for his administrative ability, persuaded
Caliph Walid to authorize punitive measures against Dahar.
Two expeditions sent against Dahar ended in failure, but for the third, Hajjaj
sent a hand-picked body of soldiers under the command of his son-in-law,
Muhammad ibn Qasim. The Arab general, with six thousand horsemen, a camel
corps of equal strength, and a baggage train of three thousand camels, marched
against Debul by way of Shiraz and through Makran. He received reinforcements on
the way and in the autumn of 711 appeared before Debul. Hajjaj, who had made

very thorough preparations, sent the siege artillery by sea, including a huge balista,
affectionately called al-'arus, "the bride," which was worked by five hundred men.
Protected by strong stone fortifications, the Debul garrison offered stiff resistance,
but ultimately the fort was captured and the Muslim flag was hoisted for the first
time on the soil of the Indian subcontinent.
Making light of the fall of Debul as a mere commercial town, Dahar made plans
to give battle before the strong fortress of Brahmanabad. A decisive encounter did
not take place for several months, however, owing to the difficulties confronting the
Arabs. Apart from the greater forces assembled by Dahar, an epidemic of scurvy
broke out among the Arab troops, and their horses also suffered from sickness.
Hajjaj sent reinforcements, but perhaps even more valuable was the assistance he
rendered in dealing with the scurvy. His manner of transporting a large supply of
vinegar in concentrated form illustrates the resourcefulness of the early Arabs.
Cotton was soaked in thick concentrated vinegar and dried. This operation was
repeated until the cotton could hold no more liquid; then the cotton was sent to
Sind, where the vinegar was extracted by soaking the cotton in water. This supply of
vinegar brought the scurvy under control, and in the extreme heat of June, 712, the
Arabs crossed the river and faced Dahar's army. The battle was fought with great
vigor on both sides, but the superior Arab generalship and the skill of the Arab
archers gave them the victory. Dahar lost his life on the battlefield, and with his
death the Hindu army lost heart and fled from the field. Muhammad captured
Brahmanabad, and married Rani Ladi, Dahar's widow, thus becoming the master of
Lower Sind.
[[8]] The Arab general spent some time in organizing the administration of the
conquered area, then he started for Aror (near modern Sukkur), Dahar's capital, now
held by one of his sons. After a brief siege the town surrendered, and soon
Muhammad proceeded to complete the conquest of Upper Sind. He moved towards
Punjab. Multan, the leading city, was well fortified, but a deserter brought
information about a stream which supplied water to the city, and by diverting it the
Arabs were able to force the garrison to surrender in 713. Muhammad was now
master of the whole of Sind and part of the Punjab. After the occupation of Multan,
he advanced to the borders of the kingdom of Kashmir. Threatened by this move,
the raja of Kashmir sent an envoy to the Chinese emperor asking for help. He
received no aid, but events at home stopped further Arab advance. Hajjaj,
Muhammad ibn Qasim's father-in-law and the viceroy of the eastern provinces, died
in 714, and in the following year the Caliph Walid, who had been his supporter, also
died. The new caliph was Sulaiman, a bitter enemy of Hajjaj's family. The policy of
extremism, partisanship, and violence which Hajjaj had followed now brought its
nemesis. Death saved him from the new caliph's wrath, but his family had to pay
the penalty. Sulaiman appointed a new governor, recalled Muhammad ibn Qasim,
and handed him to an officer who had the young conqueror of Sind tortured to
death in an Iraqi prison.

The comparative ease with which the Arabs defeated the Indian forces and
occupied a large territory calls for explanation. It was due partly to the quality of
their troops, the ability of the military commander, and the superiority of the Arab
military technique. But the conciliatory policy which Muhammad ibn Qasirn adopted
towards all those who submitted to the Arabs also facilitated his task, and the Arab
conquest was noteworthy more for voluntary surrenders than for bloody battles. At
Nirun, for example, the Buddhist priests welcomed the general, and at Sehwan the
populace revolted against the Hindu governor and submitted to Muhammad ibn
Qasim. Popular dissatisfaction with the former rulers, or at least indifference to their
fate, seems in fact to have contnbuted substantially to Arab success. A large
proportion of the population of Sind and Multan was Buddhist, but Chach, a Brahmin
minister of the Buddhist king, had [[9]] usurped the throne in 622, and his dynasty
was not popular with large sections of the people. Even the chiefs and officials were
quick to offer allegiance to the Arabs. As R. C. Majumdar has remarked: "To the
inexplicable want of strategy on the part of Dahar and the treachery of the
Buddhists of the south, we must add the base betrayal of the chief officials and
grandees of Sind to account for its ignominious end. All important chiefs and
officials seem to have deserted his cause. This is partly accounted for by the
superstitious idea prevailing among the people that according to the Hindu Sastras
the country was destined to fall into the hands of the Muhammadans, and it was,
therefore, useless to fight. But the attitude of chiefs was perhaps due also to
personal feelings against the son of the usurper who had driven out the old royal
family."/2/
Dahar's hold over southern Sind, largely Buddhist, was also very feeble, as this
area had come under his rule only a short time before the Arab invasion. Chach
(r.622-666) had tried to buttress his position by a policy of ruthless suppression of
the dissident groups. He inflicted great humiliation on the Jats, who were forbidden
to carry swords or wear fine garments or to ride on horseback with saddles, and
they were commanded to walk about with their heads and feet bare, accompanied
by dogs./3/ Muslims who were fighting his son won the sympathies of the oppressed
classes, and perhaps the most important cause of the Arab success was the support
of the Jats and the Meds. At an early stage they started enlisting under Muhammad
ibn Qasim's banner, "which independent of its moral effect in dividing national
sympathies, and relaxing the unanimity of defense against foreign aggression, must
have been of incalculable benefit to him, in his disproportionate excess of cavalry,
which could be of little service in a country intersected by rivers, swamps, and
canals."/4/
Muhammad ibn Qasim was only seventeen when he was appointed to a
hazardous military command in a distant and little-known territory. Apparently he
was selected because of his kinship with the all-powerful [[10]] Hajjaj, but he had
already been a successful governor of Shiraz ,and his efficiency in carrying out his
assignment in Sind fully justified the choice. His great achievement was, of course,

as a military commander and the way in which he and his troops overwhelmed
bigger forces. He combined great courage and resourcefulness with moderation and
statesmanship of a high order. He had a warm personality, ready to enjoy the humor
of new and odd situations and to exchange jokes with his companions. With all this
he was a disciplined soldier, as is evident from the manner in which he carried out
Hajjaj's directions and later quietly, without demur, submitted to the orders of the
new caliph in his last supreme act of self-renunciation. In emphasizing this side of
Muhammad ibn Qasim's character it should be remembered that he was the leader
of a punitive expedition. At Debul, where he had to blot out the memories of the
defeat and massacre of the Arab forces sent earlier against Dahar, and later at
Multan, where he was stubbornly resisted, he was harsh and ruthless, but such
occasions were exceptional. Normally he was humane and considerate, and though
no subordinate of Hajjaj could afford to show any weakness, Muhammad achieved
his object more by negotiation and grant of liberal terms than by warfare. He made
systematic efforts to seek out the officers of the old regime, showered honors and
favors on them, and made them his collaborators in the task of administration.
Foremost among these were Sisakar, Raja Dahar's minister, and Kaksa, the
raja's nephew. Sisakar won his way into Muhammad ibn Qasim's favor by restoring
the widows and children of the Arabian sailors, whose capture by pirates had
originally brought down Hajjaj's wrath on Dahar. Sisakar was made principal adviser
in affairs relating to Lower Sind. Kaksa's position was even more important. "The
minister Kaksa," according to an early historian, "was a learned man and a
philosopher of Hind. When he came to transact business, Muhammad ibn Qasim
used to make him sit before the throne and then consult him, and Kaksa took
precedence in the army before all the nobles and commanders. He collected the
revenue of the country and the treasury was placed under his seal. He assisted
Muhammad ib Qasim in all his undertakings, and was addressed by the title
of [[11]]mubarak mushir (prosperous counsellor)."/5/ The generosity shown by
Muhammad to the leading Indian administrators was rewarded by their loyal
cooperation.
Arab Administration
The Arab administration in Sind followed the general pattern adopted by the
Arab conquerors in other countries. The normal rule was to employ local talent and
make minimum changes in local practices. Caliph Umar, acknowledged as the chief
creator of the Arab system of administration, had laid down the working principle
that Arabs should not acquire landed property in conquered territories. Under his
system the conquering general of a new territory became its governor, but "most of
the subordinate officers were allowed to retain their posts." Available evidence
about Sind shows that these injunctions were observed. The Arabs established
themselves in large towns, which were also military cantonments, and provided the

military garrisons, but civil administration was left largely in the hands of the local
chiefs, only a few of whom had accepted Islam.
The administrative arrangements which Muhammad ibn Qasim made with the
non-Muslims after his victory over Dahar are often referred to as "the Brahmanabad
settlement." The basic principle was to treat the Hindus as "the people of the book,"
and to confer on them the status of the zimmis (the protected). In some respects
the arrangements were even more liberal than those granted to "the people of the
book" by the later schools of Islamic law. For example, according to later opinion
the zimmis could not repair their places of worship, although existing ones were
allowed to stand. The question of repairing a damaged temple came up before
Muhammad, who referred the matter to Hajjaj. The latter, having consulted
the 'ulama of Damascus, not only granted the permission asked for, but declared
that so long as non-Muslims paid their dues to the state they were free to live in
whatever manner they liked. "It appears," Hajjaj wrote, "that the chief inhabitants of
Brahmanabad had petitioned to be allowed to repair the temple of Budh and pursue
their religion. As they have [[12]] made submission, and have agreed to pay taxes
to the Khalifa, nothing more can properly be required from them. They have been
taken under our protection, and we cannot in any way stretch out our hands upon
their lives or property. Permission is given them to worship their gods. Nobody must
be forbidden and prevented from following his own religion. They may live in their
houses in whatever manner they like."/6/ According to one early Muslim historian,
the Arab conqueror countenanced even the privileged position of the Brahmans, not
only in religious matters, but also in the administrative sphere. "Muhammad ibn
Qasim maintained their dignity and passed orders confirming their pre-eminence.
They were protected against opposition and violence." Even the 3 percent share of
government revenue which they had received during the ascendancy of the
Brahman rulers of Sind, was conceded to them. In his arrangements for the
collection of taxes, Muhammad ibn Qasim also made an attempt to provide some
safeguards against oppression, by appointing "people from among the villagers and
the chief citizens to collect the fixed taxes from the cities and the villages so that
there might be the feeling of strength and protection."/7/
When the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750 they sent their own
officers to Sind. The Abbasid governor, Hisham, who came to Sind in 757, carried
out successful raids against Gujarat and Kashmir, but no permanent additions to
Arab dominion were made. Later, through preoccupations at home, Arab control
over Sind weakened, with the process of disintegration being accelerated by tribal
conflicts among local Arabs. One governor went so far as to revolt against Caliph alMamun. The rebellion was put down, but Musa (son of Yahya the Barmakid, the
famous wazir of Harun-al-Rashid), who was placed in charge of the affairs of Sind,
nominated as his successor on his death in 836 his son Amran. The caliph
recognized the appointment, but the beginning of the hereditary succession to
governorship meant a weakening of the hold of Baghdad. An energetic ruler, Amran

dealt firmly with the disturbances of the Jats and the Meds, but internecine quarrels
among the Arabs flared up and he lost his life [[13]]
*INDIA IN 900*
[14] after a brief reign. In 854 the Hibbari family became hereditary rulers of Sind,
with Mansura as their capital. In course of time, Multan became independent and
the Hindus reestablished themselves in Rohri.
The severance of contacts with Baghdad made Sind and Multan a happy
hunting ground for the emissaries of the rivals of the Abbasids, the Ismaili rulers of
Cairo. Their first missionary came to Sind in 883 and started secret propaganda in
favor of the Ismaili caliph. After the ground had been prepared, military aid was
obtained from Cairo, and through a coup d'etat Multan was captured in 977. Ismaili
doctrines were now adopted as the official religion, and the khutba was read in the
name of the Egyptian ruler. The Ismailis destroyed the old historic temple of Multan,
which Muhammad ibn Qasim had left in charge of the Hindus, and built a mosque on
its site. Mansura remained with the Hibbari family, at least until 985, but at a later
date this also became a small Ismaili stronghold. The Ismailis suffered a setback
with the rise of Mahmud of Ghazni, who in 1005 compelled the ruler of Multan to
recant his Ismaili beliefs and some twenty years later conquered Mansura on his
return from Somnath. The Ismaili creed regained strength as the Ghaznavids
weakened, but in 1175 Sultan Muhammad Ghuri captured Multan and appointed an
orthodox Sunni as governor. The area was incorporated in the Sunni sultanate first
of
Ghazni,
and
later
of
Delhi.
Intellectual Achievements
During the Umayyad and the early Abbasid period, when the Arabs were at the
height of their political power, they were also active in the intellectual field, making
every effort to acquire knowledge from all sources. Sind became the link through
which the fruits of Indian learning were transmitted to the Arabs, and by them made
available to the rest of the civilized world. Indo-Arab intellectual collaboration was at
its height during two distinct periods. During the reign (753-774) of Mansur,
embassies from Sind to Baghdad included scholars who brought important books
with them./8/ The second fruitful period [[15]] was the reign (780-808) of Harun-alRashid, when the Barmakid family, which provided wazirs to the Abbasid caliphs for
half a century, was at the zenith of its power. Arab bibliographers especially
mention Harun's wazir, Yahya the Barmakid, Yahya's son Musa, and grandson Amran
(both of whom governed Sind for some time) for their interest in India and Indian
sciences. Besides sending scholars to India to study medicine and pharmacology,
they brought Hindu scholars to Baghdad, made them chief physicians of their
hospitals, and commissioned them to translate into Arabic, Sanskrit books on such
subjects as medicine, pharmacology, toxicology, philosophy, and astrology.

The earliest recorded Indo-Arab intellectual contact came in 771, when a Hindu
astronomer and mathematician reached Baghdad, bringing with him a Sanskrit work
(Brahma Siddhanta by Brahma-gupta) which he translated into Arabic with the help
of an Arab mathematician. Titles of three other works on astronomy translated from
Sanskrit have been preserved by Arab bibliographers, but Siddhanta, which came to
be known in Arabic as "Sindhind," had the greatest influence on the development of
Arab astronomy. In mathematics the most important contribution of the
subcontinent to Arabic learning was the introduction of what are known in the West
as "Arabic numerals," but which Arabs themselves call "Indian numerals" (al-ruqumal-Hindiyyah).
Indian medicine received even greater attention; the titles of at least fifteen
works in Sanskrit which were translated into Arabic have been preserved, including
books by Sushruta and Caraka, the foremost authorities in Hindu medicine. One of
the translated books was on veterinary science, and another dealt with snakes and
their poisons. None of these translations are now known to exist, except a rendering
of a book on poisons, which was originally translated into Persian for Khalid-alBarmaki, the Abbasid wazir, and later was translated into Arabic. Indian doctors
enjoyed great prestige at Baghdad, and although their names, like the titles of their
works, have been mutilated beyond recognition in Arab bibliographies, their number
was very great. One of these men, Manka, was specially sent for when Harun-alRashid fell ill and could not be cured by Baghdad doctors. [[16]]Manka's treatment
was successful, and not only was he richly rewarded by the grateful caliph, but he
was entrusted with the translation of medical books from Sanskrit. Another Indian
physician was called in when a cousin of the caliph suffered a paralytic stroke and
was given up for lost by the Greek court physician. Many Indian medicines, some of
them in their original names such as atrifal, which is the Hindi tri-phal (a
combination of three fruits), found their way into Arab pharmacopoeia.
Astrology and palmistry also received considerable attention at Baghdad, and
titles of a large number of books translated from Sanskrit on these subjects have
been preserved. Other books which were translated were on logic, alchemy, magic,
ethics, statecraft, and the art of war, but literary works gained the greatest
popularity. Some of the stories of theArabian Nights' Entertainments are attributed
to Indian origin, and Arabic translations of the Panchtantra, popularly known as the
story of Kalila and Dimna, have become famous in various Arabic and Persian
versions. The games of chess and chausar were also brought from India and
transmitted by Arabs to other parts of the world.
Sind also made a contribution in spheres other than science and leaming.
While the debt of the Sufis, the Islamic mystics, to Indian religion in general is not
certain, the links of Sind with Islamic Sufism are fairly definite. The great early Sufi,
Bayazid of Bistam, had a Sindhi as his spiritual teacher. "I leamed," he said, "the
science of annihilation (ilm-i-fana) and unity (tauhid) from Abu Ali (of Sind) and Abu
Ali leamed the lessons of Islamic unity from me."/9/ The close association of Sind

with Sufism is maintained to this day, and one of the most marked features of Sind
is the dominant place which Sufism occupies in her literary and religious life.
Our knowledge of India's impact on Arab cultural life is based on contemporary
Arab sources, but it is far from complete. No title of any Sanskrit book on music
translated at Baghdad is available, but it is known that the music of the
subcontinent influenced Arab music. That it was appreciated in the Abbasid capital
is indicated by the [[17]] famous Arab author Jahiz (fl. 869), who wrote in his
account of the people of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent that "Their music is
pleasing. One of their musical instruments is known as Kankalah, which is played
with a string stretched on a pumpkin." This would seem to be a reference to an
Indian instrument, the kingar, which is made with two gourds. Another indication of
widespread knowledge of Indian music is a reference by an Arabic author from
Andalusia to an Indian book on tunes and melodies./10/ It has even been suggested
that many of the technical terms for Arab music were borrowed from Persia and
India and that Indian music itself has incorporated certain Perso-Arab airs, such
as Yeman and Hijjfrom Hijaz and Zanuglah, corrupted into Jangla./11/
No connected history of Sind and Multan after the recall of Muhammad ibn
Qasim is available, but works of Arab travelers and geographers enable us to fill the
gap. In particular Masudi, who visited what is now West Pakistan in 915-916, has left
a brilliant account of the conditions in the Indus valley, from Waihind in the north to
Debul in the south. Ibn Haukul, another traveler, visited the area some years later.
Both agree that the principal Arab colonies were at Mansura, Multan, Debul, and
Nirun, all of which had large Friday mosques. Non-Muslims formed the bulk of the
population, and were in a preponderant majority at Debul and Alor. The relations
between the Arabs and the non-Muslirns were good. Unlike the historians of the
sultanate period, the Arab travelers refer to the non-Muslims as zimmis and not
as kafirs (infidels). Soon after the conquest of Sind and Multan, the killing of cows
was banned in the area. The reason may have been a simple desire to preserve the
cattle wealth, but regard for Hindu sentiments may also have been partly
responsible for this step. Some Hindu chiefs showed a sympathetic interest in Islam,
for in 886 a Hindu raja commissioned an Arab linguist from Mansura to translate the
Quran into the local language./12/ Another indication of the integration of the
population into the general [[18]] life of the ruling class was the use of Sindhi
troops in Arab armies. Contemporary records mention their presence in areas as
distant as the frontiers of the Byzantine empire./13/
Arab rulers adopted local practices to a much greater extent than the
Ghaznavids did later at Lahore, or the Turks and the Afghans at Delhi. According to
Masudi, the ruler of Mansura had eighty war elephants and occasionally rode in a
chariot drawn by elephants. The Arabs of Mansura generally dressed like the people
of Iraq, but the dress of the ruler was similar to that of the Hindu rajas, and, like
them, he wore earrings and kept his hair long.

After Muhammad ibn Qasim there were no large-scale Arab immigrations, and
Arab influence gradually diminished; but Sind and Multan remained in contact with
the Arab countries, particularly Iraq and Egypt. At the time of Masudi's visit Arabic
and Sindhi were spoken in Sind, but Iranian influences were also strong, particularly
after the rise of the Dailamites, when the use of Persian became more prevalent,
especially in Multan.
Arab rule produced men of note in Sind and Multan, some of whom achieved
fame and distinction in Damascus and Baghdad. One of them, Abu Maashar Sindhi
(fl.787), an authority on the life of the Prophet, was so eminent that when he died in
Baghdad the reigning caliph led the prayers at his funeral. A number of other
scholars and poets connected with Sind are also mentioned in Arabic anthologies.
Some of them were from the immigrant families, but many were of Sindhi origin and
included descendants of captives taken as slaves during the Arab conquest or the
later wars. The most notable Arabic poet of Sindhi origin was Abul Ata Sindhi, who
was taken to Syria as a captive during his childhood, and earned his manumission
with a qasida or ode. In spite of his command of literary Arabic, his pronunciation of
Arabic words bore such traces of his origin that he had to engage a ravi to recite his
verses. He wrote forceful qasidas in praise of the Umayyad rulers and poignant
elegies on their downfall.
Life in the Arab dominion of Sind and Multan was simple, but agriculture and
commerce were highly developed. Masudi mentions a large number of hamlets in
the principalities of Multan and Mansura, [[19]] and apparently the whole country
was well cultivated. There was active commerce between Sind and other parts of
the Muslim world, with caravans going to Khurasan, most commonly by the route of
Kabul and Bamian. There were also communications with Zabulistan and Sijistan
through Ghazni and Qandahar. Sindhi Hindus, who were excellent accountants and
traders, had a major share in this commerce, and Alor is mentioned as a great
commercial center. The prosperity of the area may be judged by the fact that Sind
and Multan contributed eleven and a half million dirhams to Abbasid revenue, while
the total revenue from the Kabul area in cash and cattle was less than two and a
quarter
million
dirhams./14/
Results of Arab Rule
Time, man, and natural calamities have dealt harshly with the traces of Arab
rule in Sind. In 893 Debul was visited by a terrible earthquake which practically
destroyed the whole city; the number of deaths was estimated at 150,000. A similar
calamity affected Brahmanabad at a later date, but more permanent causes of
damage were the floods and the changes in the course of the Indus. The cumulative
result is that not one of the Arab cities has survived, and their very sites are
uncertain.

It is not surprising, therefore, that historians attach little importance to Arab

rule in Sind; yet though the visible traces of Arab ascendancy have been
obliterated, its invisible effects are many and far-reaching. Most of them, of course,
relate to the former province of Sind. The script adopted for the Sindhi language is
Arabic, not the Perso-Arabic script used for other Muslim languages of the
subcontinent, and it contains a large proportion of Arabic words, mutilated or intact.
Several leading Sindhi families are of Arab origin, and many more, although
indigenous, have changed their genealogical tables to claim Arab ancestry. Until
recently the social pattern in Sind was largely tribal, the place of the Arab shaikh
being taken by the Sindhi wadera (the word itself is a literal translation of the Arabic
counterpart).
Such
Arab
virtues
as
hospitality
have
always
distinguished [[20]] Sind, and the standard of Arabic scholarship has also remained
high. Even the landscape, before the recent construction of two barrages in Upper
and Lower Sind, contained much to remind one of Arabia--the desert, the pastoral
scene, many large groves of date-palm trees, and the strings of camels.
In two important spheres the impact of the Arabs--as we have already seen-was felt far beyond Sind and Multan. In the political field, the arrangements made
by Muhammad ibn Qasim with the non-Muslims provided the basis for later Muslim
policy in the subcontinent. By the time Muslim rule was established at Lahore and
Delhi, Islamic law had been codified and contained stringent provisions regarding
idol-worshipers. The fact that those provisions were not followed and the Hindus
were treated as "people of the book" was largely due to the fact that they had been
given this status by Muhammad ibn Qasim, and that for centuries this liberal
practice had been built up in Sind and Multan.
The second important consequence of the Arab conquest of Sind--the cultural
and intellectual contacts--came to an end when Baghdad lost political control over
the area. Arabic literature henceforth looked elsewhere than to India for inspiration,
and Sanskrit works were no longer translated by Hindu scholars in Baghdad.
Although Arab conquest had been confined to the southern part of what is now
West Pakistan, peaceful contacts were far more extensive. Arab sailors and traders
plied their trade along the coast, and soon after the rise of Islam we find colonies of
Muslim Arabs at a number of major ports such as Cambay, Chaul, and Honawar.
Muslims had reached Ceylon even earlier, and the Arab invasion of Sind was, as we
have seen, a measure of reprisal for the plunder and imprisonment of Muslim
widows and orphans returning from Ceylon. Hajjaj, who organized the expedition to
Sind, was also indirectly responsible for the establishment of a large colony of
Muslim Arabs in the South. When he became the viceroy of Iraq, many political
enemies fled his jurisdiction, seeking refuge on the southern coast of the
subcontinent. They form the nucleus of the important Nawayat community found on
the Konkan coast of Bombay and in Tinnevelly [[21]] district of Madras. Others
settled along the Bay of Bengal, where the presence of Muslims is traceable back to
the eighth century.

The largest Arab coastal settlements, however, were in Malabar, where

Muslims now form a substantial part of the population. One result of the Arab
settlement was the conversion of a local ruler to Islam, an event which undoubtedly
helped the position of the Muslim community. Another influence of the arrival of
Muslims may possibly be seen in the great religious movements in South India in
the ninth century. It has been suggested, although without very clear proof, that the
religious ferment of the period may have owed something to Muslim ideas.
These Muslim colonies on the coast are of interest also as they provided the
base from which missionaries, traders, and sailors went to the Far East and spread
Islam in Malaya and Indonesia. The movement to the East was not only a result of
the Arab share in the spice trade of Southeast Asia, but also a continuation of
traditional Indian relations with the countries further east. Southeast Asia has since
ancient times been greatly influenced by Indian religion, literature, and art, and with
the spread of Islam to the key points of contact, Muslim influence replaced that of
Brahmanism and Buddhism. Bali remains Hindu to this day, but Malaya, Java, and
Sumatra are predominantly Muslim, and owe their present religious and literary
tradition largely to the influences emanating from the Muslim colonies on the
coastline of the subcontinent. Emigrants who brought about this transformation in
Southeast Asia included Arab and Persian sailors and traders, but the role of
Muslims from Gujarat, Malabar, Coromandel, and Bengal was not less important.
III. The Establishment of the Delhi Sultanate
*Muhammad Ghuri's Conquests* == *Causes of Muslim Success* == *Organization
of the Delhi Government* == *Mongol Invasions* == *Administration* == *The
Problem of Succession* == *The Struggle between the Nobles and the Sultan*
[[37]] AFTER the death of Mahmud in 1030 there were occasional incursions
into Hindu territory from Ghazni and the Ghaznavid base at Lahore, but no major
territorial change took place, and Hindu India enjoyed a respite from foreign
invasion for a century and a half. This did not lead, however, to national
consolidation, and a number of principalities grew up in different parts of the
subcontinent. In the north, the most important were the kingdoms of Delhi and
Ajmer, Kanauj, Bundhelkhand, Gujarat, Malwa, and Bengal. Occasionally they would
come together for some common purpose, but normally there was no cooperation
among them, even in the face of the danger that threatened them from the
northwest. Perhaps the relative freedom from Muslim raids during the first part of
the twelfth century made them forget their perilous position, but, for whatever
reason, their disunity made it possible for a determined leader to deal with them
one
after
the
other.
Muhammad Ghuri's Conquests

It was this situation that was exploited to the full by Muhammad Ghuri, who
had been placed in charge of Ghazni by his brother, the sultan of Ghur, in 1173. For
the next thirty years Ghazni was the base from which Muhammad mounted his
attacks on India; unlike the raids of the previous Muslim rulers of the mountain
areas, these were aimed not at acquiring plunder and glory but at the political
control of northern India. From this time on, the story of Islam in India is one of
expansion and the building up of a great empire that would be based not on Ghazni
or Ghur but on Lahore and Delhi.
To attain his object, Muhammad first had to bring the Muslim kingdoms on the
frontier under his control. Soon after the conquest of Ghazni he accomplished this
by occupying Multan and Uch in [[38]] 1175. At that time the most frequented
route from Ghazni into India was not the well-known Khyber pass, or the Bolan pass
in the south, but the Gomal, which leads to the district of Dera Ismail Khan in what
is now West Pakistan. Muhammad Ghuri followed this route, and for some years left
Peshawar and Lahore undisturbed. After occupying Upper Sind he turned in 1178 to
Anhilwara or Patan, the capital of Gujarat, possibly with the hope that its riches
would provide an economic basis for his military schemes. He was defeated,
however, and had to change his strategy. Turning to the Khyber and the Punjab, he
took Peshawar in 1179, Sialkot in 1185, and Lahore in 1186. In the winter of 1190
91 he conquered the Hindu fort of Bhatinda and placed it in charge of a governor.
He was returning to Ghazni when he received information that Prithvi Raj of Ajmer
and Delhi was on his way to Bhatinda and that immediate help was needed. Part of
the sultan's army had already dispersed, but in view of the danger to which
Bhatinda was exposed, Muhammad Ghuri returned and met the forces of Prithvi Raj
at Tarain (modern Taraori), near Karnal. The Rajputs attacked with such vigor that
both wings of the Muslim army were driven from the field. Its center stood firm
under Muhammad Ghuri and, in a determined charge on the Hindu center, he
attacked Govind Rai, the raja's brother and the commander-in-chief of the Indian
army. Muhammad Ghuri struck Govind Rai with a lance, shattering his teeth, but the
Hindu general drove his javelin through his opponent's arm. The sultan, faint from
pain and loss of blood, was about to fall from his horse when a young Khalji with
great presence of mind sprang upon his horse, steadied him, and carried him back
to the place where the Muslim army had halted. Here a litter was hastily prepared,
and the army returned to Ghazni in comparative order.
This was the first major defeat suffered by Muslims in northern India, and on
his return to the capital Muhammad Ghuri meted out exemplary punishment to the
army chiefs who had fled from the battlefield. As a severe penance for himself, he
did not wear fine clothes or engage in any festivities for a year, but concentrated all
his energies on preparations for a return to India.
The two armies met again in 1192 on the battlefield of Tarain.
The [[39]] Indian army far exceeded Muhammad Ghuri's forces in number, but his
brilliant generalship and superior tactics gave him a decisive victory. The Indian

commander-in-chief fell on the battlefield, Prithvi Raj was captured in the course of
flight, and the Indian army was completely routed. This victory made Muhammad
Ghuri master of Delhi and Ajmer. He left Qutb-ud-Din Aibak to consolidate the new
conquests at Kuhram (in East Punjab), but in conformity with Muhammad ibn
Qasim's policy of appointing local governors, a son of Prithvi Raj, was made
governor of Ajmer. Prithvi Raj himself was taken to Ajmer, where, after some delay,
he was found guilty of treason and executed. A few of his coins with the Sanskrit
superscription "Hammira" (Amir) on the obverse have been found, suggesting that
he had initially accepted Muslim suzerainty.
Muhammad Ghuri, who had returned to Ghazni after the battle of Tarain, was
back again two years later to deal with the powerful raja of Kanauj. The ensuing
battle was severely contested, but the Muslims were victorious and added a great
kingdom to their dominion. Meanwhile, early in 1193, Aibak had occupied Delhi, the
future seat of Muslim power in India. Hazabr-ud-din Hasan Adib, an adventurous
officer, had conquered Badaun in the heart of the Gangetic plain even before
Muhammad Ghuri had taken Bhatinda, and Malik Hisam-ud-din Aghul Bak, another
leader of the vanguard of Islam, had established himself in Oudh.
These brilliant victories, indicative of the spirit and resourcefulness of early
Muslim officers, were soon eclipsed by the exploits of Ikhtiyar-ud-din Muhammad,
the son of Bakhtiyar Khalji, who had been assigned certain villages in Oudh. From
his advance base between the Ganges and the Son he raided Bihar and Tirhut. His
successes attracted so many adventurers that he was able to invade and conquer
southern parts of Bihar, probably in 1199. Later he presented himself to Aibak, who
gave him his recent conquests as a fief.
This encouraged Ikhtiyar-ud-din to extend the Muslim dominion to the most
eastern parts of the subcontinent. In 1201 he left Bihar with a large body of horse
and marched so rapidly against Nadiya, the capital of Bengal, that when he arrived
at the city only eighteen of his companions had been able to keep pace with him.
Nadiya was [[40]] partly deserted at this time, and the Muslim commander and his
eighteen companions were able to pass through the city gates unchallenged as
horse dealers from the north. Reaching the raja's palace on the banks of the
Ganges, they cut down the guards, but Raja Lakshmansena escaped through a
postern gate by boat. The valiant eighteen held their own until the rest of the army
arrived; then took complete control of the capital, laying the foundation of Muslim
rule in the northwestern part of Bengal. The raja fled to Vikrampur (near modern
Dacca), where his family continued to rule for three generations.
After his victory over the raja of Kanauj Muhammad Ghuri was preoccupied
with the affairs of Central Asia, as he had succeeded his brother as sultan in 1202.
He suffered a defeat in 1205 at the hands of the Qara Khitai Turks, and rumors
spread that he had been killed. This led the Khokhars and some other tribes in the
Salt Range of the Punjab to rebel, under the leadership of a renegade raja. They

defeated the deputy governor of Multan, plundered Lahore, and, by stopping

communication between that city and Ghazni, prevented the remittance of revenue
from the Punjab. The situation became so serious that it required the sultan's
personal attention; and in October, 1205, he left Ghazni for India. Only after the
arrival of Aibak with fresh reinforcements was the rebellion completely crushed.
Muhammad permitted his troops to return to their homes to prepare for his planned
operations in Central Asia, and he himself was returning to Ghazni with a small
contingent when on March 15, 1206, he was assassinated near Damiyak, probably
by an Ismaili fanatic.
The death of Ghuri within fourteen years of the victory at Tarain was a great
blow to the rising Muslim power in India, but his task had been nearly accomplished.
Nearly all of northern India was under Muslim rule, and in Aibak, Iltutmish, Nasir-uddin Qabacha, and Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, he left a group of capable
officers who could complete his task. Many of them, including Aibak and Iltutmish,
who later became rulers of India, were slaves, a reminder of the important place
well-trained and loyal slaves had in the early Muslim dynasties. Brought from all
over Central Asia, often members of ruling families that had been defeated, they
provided generals and [[41]] governors who were often more trustworthy than sons
or
other
relatives.
Causes of Muslim Success
The sweeping victories won by Muhammad Ghuri and his generals at the end
of the twelfth century tend to give the impression that the conquest of North India
was an easy and uninterrupted process. That this was not the case is shown by the
reverses suffered by Ghuri himself as well as by the strong counteroffensives
mounted by individual Hindu rulers. The most important factor in the success of the
Muslims at this time was probably the quality of the rank and file and of their
commanders. Not only were Muslim commanders able to wipe out the effects of
various setbacks, but they showed superior generalship against heavy odds in
victories such as that at Tarain. They were able also to exploit their limited
resources to the fullest possible advantage by adopting the most suitable tactics,
such as the feigned withdrawal of Ghuri at Tarain and the shock of a sudden surprise
at Nadiya by Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar. Another factor which materially contributed
to Muslim success was superior horsemanship, and in fact the victories of Muslims
over much larger Hindu armies may be considered the victory of the horse over the
slow-moving elephant.
Other factors also contributed to Muslim success. They were always on the
offensive and had the advantage of greater initiative and selectivity. Fighting
hundreds of miles away from their homes, they had to fight desperately, as they
had no easy means of escape. Religious ardor must also have acted as a spur to
their fighting qualities. The soldiers were not confined to one class, as was generally
the case with Indian armies, but contained picked and zealous soldiers from all

classes and even different ethnic groups, such as the Turks, Tajiks, Khaljis, and
Afghans.
While these factors were responsible for the speedy conquest of northern India,
the consolidation of Muslim rule owed not a little to another event which was a
tragedy for the Muslim countries of central and western Asia. This was the Mongol
invasion, which drove [[42]] large numbers of refugees, amongst whom were
princes, chiefs, soldiers, scholars, and saints, to Muslim India. Thus a vast reservoir
of manpower became available to the new government at Delhi, and these people,
having suffered so much, did not spare themselves in making India a "Citadel of
Islam."
Organization of the Delhi Government
After Muhammad Ghuri's assassination in 1206 the control of his Indian
possessions passed to his slave Qutb-ud-din Aibak, while the rest of his empire
became the scene of a struggle between various claimants for power. This meant, in
effect, that henceforth the Indian provinces of the Ghuri dynasty were independent;
Aibak may thus be reckoned the first independent Muslim ruler of northern India,
the founder of the Delhi Sultanate. He had been bought as a young man by the qazi
of Nishapur who, recognizing his ability, gave him a good education. After the qazi's
death he was sold to Muhammad Ghuri, under whom he served as a commander,
and when Ghuri returned to Ghazni as sultan, Aibak remained as viceroy of his
Indian province. In the inevitable confusion that followed the sultan's death, Aibak
had himself crowned at Lahore, and although he acknowledged the supremacy of
the new ruler at Ghuri, he himself was given the title of sultan, and was virtually
independent. A source of perplexity for later jurists in connection with this
assumption of power was that Aibak's formal manumission from slavery did not take
place until 1208; yet under Islamic law an unmanumitted slave could not be a ruler.
In any case, his own successors for the next ninety years were originally either
slaves or descendants of slaves.
Aibak's main work had been accomplished as the deputy of Sultan Muhammad
Ghuri. After his accession to the throne he made no new conquests but consolidated
the Muslim dominion by following a policy of conciliation and open-handed
generosity which earned him the title of lakhbakhsh, or the giver of lakhs. Aside
from this, he commenced building two magnificent mosques at Delhi and Ajmer. He
was evidently a patron of letters, for two historians, Hasan Nizami and Fakhr-iMudabbir, dedicated their works to him. His career was cut short by early death in
1211 as the result of a polo accident. [[43]] Aibak's son succeeded him, but the
Delhi nobles soon replaced him by Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, Aibak's son-in-law. The
new ruler was faced with a very difficult task, for not only was Muslim rule in India
far from consolidated, but powerful military leaders in Bengal, Punjab, and Multan
challenged his authority. Yildiz, the ruler of Ghazni, laid claim as Muhammad Ghuri's
successor to suzerainty over all the latter's Indian conquests. The Hindu chiefs had

by now recovered from the stunning effects of Muslim victories and were winning
back many of the strongholds originally conquered by the Muslims. Kalinjar had
been recovered as early as 1206, and in course of time Jalor, Ranthambhor, Gwalior,
and even Badaun, where Iltutmish held his last post before accession to the throne,
were lost to the Muslims. In Oudh and the Doab the situation was even worse, and
Minhaj-us-Siraj speaks of a Hindu chief named Bartu "beneath whose sword above a
hundred and twenty thousand Musalmans had attained martyrdom."/1/
Iltutmish, trained in the traditions of Ghuri and Aibak, moved slowly against his
host of enemies. He first consolidated his authority in the areas of Delhi, Badaun,
Oudh, and Benares, and then dealt with his Muslim opponents one by one. In 1216
he defeated and captured Yildiz who, after his expulsion from Ghazni by the
Khwarizmshahis, had occupied Lahore. In 1225 he turned his attention to Bengal
and forced the local ruler to abandon his royal title, acknowledge the authority of
Delhi, and pay regular tribute. After this he dealt with Nasir-ud-din Qabacha, the
powerful and popular ruler of Sind and western Punjab. On February 9, 1228, he
arrived at Uch, Qabacha's capital, and opened siege. Uch surrendered on May 4,
and a few days later Qabacha, who had moved to the island fortress of Bhakkar
(situated between modern Sukkur and Rohri), found a watery grave in the Indus.
Mongol Invasions
An important development of Iltutmish's reign which had indirect but farreaching consequences for the new empire was the rise of the [[44]] Mongols under
Chingiz and Hulagu, and their "dance of death" in central and western Asia. The
Mongol invasion, the greatest blow which the Muslim world ever suffered, is the
dividing point of Islamic history. The modern evaluation of the Mongol advance as a
catastrophe for Islam was shared by contemporaries, one of whom, the historian
Ibn-ul-Athir, called it, "the death blow of Islam and the Muslims." Beginning in 1219
with Chingiz Khan's invasion of Transoxiana, it brought destruction to large
cultivated areas, ruin to libraries and madrasas, and endless slaughter to men,
women, and children. It culminated in the sack of Baghdad, and the end of the
Abbasid caliphate at the hands of Hulagu Khan in 1258. A quotation from E. G.
Browne summarizes the extent of the catastrophe: "In its suddenness, its
devastating destruction, its appalling ferocity, its passionless and purposeless
cruelty, its irresistible though short-lived violence, this outburst of savage nomads
hitherto hardly known by name even to their neighbors, resembles rather some
brute cataclysm of the blind forces of nature than a phenomenon of human history.
The details of massacre, outrage, spoliation, and destruction wrought by these
hateful hordes of barbarians who, in the space of a few years, swept the world from
Japan to Germany would be incredible were they not confirmed from so many
different quarters."/2/ That India was spared the full force of invasion can be
attributed in large part to the vigilance and resourcefulness of the Delhi sultans.

Iltutmish's government first felt the impact of the gigantic military movement
when Jalal-ud-din, the ruler of Khwarizm, whose father had attracted the wrath of
Chingiz Khan, crossed the border with 10,000 men and sought aid from Iltutmish.
Realizing the peril of getting embroiled in a dispute with the Mongol chief, Iltutmish
gave skillfully evasive replies, and thus averted the danger of the Indian
subcontinent being involved in the first onrush of the Mongol invasion. But the
Mongols continued to move toward the subcontinent, and in 1241, during the chaos
following Iltutmish's death, they destroyed Lahore. They remained entrenched on
the frontier for several years, and for nearly half a century the principal
preoccupation of the Delhi government was the defense of the subcontinent from
the [[45]] fate suffered by central and western Asia. Thanks to Balban's efficient
measures and Ala-ud-din Khalji's military prowess this danger was averted, but the
indirect consequences of the Mongol eruption and their activities beyond the border
were not trifling. The danger in the north was partly responsible for Balban's
ruthless policy of internal consolidation and centralization (about which more will be
said later). The Mongol atrocities in Muslim countries and the threat to their newly
won empire also steeled Muslim hearts in the subcontinent and inspired them to
great efforts. And, again, the great influx of refugees from the Muslim countries of
Central Asia, Khurasan, Iran, Iraq, and modern Afghanistan into the newly
conquered territories provided the human resources needed for the consolidation of
Muslim rule and the firm planting of Islamic religion in the subcontinent. These
developments continued throughout the greater part of the thirteenth century, but
they began during Iltutmish's reign, and a large number of distinguished refugees
came
to
his
court./3/
Administration
Iltutmish rivals Balban for the distinction of being the greatest of the Slave
Kings. Although it was Balban's transformation of the royal position that became
firmly ingrained in the fabric of Muslim government, Iltutmish's work was historically
of great importance. Aibak had done little but maintain the position he had acquired
from Ghuri; it was Iltutmish who consolidated the Indian possessions into an
independent kingdom. Not only had he to deal with powerful Muslim rivals and the
Hindu counter-offensive, but he also had to build up the fabric of a new
administration and organize different departments of the central government at
Delhi. A skillful organizer, he dealt with the problems of administration in the same
manner that he handled threats to the security and the integrity of the realm. In this
his task was greatly facilitated by the model of government organization that had
been established at Ghazni and the copious literature that had appeared on
statecraft and the art of government in [[46]] Muslim countries. By now some of
the classics of Muslim political theory, such as the Arabic Ahkam-us-Sultania, the
Persian Qabus Namah (1082), and the Siasat Nama (1092) had already been
written, in addition to similar works that have perished. The historian Ziya-ud-din
Barani (12851357) quotes Balban as speaking of two works on statecraftAdab-

us-Salatin and Maasir-us-Salatinwhich were brought from Baghdad in Iltutmish's

reign./4/ He also seems to have received assistance from scholars versed in the
principles of Muslim political theory and governmental organization, and Adab-ulMuluk, the first Indo-Muslim classic on the art of government and warfare was
written for him. With this background, he was able to lay the basis of a wellcoordinated structure of government.
Aside from the influence of the Ghaznavid system of government and the
principles of statecraft learned from the texts on politics, the pattern of the new
government established at Delhi was determined by Iltutmish's own temperament
and the realities of the Indian situation. Much of the territorial expansion of Muslim
India had been the work of individual nobles and resourceful adventurers. These
men and others who had risen to prominence in the service of Muhammad Ghuri or
Iltutmish by this time possessed large tracts of land. Since their privileges were not
curtailed, a loosely knit, decentralized form of administration came into existence.
Iltutmish made no attempt to weaken the position of his nobles, and indeed felt
himself one of them. He used to declare that God Almighty had raised him above his
peers who were a thousand times better than he. Barani quotes him as saying:
"When they stand before me in the durbar I feel abashed at their grandeur and
greatness, and desire that I should descend from the throne and kiss their hands
and feet."/5/
It was also typical of Iltutmish that he did not adopt a hostile policy towards
the Sufis, but valued and respected them as a source of spiritual and moral
strength. The high education which he gave to his daughter Raziyya, and his
preference of her as his successor to the throne, suggests that he was free from the
prejudices of his Turkish [[47]]
*INDIA IN 1236*
[[48]] nobles. He tried to maintain a balance between the Turks, who were the allpowerful generals and governors, and the Persian-speaking Tajiks, who provided the
scribes who dominated the imperial secretariat. After his death the balance was
seriously upset, but by then the basic task of organizing the new Muslim
government had been accomplished.
One of the crucial problems facing Iltutmish was the position of Hindus in a
Muslim state. By this time Muslim law had been codified, and the freedom of action
enjoyed by Muhammad ibn Qasim five centuries earlier in Sind was denied him.
Three out of four schools of Islamic law favored the extermination of all idolators,
but the practice, initiated by Muhammad ibn Qasim and maintained by the
Ghaznavids, of treating idolatrous Hindus at least as privileged zimmis proved more
powerful. When the ulama urged Iltutmish to give effect to the opinion of the
majority of the founders of Islamic schools of law, he convened a conference and
called upon his wazir, Nizam-ul Mulk Junaidi, to explain the position. The wazir

argued that since India had only recently been conquered, and since the Muslims
were fewer in number than the Hindus, it would not be wise to attempt a course of
action that might lead to disturbances. This argument was accepted, and the status
quo was maintained. The possibility of imposing the viewpoint of the majority
Islamic law was never again raised in the form urged by the ulama. The course
adopted was in consonance with fourth school of law (Hanafi), which has been
accepted by the vast majority of Indian Muslims./6/
Iltutmish took other steps to strengthen the fabric of the new government. To
give it a legal basis in the eyes of the orthodox, he is said to have sought
confirmation of his royal title from the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. On February 19,
1229, the caliph's envoy arrived with a robe of honor and delivered to Iltutmish a
patent which conveyed recognition of his title as the sultan of India. The caliph's
recognition was largely a formality, and this seems to be one of the two occasions
when a ruler of Delhi troubled himself about obtaining foreign recognition, but in the
initial stages of Muslim rule this step was useful. It confirmed the sovereignty of
Delhi against the claims of [[49]] Ghazni, giving it a legal basis in the eyes of the
orthodox, and it also silenced those local rivals who challenged the sultan's
authority.
After this investiture, Iltutmish attended to the coinage, an important symbol of
sovereignty. The name of the caliph was inscribed on the coins issued from the royal
mint, and the sultan was described as "Helper of the Commander of the Faithful." So
far the Muslim rulers had issued small bullion coins of the native form inscribed in
Devanagari, the Indian script, or in Arabic characters, and bearing symbols familiar
to the Hindu population such as the Bull of Shiva and the Chauhan horseman.
Iltutmish now introduced purely Arabic coinage, discarding Hindu symbols, and
adopted as a standard coin the silver tanka, the ancestor of the modern rupee.
Delhi was founded in the tenth century, but before the Muslim occupation it
was not a large city, ranking below Ajmer in the Chauhan kingdom. Since it could
not meet the requirements of the large population attracted by the seat of the new
government, Iltutmish had to provide it with proper amenities and adorn it as the
imperial capital. He built or completed the Qutb Minar, greatly extended the
Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, giving it a distinctly Islamic look, and constructed a large
water reservoir (Hauz-i-Shamsi) to meet the needs of Delhi citizens. The educational
needs of the people were also looked after, for the Madrasa-i-Nasiri, of which the
historian Minhaj-us-Siraj was the head at one time, was built in his reign./7/
While Iltutmish's outlook and political philosophy were reflected in the salient
features of his administration, he was fortunate in receiving competent assistance
and guidance from some able and farsighted people. Principal amongst these coworkers was his wazir, Nizam-ul-Mulk Kamal-ud-din Muhammad Junaidi, a man of
culture, a distinguished patron of learning, and a statesman of strong views. The
historian Aufi dedicated his famous Jawami-al-Hikayat to him, and in a number of

verses and poems interspersed in the book he praised Junaidi's wisdom,

statesmanship, skill in warfare, and generosity. The contemporary poet Reza also
wrote many poems extolling these qualities of Junaidi and has mentioned as well his
calligraphy [[50]] and excellent literary style. Isami also praises him in his history,
Futuh-us-Salatin, mentioning that it was Junaidi who had purchased Balban as a
present for Iltutmish. Junaidi's strength of character may be seen from the fact that
when Iltutmish's worthless son, Rukn-ud-din Firuz, began to squander public money
after his father's death, the wazir risked his office and refused to support him. He
also refused to take the oath of allegiance to Raziyya, who had ascended the throne
without consultation with the provincial chiefs and the wazir. The most fruitful part
of Junaidi's career was under Iltutmish, when he was in charge of the entire
government, including civil and military departments, and even religious functions
which were later entrusted to the sadr-i-jahan. Barani's account of the conference
which was convened to determine the treatment of the Hindus shows that in such
major political issues Junaidi's opinion counted for much. He advocated a humane
line of action, and though he based his viewpoint on the grounds of expediency, he
achieved the practical end he had in view. The prominent role which he played in
dealing with this difficult and crucial question would suggest that he had an equally
important part in the formulation of other decisions and actions of Iltutmish's
government.
The Problem of Succession
The problem of a successor troubled Iltutmish during his last days. His eldest
son had died, and his other sons were worthless; his own choice was his able
daughter Raziyya, but he knew the Turkish nobles were opposed to the idea of a
woman ruler. He tried various solutions to deal with the situation. When he set out
for Gwalior in 1231, he left Raziyya in charge of the capital, and was so satisfied
with her handling of government affairs during his long absence that on his return
he considered issuing a proclamation appointing her his heir. Her name was
included along with that of the sultan in a series of coins, but for one reason or
another Iltutmish did not take the final step of naming her his successor. He
entrusted the viceroyalty of Lahore to his eldest surviving son, Rukn-ud-din Firuz, to
see
how
he
fared.
Before
he
could
decide
the
question
of
succession, [[51]]Iltutmish fell seriously ill and the matter was still unsettled when
he died. Firuz ascended the throne with the support of army leaders, but he started
squandering public funds and misusing power in such a way that the provincial
governors revolted. Firuz left the capital to deal with the rebels when one of the
most gruesome tragedies of early Muslim rule took place.
Firuz's misbehavior and the high-handedness of his mother Shah Turkan had
offended so many people that even the Wazir Nizam-ul-Mulk Junaidi left the sultan
to join his opponents. This brought to a head the bitter antagonism that existed
between two court factions, the Tajiks and the Turks. The Tajiks were Persian-

speaking Turks who had migrated from Turkish homelands. Their contribution to the
building of the early Muslim state at Delhi was very substantial, and not only did
they monopolize the higher posts in the Delhi secretariat, but also they dominated
the literary and intellectual life. The wazir himself was a Tajik. So was Minhaj-usSiraj, the historian and the future chief justice. Along with other notables they were
openly hostile to Firuz. This so enraged the sultan's Turkish supporters that they
massacred all the Tajik notables who were present in the royal camp. The list of
casualties preserved by Minhaj-us-Siraj reads like a roll-call of the Delhi
court./8/ Practically all the leading literary figures of Iltutmish's reign were
extinguished on one dark day. The tragedy damaged irreparably the influence of the
Tajiks and also impoverished the intellectual life of the new state.
While Rukn-ud-din Firuz's supporters were destroying the flower of the imperial
secretariat, his sister Raziyya made a bold bid for the throne. Clad in red, she
appeared before the people gathered for Friday prayers in the principal mosque at
Delhi and appealed to them in the name of Iltutmish to give her a chance to prove
her worth. This dramatic gesture evoked great response, and the people of Delhi,
who so far had not taken the oath of allegiance to Firuz, accepted her claim. On his
return, Firuz was imprisoned and subsequently put to death, but Rizayya's
accession, which had been effected without consent of the provincial governors or
even of the wazir, was doomed from the beginning. For the powerful nobles
considered her accession [[52]] was unprecedented; her discarding of the veil and
her severity swung public opinion against her. She tried to create dissension among
her opponents, but the elevation of an Abyssinian to the major post of amir-iakhur (commander of the cavalry) gave serious offense to the Turkish nobles and
they rose in rebellion against her. Her followers murdered the Abyssinian and
imprisoned her while she was camping at Bhatinda to deal with the rebels. Her
efforts to weather the storm by marrying Altuniya, the rebel governor of Bhatinda,
failed to save her. Her brother Bahram, who had been proclaimed sultan of Delhi
during her absence, entrusted young Balban, their father's slave, with the task of
dealing with Raziyya and her husband's troops, and Balban carried out the mission
with the competence which was, in course of time, to carry him to the throne of
Delhi. Raziyya and Altuniya were defeated, deserted by their troops, and murdered
by the Hindus in the course of their lonely flight (October 14, 1240).
Raziyya's brief reign also saw a bid for power by the Ismailis, a heretical sect
which once had sought to assassinate Iltutmish. On Friday, March 5, 1237, nearly a
thousand of them, incited by the harangues of a fanatical preacher, Nur Turk,
entered the great mosque of Delhi from two directions and attacked the
congregation. Many fell under their swords, but the Turkish nobles assembled their
troops who, aided by the congregation, overpowered and slaughtered the
insurgents.
The Struggle between the Nobles and the Sultan

Raziyya's end highlighted a development which, though visible even in the

success of nobles in sponsoring the claims of Iltutmish against those of Qutb-ud-din,
Aibak's son, had become more marked since the death of Iltutmish. This was the
question of the right and power of the nobility to determine the choice of the sultan
and place limitations on his power and sphere of activity. After Raziyya was
defeated and imprisoned, her half-brother Muizz-ud-din Bahram was proclaimed
sultan, but "on the stipulation of Deputyship being conferred on Malik Ikhtiyar-uddin Aetkin," who "by virtue of his Deputyship took the affairs of the kingdom into
his own hands, [[53]] and, in conjunction with the wazir [Muhazzab-ud-din] and
Muhammad Iwaz, the mustaufi [the auditor-general] assumed control over the
disposal of state affairs."/9/ There is an analogy in this action to that taken in the
same century by King John's barons in England, but the arrangement at Delhi broke
down at once.
The basic responsibility for the failure was that of the deputy who, as the
nominee of the nobles, started assuming royal prerogatives, and took steps which
alarmed the new monarch. He married the sultan's sister, assumed the triple
naubat, the drums which were a symbol of sovereignty, and stationed an elephant
at the entrance of his residence. These developments annoyed the youthful
monarch, and he secretly encouraged violent measures to deal with the situation.
Within three months of his assumption of office, the deputy was assassinated in the
royal presence at a gathering arranged to hear a sermon. The wazir was also
attacked by the assassins but managed to escape.
This was not the end of the struggle between the nobles and the sultan.
Badrud-din-Sunqar, the amir-i-hajib (lord chamberlain) assumed the direction of
state affairs, but he suffered from the sultan's hostility and lack of cooperation from
the wazir. He called a meeting of the principal nobles, including the highest financial
and judicial officials of the realm. They discussed recent events among themselves
and sent the mushrif-i-mumalik (accountant-general) to invite the wazir to join
them. The wazir promised to come, but instead conveyed the news of what was
happening to the sultan. Bahram immediately mounted his horse and reached the
place where the meeting was being held. He took Sunqar with him, but so strong
was the power of the nobles that no real punishment was inflicted on the leader of
the conspiracy. He was sent to Badaun, which was given to him as a fief. Qazi Jalalud-din was relieved of the office of the chief qazi (which was a few weeks later
conferred on Minhaj-us-Siraj), and some of the other collaborators left the capital,
fearing unpleasant developments.
The wazir now became all-powerful, but the attack had shown Bahram's real
sentiments toward him. He soon joined hands with the nobles to depose Bahram,
who was dethroned on May 10, 1242. The principal senior noble, Izz-ud-din Kishlu
Khan, now made a bid for the [[54]] throne, but his associates repudiated him,
choosing instead Iltutmish's grandson, Ala-ud-din Masud. Qutb-ud-din Husain of
Ghur was named deputy, but the real power remained with the wazir. The Turkish

amirs, the soldier-administrators of the realm, did not like the concentration of
power in the hands of someone selected from the "writer" class, so they joined
forces and had him assassinated. The submissive Najm-ud-din Abu Bakr now
became wazir, and Balban, Iltutmish's slave, was appointed to the key post of Amiri-Hajib. Ala-ud-din Masud continued to rule for more than four years with tolerable
success, but later when he tried to curb the power of the nobles he alienated the
most powerful of them. He was deposed on June 10, 1246, and the nobles, among
whom Balban played a dominant role, enthroned Iltutmish's youngest son, Nasir-uddin Mahmud.
IV. Consolidation of Muslim Rule in the North
*Balban's

Administration*

[[55]] THE SULTANATE of Delhi suffered grievously in the ten years following
the death of Iltutmish. The Mongols who had been hovering on the frontier grew
bolder, and in 1241 sacked Lahore. They harried Multan, Sind, and central Punjab,
and were in virtual control of this area for a number of years. In the east, Bengal
and Bihar became independent. To the south of Delhi, the Hindus began to reassert
themselves, and the Muslims lost many important strongholds which had been
captured in the days of Aibak and Iltutmish. Gwalior and Ranthambhor were
abandoned during Raziyya's reign. Now, even in areas nearer to the capital such as
Katehar (modern Rohilkhand) and the Doab, Hindu resistance was intensified.
Not less important than these material losses were the fissures and
weaknesses displayed by the administrative structure built up by Iltutmish. The
lines on which he had organized the new government required for their success a
man of great ability, wisdom, and resourcefulness, but as he had feared, there was
nobody equal to the task in his family. In the scramble for power which followed his
death, Tajiks were pitted against Turks, the nobility was at loggerheads with the
king, and the conflicting ambitions of the individual nobles prevented any united
action.
Balban's Administration
With the accession of Nasir-ud-din in 1246 this period of acute conflict ended,
but it was not due to the ruler's abilities. The real power was in the hands of Balban,
who had been largely instrumental in bringing him to the throne. Although Balban
did not actually become sultan until 1265, the whole period from 1246 to 1287
including the years of Nasir's rule and his ownmay well be designated [[56]] the
"Balban Era." A member of a noble family of the Ilbari Turks, Ghiyas-ud-din Balban
had been captured during the turmoil that followed the Mongol invasions of Central
Asia and sold as a slave in Baghdad. He was taken to Delhi in 1232, where he was
purchased by Iltutmish to serve as a personal attendant. He became chief

huntsman, commander
chamberlain.

of

the

cavalry,

and,

after

Iltutmish's

death,

lord

Balban's ascendancy over the sultan was challenged, most notably in 1253
when Imad-ud-din Raihan made an attempt to oust him. This particular episode is of
special interest, as Raihan was an Indian convert to Islam, and seems to have rallied
the non-Turkish element in the court to his support. Balban was saved by the Turkish
governors of the provinces, who rallied to his side. Balban maintained his position in
the sultan's government until 1265, when, on Nasir-ud-din's death, he added the
formal title of sultan to the power he had held for twenty years.
Balban's work, both before and after he became sultan, involved not only the
defense of the country against foreign aggression and internal dangers, but also a
reorganization of the administration with the aim of increasing its effectiveness.
Iltutmish had organized the administration in the newly conquered territories as a
decentralized system in which the fiefholders enjoyed wide power, and high nobles
were treated almost as peers of the king. A pious Muslim, disdaining show, he had
not sought to assert royal superiority over the nobility. The disturbed conditions
which followed his death, marked by a struggle between king and nobility, showed
the dangers inherent in this attitude. His successor, Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, had lived
an unassuming life, leaving real power with the deputy. Balban's attitude, however,
was completely different. Influenced by the Iranian theory of kingship, and noting
the anarchy which prevailed after the death of Iltutmish, he proceeded to raise the
royal status far above that of the nobles. He used to say that next to prophethood,
the highest office was that of kingship, and that the ruler who did not maintain the
dignity of his office failed to perform his functions properly, and his subjects,
resorting to insubordination, would fall prey to crime.
As soon as he ascended the throne, Balban provided a material [[57]] basis for
the heightened royal status by strengthening the army. Aibak and Iltutmish had
relied largely on the contingents of the fiefholders, and the ariz, or war office, had
been a subordinate branch of the central secretariat under the overall control of the
wazir. Balban reorganized the war office, raised the status of ariz-i-mamalik, his
chief of staff, and dealt directly with him. He increased the army's size, placed the
troops under hand-picked commanders, and raised their emoluments. He kept it in
fighting trim by taking it on long, arduous expeditions and large-scale hunting
parties. The result was an instrument adequate for combatting external and internal
enemies and for making the position of the king immeasurably stronger than that of
the nobles and fiefholders.
Balban took other steps to enhance the royal status. Great importance was
attached to the observance of an impressive and elaborate court etiquette. When
the royal cavalcade moved, hundreds of imposing heralds, dressed in brilliant
uniforms, preceded it; it was such a magnificent show that according to the
historian Barani, people came from great distances to witness the procession. At the

royal court, there was such an atmosphere of awe and majesty that ambassadors
presenting their credentials and rajas coming to pay tribute became nervous and
occasionally stumbled on the steps. Very meticulous about the royal dignity, Balban
imposed a rigorous discipline on himself. No valet ever saw him without a cap or
socks or shoes, and throughout his long period of kingship he never laughed aloud
before others, nor had anyone the courage to laugh aloud in his presence./1/
A major problem with which Balban was faced was the all-powerful military
oligarchy which had dominated the politics of the sultanate since the death of
Iltutmish. This aristocratic corps, commonly known as the Chihilgan or "the Forty,\"
had at one time played a constructive role, but in the days of Iltutmish's weak
successors it had become a major threat to the state. Originally Balban had been
one of the Forty, but now he set about breaking their power by all possible means,
including the use of poison and the assassin's dagger.
[[58]] As a natural consequence of this policy the provincial governors lost
much of their power and privilege. The instructions which Balban gave to his son
Bughra Khan, while entrusting to him the government of Bengal, laid down the
relationship which was to exist between the central government at Delhi and the
governors of the provinces./2/Even more effective were the practical steps he took
to control the provincial chiefs. In all provinces he appointed barids (intelligence
officers) to report on the local dignitaries. On the basis of these reports Balban
meted out exemplary punishments to the provincial governors for any misbehavior.
This was one aspect of Balban's attempt to transform Iltutmish's decentralized
organization, with the nobles possessing great powers, into a highly centralized
government under the control of an autocratic king. Henceforth, subject to
occasional variations, this was to be the normal pattern of Muslim government in
India.
Although he insisted on the rights of kingship, Balban acknowledged the duty
of a ruler to provide peace and tranquility within his dominion. This the early Muslim
rulers had not always been able to ensure. The Jats, the Mewatis, and the Khokhars
were a constant menace to the peaceful subjects of the sultanate. The Muslim rulers
had broken the power of the organized Hindu armies, but warlike, restless tribes had
taken to robbery. Every year there was some major disturbance of the peace, and
even the city of Delhi was not immune to plundering operations. Thieves infesting
the jungles around Delhi robbed travelers under the very walls of the city. The gates
on the south side of the city had to be shut immediately following afternoon
prayers, and it was dangerous to leave the city at night.
Balban spent the first year of his reign in enforcing law and order in the city
and its suburbs. The jungle was cleared, the Mewati robbers who had made it a
base for their operations were destroyed, a fort was built to guard the city's
southwestern approaches, and police posts were established around Delhi. Balban
dealt equally firmly with the people of the Doab, who had closed the road between

Bengal and the capital. He spent nearly a year in the districts of Patyali, Bhojpur,
and
Kampil,
extirpating
the
highway
robbers,
building
forts
at
suitable [[59]] centers, garrisoning them with Afghan soldiers who received lands in
the area for their maintenance, and granting large areas to powerful nobles so that
they could bring the land under cultivation and clear the jungles. The methods he
used against the local population were undoubtedly ruthless, but they secured the
roads between Delhi and Bengal for nearly a century. Similar measures were taken
against the Rajputs in the trans-Gangetic tract in the charge of the governors of
Budaun and Amroha. Balban ordered a terrifying slaughter of the insurgents, had
their houses and hiding places burned, cleared the country of forests, built roads,
and introduced orderly civil government.
Although Balban built up a powerful army, he made no attempt to extend his
dominion or to recover areas such as Malwa, once controlled by the Muslims. When
these measures were suggested to him he replied that he had even higher
ambitions, but could not expose Delhi to the fate of Baghdad. A stern realist, he
abandoned the expansionist policy of his predecessors and concentrated on the
consolidation of Muslim power in India. What he did instead with his army was to
use it to overawe his nobles, and, in the last two decades of his reign, to defend his
frontiers against the Mongols.
Hulagu Khan who, with his sack of Baghdad in 1258 had wiped out the great
center of Abbasid culture, was still alive, and the Mongols now constituted a
standing threat to the subcontinent. As a preliminary measure of defense in 1270,
Balban restored the fortifications of Lahore, which had been virtually deserted since
its sack by the Mongols in 1241. While this facilitated the defense of the northwest,
other vigorous military measures were needed to deal with the Mongol menace, and
Balban erected a chain of fortifications in the northwest. The command of this
strategic area Balban entrusted initially to Sher Khan Sunqar, his most distinguished
general, and on Sunqar's death to Prince Muhammad Khan, Balban's favorite son
and heir-apparent. Prince Muhammad Khan was killed in 1285 in a battle with the
Mongols, but the arrangements that had been made for the defense of the
northwestern frontier kept Hulagu Khan in check.
Although Balban had succeeded for forty years in maintaining his control over
most of North India, he was not able to ensure a peaceful [[60]] succession. After
the death of Prince Muhammad Khan, he named as his heir Bughra Khan, the
governor of Bengal, but Bughra refused to remain in Delhi. On his deathbed, Balban
selected a son of Prince Muhammad Khan, but his nobles disregarded his will and
placed on the throne Kaiqubad, the worthless, pleasure-loving son of Bughra Khan.
Unable to control the fierce rivalries of the factions that were struggling to gain
power, Kaiqubad soon ceased to play an effective role in the government. The group
that emerged triumphant out of the breakdown of the sultan's authority was the
Khalji family, one of the Turkish clans that had been settled so long in Afghanistan
before entering India that their Turkish origin was almost forgotten. The Khalji chief,

Makik Jalal-ud-din Firuz, as head of the army department, had one of the most
important offices in the realm. He used this position to have himself proclaimed
sultan in 1290, after a Khalji noble had murdered Kaiqubad.
With Kaiqubad's death the Slave dynasty of the Ilbari Turks came to an end. It
had established the political dominance of Islam throughout North India, and had
laid the foundations for an administrative structure that was more than a military
occupation. The violence that marked the last years of the dynasty continued under
the Khaljis, but beyond the intrigues of the palace factions the position of the
Muslim rulers was consolidated, and a great new movement became possiblethe
conquest
of
South
India.
V. Expansion in the South: The Khaljis and the Tughluqs
*First

Conquests*

==

*The

Consolidation

of

Muslim

Rule*

[[61]] ON THE surface, the seizure of the throne by Jalal-ud-din Firuz in 1290
was the act of a strong and ruthless individual; in reality, it was the achievement of
power by one large clan, the Khaljis. Their triumph illustrates one of the basic
ingredients in the history of Islamic India: the role in the continual power struggles
of different groups within the ranks of the Turkish invaders. Ethnically the Khaljis
were Turks, but because of their earlier migration from the Turkish homelands they
constituted a group quite distinct from those who had come into the Ghazni and
Ghuri areas at a later time. Although they had played a conspicuous role in the
success of the Turkish armies in India, they had always been looked down upon by
the Ilbari Turks, the dominant group during the Slave dynasty. This tension between
the Khaljis and other Turks, kept in check by Balban, came to the surface in the
succeeding reign, and ended in the displacement of the Ilbari Turks.
Khalji success against the aristocratic Turks had far-reaching sociopolitical
results. Muslim government ceased to be a close preserve of the Turkish aristocracy
and not only the Khaljis but other groups such as the indigenous Muslims began to
share power. For the first time, the historians refer to the Hindustanis, the local
Muslims, and soon converts such as Malik Kafur were occupying the highest position
in the state. The efforts of the Muslim missionaries and Sufis had begun to bear fruit
and a sizable number of Muslim converts was available for the service of the state.
The rule of the Khaljis did not last more than thirty years, but the social revolution
which their success engendered, and the large increase in manpower which resulted
from it, enabled the Delhi government to take a major step forward and conquer the
vast areas south of the Vindhyas.
When Jalal-ud-din came to the throne he followed a policy of exceptional
mildness and forbearance. This reconciled the general population [[62]] to him, but
the Khalji nobles were shocked at the sultan's behavior. They attributed it to senility
he was more than seventy when he came to the throneand openly started

plotting against him. The plot which succeeded was that of his nephew and son-inlaw, Ala-ud-din. This ambitious young man had been appointed governor of Kara
(near modern Allahabad), and there, surrounded by other discontented officers, he
organized an army to make a bid for the throne of Delhi. To support his army he
plundered
neighboring
unconquered
Hindu
territories.
First Conquests
Ala-ud-din started by invading Malwa and capturing the town of Bhilsa, a
wealthy commercial center. He decided next on a bolder step. At Bhilsa he had
heard of the wealth of the great southern kingdom of Devagiri. Without obtaining
the permission of his uncle, and making arrangements at Kara for supplying Delhi
with such periodical news about his movement as would allay suspicion, he set out
in 1296, at the head of 8,000 horse. So far, no Muslim ruler had crossed the
Vindhyas, and Devagiri was separated from Kara by a two-month march through
unknown regions. The success of this extraordinary raid against a powerful kingdom
is explained partly by good luck and partly by Ala-ud-din's ability and courage. He
returned to Kara with a huge booty17,250 pounds of gold, 200 pounds of pearls,
58 pounds of other gems, 28,250 pounds of silver, and 1,000 pieces of silk. Some of
Jalal-ud-din's nobles, particularly the loyal and vigilant Ahmad Chap, were critical of
Ala-ud-din's moves, but his brother, who was at the court, lulled the sultan's
suspicions. He was able even to persuade Jalal-ud-din to go to Kara to meet Ala-uddin, who, he said, was too penitent to come to Delhi after having undertaken a
major military operation without royal authority. The sultan, according to a
contemporary historian, was blinded by greed, and, welcoming the suggestion, he
proceeded to Kara, where he was assassinated. Ala-ud-din Khalji ascended the
throne, and, with a judicious distribution of riches brought from Devagiri, he was
able to win over the public of Delhi.
[[63]] Ala-ud-din's twenty-year reign may be divided into three phases. During
the first period (12961303) he defeated the Mongols, reconquered the Hindu
kingdom of Gujarat, and reduced Ranthambhor (1301), Chitor (August, 1303), and
other Hindu strongholds in Rajasthan. In the second period (13031307) his
attention was given largely to securing and consolidating his power. He continued,
however, to extend his territory. In 1305 he sent Ain-ul-Mulk Multani to Central India,
where he subdued Malwa and conquered the forts of Ujjain, Chanderi, and
Mandawar. Malwa was annexed, and Ain-ul-Mulk appointed its governor. In the final
period, he was engaged in the conquest in the South.
The Mongols had continued to threaten India, and in 1290 they raided as far as
Delhi. They returned in 1303 with an army of 120,000, besieged Delhi, and forced
Ala-ud-din to retire to the fortress of Siri. Their reason for withdrawing after two
months is not clear; and while Barani attributed it to the power of the prayers of a
local saint, Ala-ud-din realized that more effective steps were necessary to deal with
the Mongol menace. He proceeded to reorganize the defenses in the western

Punjab, where the fortifications established by Balban had fallen into disrepair, and
placed the frontier province of Dipalpur under Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq, the ablest
soldier of the realm. He also raised a powerful standing army independent of the
contingents of the fiefholders, and made it adequate for all offensive and defensive
purposes. This meant that Ala-ud-din's officers could take the offensive against the
Mongols, and they raided their territory as far as Kabul and Ghazni. After 1306,
partly because of these measures, partly because of the death of the Mongol ruler
of Transoxiana, India ceased to be troubled by the Mongols.
During the third period (13071313), Ala-ud-din completed the conquest of
South India. The ground had been prepared for this by his conquests in Central
India, and in 1307 his general, Malik Kafur, defeated Raja Ramchandra of Devagiri,
who had withheld the tribute he had promised to pay after Ala-ud-din's first raid.
The raja was brought to Delhi, and, reaffirming his submission, he received the title
of Rai Rayan. Two years later Malik Kafur led another expedition to the south and
conquered Warangal. Among the booty was a great diamond, [[64]] identified by
some with the famous Koh-i-Nur. In this campaign the raja of Devagiri gave the
Muslims considerable help, including a force of Marathas. Next year Malik Kafur set
out on a year-long expedition which, through the defeat of the rajas of Madura and
Dvarasamudra, extended the Muslim dominion to the southern sea-coast. During
this expedition, the Muslim officers built a mosque, either at Rameshwaram on the
island of Pamban, or on the mainland opposite.
Ala-ud-din did not bring the newly conquered territories in the south under his
direct administration. Devagiri was an exception. When the raja of Devagiri died in
1311 and his successor refused to accept the suzerainty of Delhi, it was annexed as
part of the sultanate of Delhi. Other conquered territories such as Warangal,
Madura, and Dvarasamudra continued under local rajas who paid an annual tribute.
Ala-ud-din Khalji was a soldier, undisciplined by formal education. When
fortune smiled on all his early projects, his fancy soared high and he began to think
of conquests in other fields. He played with the idea of establishing a new religion,
and at times expressed a desire to sally forth from Delhi, and, like Alexander, to
embark on a career of world conquest. He even issued coins referring to himself as
Alexander the Second. Luckily his nobles were not afraid of giving him sound advice,
and he had the good sense to listen to them. He had four principal counsellors, but
it was the old Ala-ul-Mulk, the kotwal of Delhi, who dissuaded the king from
attempting to carry out his plans. Ala-ul-Mulk's interview is vividly described,
perhaps with a touch of imagination, by his nephew, the historian Barani./1/ Ala-ulMulk told the sultan that the introduction of a religion was a matter for the prophets
and not for kings, and pointed out that the Mongols, in spite of their great power,
had not been able to replace the Islamic religion. As for foreign conquests, the
sultan could not undertake them until he had completely conquered and established
his rule in the whole of India, and even then he could leave his realm only if he had
a sagacious and dependable deputy like Alexander's Aristotle to look after the

kingdom during his absence. Ala-ud-din had an uncertain temper, but he recognized
the wisdom of the old [[65]] counsellor. He never talked again about religious
innovations, and he dropped his plans for world conquest.
During the early years of his reign, two rebellionsone at Delhi and another in
Oudhand an attempted assassination forced Ala-ud-din to consider precautions
against attempts to overthrow his rule. According to his advisers the rebellions had
four main causes: 1) an inefficient system of intelligence which prevented the sultan
from knowing what was happening; 2) the widespread use of wine, which loosened
tongues, encouraged intimacies, and bred plots and treason; 3) the strengthening of
the position of the nobles by intermarriage; and 4) the possession of wealth by
certain sections of the people, which, relieving them of the necessity of work, left
them leisure for mischievous thoughts./2/Ala-ud-din dealt systematically with all
these causes. He set up an efficient system of intelligence and taught himself to
read the illegible handwriting known as shikasta, in order to be able to decipher the
reports of his informers. He prohibited the use of intoxicating liquor and set an
example by causing his wine vessels to be broken and having the wine poured out.
He regulated marriages among the nobles and revised the taxation system so as to
reduce the surpluses of the prosperous classes. This latter measure hit both the
Muslim and Hindu privileged classes. It included the Muslim holders of inam lands
(rent-free grants) and waqf (pious endowments), and those Hindu chiefs who had
been allowed to retain their lands in return for the payment of tribute. Apparently
many of them had used their positions to build up centers of intrigue against the
ruler.
Among the most interesting of Ala-ud-din's actions were the famous pricecontrol measures. Modern historians, following Barani, have generally held that
these were introduced in order to keep the cost of the new army at a low
level./3/ Other contemporary or near-contemporary writers such as Afif, Ibn Battuta,
Isami, and Hazrat Nasir-ud-din Chiragh-i-Delhi indicate that Ala-ud-din controlled
prices of the necessities of life so that the general public might benefit./4/ Barani's
explanation appears odd, since a ruthless ruler like Ala-ud-din [[66]] could easily
have provided for the upkeep of his army by other means, such as additional
taxation. In order to deal with a limited problem it was hardly necessary for him to
introduce a detailed and complicated system involving elaborate administrative
measures over wide areas. All contemporary authorities except Barani indicate that
Ala-ud-din, in spite of his obvious defects, had firm ideas of the responsibilities of
kingship. Their interpretation is that he felt that the most effective way to benefit
the public and achieve lasting renown was to place reasonable price controls on the
necessities of daily life. Those who have seen the difficulty of enforcing a rigid price
control in India and Pakistan in modern times know that this could not be achieved
by royal edict, and one cannot read Barani's account of various regulations and
administrative steps taken by Ala-ud-din without admiring his administrative ability
and the competence of his officers. To enforce his orders regulating prices he

introduced the following: the system of obtaining land revenue in the form of food
grains; the buildup of vast stores from which corn could be issued at the time of
need; control of transport; a simple method of rationing when necessary; and the
buildup of an elaborate organization to carry out the whole system. Ala-ud-din made
a success of this scheme, which continued in operation throughout his reign. It is no
wonder that after his death the poor forgot his cruelty and remembered his rule
with gratitude; they even visited his grave as if it were the tomb of a holy man./5/
It is only recently that scholars, piecing together bits of information from
different sources, have begun to realize the extent of Ala-ud-din's administrative
achievements. K. R. Qanungo, for example, credits him with organizing the army on
a new model. He accomplished this, according to Qanungo, by arming it directly
through the Ariz-i-Mamalik, paying in cash from the state treasury, choosing the
officers himself, and stamping out corruption in the supplying of horses by requiring
that they be branded./6/
Ala-ud-din kept in touch with the army when it was on the move through an
elaborate system of dak-chauki, or postal relay. When he [[67]] sent an army on an
expedition he established posts on the road at which relays of horses were
stationed, and at every half or quarter kos runners were appointed. "Every day or
every two or three days," according to Qanungo, "news used to come to Sultan
reporting the progress of the army, and intelligence of the health of the sovereign
was carried to the army. False news was thus prevented from being circulated in the
city or the army. The securing of accurate intelligence from the court on one side
and the army on the other was a great public benefit." While this system was not
original with Ala-ud-dinthe Abbasids had used itthe efficiency with which it was
set up indicates Ala-ud-din's thoroughness in matters of administration.
More important for Ala-ud-din's subjects were his arrangements for proper
assessment of land revenuea continuing concern of Indian governments. He
introduced the method of assessment of revenue on the basis of land measurement,
as this appeared to him more satisfactory from the point of view of the state than
merely exacting as much as seemed feasible from the peasants. While the system
was not extended very far and did not take sufficient root to survive the death of
Ala-ud-din, it shows that the most important feature of Sher Shah's revenue system
was originally introduced by the Khalji ruler.
A full assessment of cultural aspects of his rule is yet to be made, but the
scattered indications on the subject are enough to show that it was a very important
period in the cultural life of medieval India, comparable almost to that of Akbar
during the Mughal period. Indeed it may be said that if consolidation of Muslim rule
was the work of Balban, Muslim India attained cultural maturity in the days of Alaud-din Khalji. The wealth that poured into Delhi after the conquests in South India
made possible the maintenance of a large army, and enabled the ruler and other
beneficiaries to undertake cultural activities on a lavish scale. Ala-ud-din did not live

long enough to realize all his architectural dreams, but he has left many splendid
monuments. Developments in the realm of music were even more significant. After
the conquest of the Hindu states in the south, musicians moved north to seek the
patronage of Muslim kings and nobles. Luckily Delhi had men such as Amir Khusrau
who availed themselves [[68]] of the situation, and a new era in Indo-Muslim music
was opened.
Developments in literature were equally remarkable. Amir Khusrau (c.1254
1324), one of the greatest of Indo-Islamic poets, lived during the reign of seven
monarchs, but the royal court with which he was associated longest was that of Alaud-din. The Khalji king's outlook was too practical to permit him to appreciate
literature, but the poet must have benefited by the general prosperity of the period.
As a poet, musician, historian, biographer, courtier, and mystic, he assisted in the
evolution of a new pattern of culture, humanistic, artistically rich, and in harmony
with the environment.
Unlike earlier poets, Amir Khusrau was not an immigrant, but was born in India
of an Indian mother. Living in an era which saw the large-scale expansion of Muslim
rule in the south and its consolidation in the north, including the defeat of the
Mongols, his works breathe a spirit of exultation, self-confidence and local pride. His
liberal Sufi outlook and probable Indian origin on the maternal side enabled him to
admire and imbibe the praiseworthy elements of the old Indian tradition. He studied
Indian music and introduced changes and innovations which made it acceptable to
the new Muslim society. He wrote long poems on local themes. His poetry is full of
pride in his native land, its history, its people, its flowers, its pan and its mango; he
also held that Persian as spoken, and written in India was purer than the language
used in Khurasan, Sistan, and Azerbaijan. A poem written in the last year of Ala-uddin's reign gives vivid expression to this spirit:
Happy
be
Hindustan,
with
its
splendor
of
religion,
Where
Islamic
law
enjoys
perfect
honor
and
dignity;
In
learning
Delhi
now
rivals
Bukhara;
Islam
has
been
made
manifest
by
the
rulers.
From
Ghazni
to
the
very
shore
of
the
ocean
You
see
Islam
in
its
glory.
Muslims
here
belong
to
the
Hanafi
creed,
But
sincerely
respect
all
four
schools
[of
law].
They have no enmity with the Shafites, and no fondness for the Zaidis.
With heart and soul they are devoted to the path of jamm'at and the
sunnah. [[69]]
It
is
a
wonderful
land, producing
Muslims
and
favoring
religion,
Where the very fish of the stream are Sunnis.
While this outburst of intellectual creativity was at its height, control of the
kingdom began to slip from the aging Ala-ud-din's hands. The excesses of a

luxurious court had left him an invalid. Instead of the group of counsellors which
had helped him in his days of triumph, he was dominated by Malik Kafur, a eunuch
who had been one of his most successful generals. After Ala-ud-din's death in
January, 1316, Kafur blinded the heir to the throne, intending to seize power for
himself, but he was murdered by another son of Ala-ud-din, who became sultan
under the name of Mubarak Shah.
Mubarak Shah's brief reign was the beginning of a grim but curious episode in
the history of the Delhi Sultanate. His favorite was Khusrau Khan, a convert from a
low Hindu caste who, after four years of dominating his master, had him murdered.
Khusrau Khan ascended the throne, put to death all members of Ala-ud-din's family,
and tried to make his rule secure by various devices including a liberal distribution
of gifts, on the line adopted by Ala-ud-din when he had usurped the throne. His
treatment of his patron and his family, however, had alienated public opinion.
Furthermore, the behavior of Khusrau's companions, many of whom were Hindus,
convinced leading Muslims that there was a possibility of the revival of Hindu
supremacy or at least displacement of Islam from the position it occupied. It is
conceivable that if the insurgents had had a suitable leader capable of winning the
respect of Hindu chiefs and the public, they might have reestablished Hindu power.
But Khusrau's low-caste companions behaved with incredible stupidity, destroying
mosques and copies of the Quran. Important Muslims outside of Delhi, led by Ghazi
Malik, who had been one of Ala-ud-din's frontier generals, gathered an army and
attacked the sultan. Khusrau's forces were totally defeated, and since he had
murdered all the members of Ala-ud-din's family, the nobles made Ghazi Malik the
new sultan. As Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq Shah, he became the first ruler of the Tughluq
dynasty,
which
maintained
itself
for
nearly
a
hundred
years.
The Consolidation of Muslim Rule
[[70]] According to generally accepted accounts, Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq, who
became sultan of Delhi in September, 1320, was the son of a Turkish slave of Balban
and a Jat woman. With a distinguished record as a defender of the sultanate against
the Mongols, he faced first the task of restoring the authority of the Delhi
government, which had been weakened during the disorders that followed Ala-uddin's death. In the south, the tributary raja of Warangal had declared his
independence; Ghiyas-ud-din met the challenge by annexing his kingdom. The
governor of Bengal had also revolted, and while suppressing this rebellion Ghiyasud-din expanded his boundaries by the conquest of Tirhut (the ancient Mithila),
which had remained outside Muslim rule. This was his last campaign, however, for
he was killed in 1325 in the collapse of a victory pavilion erected to celebrate his
triumphal return from Bengal.
The son who succeeded him was Muhammad Tughluq (r.13251351), whose
character was a puzzle both to contemporary and later historians. Highly gifted and
accomplished, and possessing great purity of character, he endeavored throughout

his reign to create a just and orderly society. Instead, he soon gained a reputation
for barbarous cruelty, and his rule brought misery to his people and greatly
weakened the power of the Delhi Sultanate.
Admittedly this was due partly to natural calamities, for his reign coincided
with a long period of drought which in intensity and extent was one of the worst the
subcontinent has ever known. From 1335 to 1342 there was widespread famine, and
although the king tried to deal with the situation by opening poor-houses and
distributing free grain, the problem was beyond his resources. But his misfortunes
were not all due to natural and unavoidable causes. A man of ideas, he continually
conceived new schemes; and if they were not well received, he lost patience and
resorted to ferocious cruelty to enforce them. The most famous incident of this kind
occurred in 1327. He had decided, in view of repeated rebellions in the south, that it
was necessary to shift the capital to a more central place. He selected [[71]]
*THE EMPIRE OF MUHAMMAD BIN TUGHLUQ IN 1335*
[[72]] Devagiri, which he named Daulatabad, as the new seat of government, and
he forced the Muslim inhabitants of Delhi to migrate to the new capital. Many
perished on the long march to Daulatabad, and eventually the sultan allowed them
to return to Delhi. On the face of it, the operation seems to have been an act of
folly, yet there is no doubt that the migration of a large Muslim population drawn
from all sections of society helped to stabilize Muslim rule in the south. Like many of
his schemes, it failed, not because his idea was wrong, but because his organization
was not adequate to carry it out.
Another controversial measure was the sultan's issue of token currency. The
prolonged famine, the expensive wars, and royal liberality had severely strained the
exchequer. Muhammad Tughluq's solution was to issue brass and copper tokens in
place of silver coins. Again, the idea was probably sound enough, and one that has
been adopted everywhere in the modern world. However the measure was too
unfamiliar and too complex for fourteenth-century India. The result was severe
dislocation of the economy. Counterfeiting became common and as Barani says,
"every Hindu's house became a mint." The king had the good sense to acknowledge
his failure, and the token currency was withdrawn from circulation after three or four
years. Its introduction and failure neither enhanced public confidence in the sultan
nor restored economic prosperity to the country.
There were widespread rebellions throughout Muhammad Tughluq's reign, and
the vast empire which Ala-ud-din Khalji and Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq had governed
with success began to fall apart. Early in his reign he had to deal with the revolt of
Baha-ud-din Gurshashp, a cousin who was given shelter by the Hindu rajas of the
south. Muhammad Tughluq sent a powerful force against the defiant rajas, annexed
Kampili, sacked Dvarasamudra, and forced its ruler to surrender Gurshashp and to
reiterate his submission to the government of Delhi. The cousin's fate was indicative

of the sultan's treatment of rebels. He was flayed alive, his flesh was cooked with
rice and was sent to his wife and children, while his skin, stuffed with straw, was
exhibited in the principal cities of the kingdom. But even such ferocious
punishments did not prevent rebellion; perhaps they drove men to rebel out of
desperation and fear.
In 1335 Ma'bar, in the extreme south, became independent,
followed [[73]] three years later by Bengal. The Hindu rajas in the south organized
a confederacy, and in 1336 Vijayanagar became the nucleus of a powerful Hindu
state. A year later, when the Muslim chiefs in the Deccan set up the independent
Bahmani kingdom, the entire area south of the Vindhyas was lost to Delhi. In the
same year Gujarat and Kathiawar revolted, but the sultan was able to quell the
rebellions in these two areas. Next it was Sind, and in 1351 he was marching
towards Thatta to put down the revolt when he fell ill and died. As Badauni says,
"The king was freed from his people and they from their king."
While the breakup of the Delhi Sultanate began in the reign of Muhammad
Tughluq, the disasters which overtook him during the last years of his reign need
not be the only basis for assessing his character and abilities. Until extreme
irritation at the failure of his plans had warped his judgment, driving him to
revolting cruelties, he had tried, as a man of ideas, to steer his course according to
certain intelligent plans and considerations. His policy toward the Hindus, for
example, was conciliatory, and he had tried to introduce social reforms, such as the
abolition of sati. He appointed a Hindu as governor of Sind, and employed others in
high positions. The Jain chroniclers remember with gratitude the respect with which
he received their theologians. When northern India was afflicted by the seven-year
famine, he built a new town on the Ganges near the worst affected area, giving it
the Hindu name of Svargdvara, the "Gate of Heaven."
Muhammad Tughluq's greatest achievement was in the south. Previous rulers,
particularly Ala-ud-din Khalji, had established suzerainty over the Hindu princes of
the south, but in general had left them in possession of their territories as long as
they paid tribute. Muhammad Tughluq, however, set out to end Hindu rule in the
south. Warangal and Madura had already been incorporated in the Tughluq
dominions, and now Kampili and a large part of the Hoysala dominions shared the
same fate. Not all of these conquests were maintained, for even during
Muhammad's lifetime a powerful Hindu reaction led to the foundation of
Vijayanagar, but much remained. Above all, the creation of Daulatabad out of the
old fortress city of Devagiri gave the Muslims a great stronghold.
Mention must be made also of the attempt by Muhammad Tughluq [[74]] to
establish links with other Muslim countries. Among the many distinguished visitors
who came to Delhi at this time perhaps the most famous was Ibn Battuta (c.1304
1378), the Moorish traveler who was appointed chief judge in the capital. He has left
an interesting account of the capital as well as of places in Sind, Multan, and the

Punjab which he visited on the way to Delhi. He was sent on a diplomatic mission to
China, and although he did not return to India, his Book of Travels is a useful source
for the history of Indo-Islamic society.
Muhammad Tughluq's successor was his cousin, Firuz Tughluq, who reigned
from 1351 to 1388. While the commencement of the Tughluq rule had seen a new
emphasis on orthodoxy, Firuz's reign saw an even greater attempt to govern India in
conformity with Islamic law. Until Aurangzeb, in fact, no other ruler made such a
serious endeavor to champion orthodoxy as a guide for the state. The study of
Islamic law was encouraged, and Firuz attempted to enforce the law not only among
orthodox Muslims, but also among sects such as the Ismaili Shias and the nonMuslims. For the first time jizya was levied upon the Brahmans, who had hitherto
remained exempt from the tax. On appeal, the king reduced the amount to be
levied from 10 tankas to 50 jitals, but maintained the tax as a legal formality.
In this support of orthodoxy Firuz was probably swayed by personal religious
beliefs, even though he was not, in his private life, a strict follower of the Islamic
code. Probably he was conscious also that one reason for Muhammad Tughluq's
failures was lack of support from the powerful religious leaders, and therefore he
was anxious to win them to his side.
The measures by which Firuz helped to gain a reputation for orthodoxy were of
a formal nature; the developments which shed luster on his reign were the steps
taken in the furtherance of public welfare. In many ways he was the ablest of the
Muslim rulers of Delhi previous to Akbar, and contemporary historians describe at
length the steps he took to assist agriculture, promote employment, and secure the
happiness and prosperity of the people. He initiated extensive irrigation schemes,
digging five canals to distribute the water of the Sutlej and Jhelum over a large area.
One of these continues to be used up to the [[75]] present day. Also he set up an
employment bureau where young men who were without work in the city of Delhi
gave their qualifications, and occupations were found for them.
The greatest monuments of Firuz's rule, however, are the buildings and the
towns founded by him. He is credited with the erection of 200 towns, 40 mosques,
30 colleges, 30 reservoirs, 50 dams, 100 hospitals, 100 public baths, and 150
bridges. He built a magnificent new capital near Delhi, and the two important towns
of Jaunpur and Hissar were founded by him. He set up a regular Department of
Public Works, which erected new buildings and took steps to restore the structures
of former kings. He removed two gigantic monolithic pillars of the emperor Ashoka,
one from a village in the Ambala District and the other from Meerut, and had them
set up near Delhi. He also showed his interest in India's past by having translations
made of a number of Sanskrit books which he found during his conquest of Kangra
in 1361.

But Firuz did little to prevent the disintegration of the sultanate which had
already set in during the last years of the reign of his predecessor. The process was
speeded by his death, for a civil war broke out between his son and grandson. The
Hindu chiefs threw off their allegiance and governors of provinces became
independent. The weakness of the kingdom invited foreign invasion and in 1398
Timur, the Barlas Turkish chief who ruled at Samarqand, invaded India. He had no
intention of staying in India, but came, as had the invaders of four centuries before,
to take back slaves and booty. After terrible destruction, including the sacking of
Delhi, he returned home, but he had helped to destroy the Delhi Sultanate. Possibly
it could not have survived long in any case, but certainly Timur's raid effectively
prevented the Tughluqs from regaining their control.
The familiar story of dynastic decay thus repeated itself. In the decade
following Firuz's death, six sultans briefly occupied the throne. The last of the
Tughluq line, Mahmud, fled from Delhi during Timur's invasion. Although he returned
after his departure, managing to stay on the throne until 1413, he was not able to
ensure
the
succession
to
a
member
of
the
house.
VI. The Disintegration of the Sultanate
*The

First

Afghan

Kings*

==

*The

Rise

of

Regional

Kingdoms*

[[76]] IN THE century that intervened between the death of the last of the
Tughluq kings in 1413 and the emergence of a new Turkish power, the Mughals, in
the early years of the sixteenth century, two main processes can be seen at work in
Muslim India. One is the disintegration of the power of the Delhi Sultanate; the
other, and complementary to it, is the rise of independent regional Muslim
kingdoms. The centralizing authority of the Delhi sultan that had been asserted with
varying success since the time of Muhammad Ghuri (d.1206) ceased to be a
paramount factor in Indian political life, and its place was taken by kingdoms, many
of which were centers of great artistic achievement, and some of which were better
organized and more powerful than Delhi.
This did not mean, however, that the Delhi Sultanate passed away; on the
contrary, as a symbol of prestige and a source of wealth it remained the great prize
for which factions struggled and fought. The group that succeeded to the sultanate
on the death of Mahmud Tughluq are known as the Sayyids, although there is little
evidence that, as their name would suggest, they were descendants of the Prophet.
The first of them, Khizr Khan, considered himself to be the viceroy of Timur's son,
which in itself was an indication of the change that had come over the sultanate.
Three more members of the family continued to maintain some show of authority
until the last of the line, Alam Shah, retired from the turmoil of Delhi to the relative
peace of the provincial city of Badaun in 1448. It was against this background of

confusion that the wazir and nobles turned to Buhlul Lodi, the able governor of
Sirhind, and invited him to come to Delhi. Buhlul responded with alacrity and in
1451, without any opposition from Alam Shah, he occupied the throne, becoming
the
first
Afghan
ruler
in
India.
The First Afghan Kings
[[77]] Buhlul Lodi was a member of an Afghan family that had been rewarded
by the Sayyid sultans with control of the Sirhind district in the Punjab in return for
service as defenders of the northwestern frontier. From this base Buhlul Lodi had
gained control over eastern and central Punjab, and by the time the invitation came
from Delhi he was virtually independent of the sultanate. After he had succeeded to
the throne he sought to strengthen his position by bringing in Afghans from the
northwestern highlands, attracting them by grants of lands and estates. Energetic
and ambitious, he overlooked no opportunity of extending his dominion, and
throughout the nearly forty years of his reign he concentrated his power on
attempts to overcome the chiefs, both Hindu and Muslim, who had established
independent kingdoms during the previous reigns and now opposed the new
centralizing force emanating from Delhi. That part of this resistance met by the Lodi
kings was related to groups with attachments to the displaced Sayyid sultans is
suggested by the attitude of the ruler of Jaunpur, an important kingdom in the
central Gangetic plain. The ruler, Husain Sharqi, had married Jalila, a daughter of
the last Sayyid sultan of Delhi, and she persuaded her husband to invade Delhi. This
led to the defeat of the Jaunpur ruler and the annexation of his territory.
Buhlul's policy was continued by his son Sikandar (r.14891517), and while he
did not succeed in regaining the full territory that the Delhi sultans had once
controlled, at least he made the chiefs within the narrower boundaries recognize his
power. He spent four years (14991503) in thoroughly organizing the administration
of the trans-Gangetic province of Sambhal, and soon after he transferred his capital
from Delhi to Sikandara, a suburb of Agra, to be nearer the areas which required his
attention. This was, incidentally, the beginning of the future importance of Agra,
which hitherto had been a dependency of the more important fortress of Biana.
A patron of learning who himself wrote poetry, Sikandar attracted many
scholars to his court, including the well-known poet and mystic [[78]] Jamali
(d.1535). One of the most interesting works of the period, which was sponsored by
his wazir, Miyan Bhuva, was a voluminous book on medicine entitled Ma'dan-ulShifa or Tibb-i-Sikanadari, in which theories and prescriptions of Indian medicine
were consolidated. A work on music, Lahjat-i-Sikandar Shahi, of which the only
existing copy is in the Tagore Library of the University of Lucknow, was another
important contribution./1/
Muslim historians, including Nizam-ud-din Bakshi, the author of Tabaqat-iAkbari, have accused Sikandar of religious bigotry, but it was during his reign that

Hindus began to adjust to the new conditions, and a great many of them started to
learn Persian. Muslim interest in Indian medicine and music in the highest circles
has already been mentioned. In spite of Sikandar's reputation for bigotry it seems
fair to surmise that in the cultural sphere his period was one of active mutual
interest "among Hindus and Muslims for each other's learning, thus conducing to a
reapproachment." Sikandar died in 1517 and was succeeded by his son, Ibrahim
Lodi. Soon disputes between the sultan and his Afghan nobles, which simmered
throughout the Lodi period, became acute; and Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of
the Punjab and the king's uncle, invited Babur, the ruler of Kabul, to invade India.
After early incursions confined to the northwest and the Punjab, Babur met Ibrahim
in the first battle of Panipat on April 21, 1526, and, by defeating him and capturing
Delhi
and
Agra,
laid
the
foundation
for
the
Mughal
rule.
The Rise of Regional Kingdoms
One aspect of the history of Islamic civilization in India in the fifteenth century,
the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate, led to anarchy and turmoil, but the second
important feature, the rise of independent kingdoms, prevented the disintegration
of central authority from becoming an unqualified disaster. It can be argued, indeed,
that splitting the realm into regional kingdoms resulted in Muslim penetration of
areas hitherto unconquered, such as Kathiawar and eastern Bengal.
[[79]] The administration of smaller and more compact territories was
certainly more effective, and it is doubtful if the loosely controlled and vaguely
demarcated iqtas of the sultanate could have developed into the wellorganized subasof the Mughal period without the rise and consolidation of regional
kingdoms. Because of these kingdoms, closer administrative control over areas
where old Hindu chiefs had exercised a great degree of autonomy became a reality
for the first time.
The rise of the regional kingdoms also helped the spread of Islam and Muslim
culture. During the days of the sultanate, Delhi was the one major center of Islamic
culture and religion; now Ahmadabad, Jaunpur, Gulbarga, Sonargaon, Gaur, Pandua,
and other provincial capitals became active centers of Muslim religious and cultural
activity. Delhi had a large number of influential immigrants, and the cultural
traditions of the capital reflected mainly the Central Asian pattern. At the capitals of
the regional kingdoms, Muslims and immigrants were not in a majority, and the
cultural activity in these areas mirrored the indigenous tradition to a much greater
extent. It was in these regional kingdoms, therefore, that Muslim impact led to the
rise of vernaculars and paved the way for the religious synthesis advocated by
some leaders of the bhakti movement. Music was more actively patronized in such
regional centers as Kashmir, Jaunpur, Malwa, and Gujarat than at the capital of the
sultanate. Another important difference between the capital and the regional
kingdoms which affected culture was the fact that the rulers of the regional
kingdoms were not preoccupied with the threat of Mongol invasions and other

similar problems of the central government. They were able to devote greater
attention to cultural pursuits at their courts than was possible in Delhi. The
elaborate literary and cultural activity which was carried on in Kashmir under Zainul-Abidin's direct patronage, for example, finds no parallel in the annals of the
sultanate.
These cultural activities of the regional kingdoms paved the way, moreover, for
the broader basis of Mughal culture. The Mughal cultural pattern was derived
primarily from Herat, Samarqand, Tabriz, and Isfahan; yet it included many features
which were absent during the sultanate. A possible explanation is that these had
gained prominence in the regional kingdoms. Examples of this process are the
attention [[80]] paid to the development of vernacular [literature], the official
patronage of music, and the greater scope offered to Hindu thought and art forms.
The extraordinarily rapid rise of Urdu during the eighteenth century was made
possible by the slow maturing of the Deccani in the courts of Bijapur and Golkunda,
and many other features of the regional cultural traditions were absorbed in the
pattern of the Mughal culture.
Among the areas which became independent during the weakness of the
sultanate, Bengal was probably the most important. Although Muhammad bin
Bakhtiyar Khalji had made the first Muslim conquest about 1202, his hold extended
over only a small portion of northern Bengal. After conquering Nadiya, the old Hindu
capital, he withdrew northward and confined himself to the areas near Bihar. His
successors gradually extended the Muslim dominion in the east, but their efforts
were fitful and often accompanied by defiance of Delhi's authority. We hear about
Sonargaon (near modern Dacca) for the first time in 1280, when Balban, in pursuit
of Tughril, the rebellious deputy in Bengal, compelled the Hindu raja of Sonargaon to
undertake a search for the rebel. Tughril's revolt forced Balban to face the problem
of chronic rebellion in Bengal, and he tackled it with his usual thoroughness. After
dealing with the rebels he stayed on to reorganize the administration, appointed his
son Bughra Khan as the viceroy of the territory, and left a team of carefully selected
officers to assist the prince.
The measures taken by Balban in Bengal proved fruitful. The consequences of
posting a team of highly educated and cultured officials from Delhi were soon
evident, and the Islamization of the territory was begun. Although Bughra Khan lost
his chance of succeeding Balban at Delhi because of his preference for Bengal, this
enabled Balban's family to continue their sway in the eastern territory long after its
rule had ended at Delhi. The reigns of Bughra Khan's successors from 1286 to 1328
constituted a period of active expansion. Southern and eastern Bengal came under
their control, and important centers were established at Satgaon (Hugli district) and
Sonargaon. One of these rulers, Shams-ud-din Firuz (r.13011322) extended Muslim
dominion across the Brahmaputra into the Sylhet district of [[81]]
*REGIONAL KINGDOMS AT THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY*

[[82]] Assam. These efforts were facilitated by the arrival of a large number of
Turkish officers and soldiers who had been displaced by the Khaljis at Delhi. In
addition, the volunteers for jihad, or holy war, locally known as ghazis, and other
spirited volunteers actively assisted in Muslim expansion. The conquest of Sylhet in
1303, for example, is attributed by both Muslim and Hindu accounts to the support
which the Muslim troops received from a contemporary soldier-saint, Shah Jalal, who
lies buried at Sylhet. Many other warrior-saints, such as Zafar Khan Ghazi of Tribheni
near Hugli and Shah Ismail Ghazi in Rangpur district, are mentioned in
contemporary accounts.
Although Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq reasserted the authority of Delhi over Bengal
in 1234, the troubles which broke out in the reign of his son Muhammad Tughluq
resulted in the independence of the area once more. The two expeditions of the
next ruler, Firuz Tughluq, could not reverse this process, and Bengal remained
independent until its conquest by Akbar in 1576.
Independent Bengal was ruled by a succession of dynasties, of which two are
noteworthy. The rulers of the Ilyas Shahi dynasty, who were on the throne of Bengal
from 1338 to 1415, and again from 1437 to 1487, secured the independence of the
province, dealt with the two expeditions of Firuz Tughluq, revived Bengal's contacts
with the outside world, and won notable victories against neighboring non-Muslim
rulers of Tirhut, Nepal, and Orissa. Among them, Ghiyas-ud-din Azam Shah (r.1393
1410) tried to attract the great Persian poet Hafiz to his court, sent large sums of
money to holy places in Hijaz, and exchanged envoys with the contemporary
Chinese emperor. His small, beautiful tomb at Sonargaon is the oldest Muslim
monument in East Pakistan. Soon after his death, Ganesh, a Hindu zamindar of
Dinajpur, seized power, and the local Muslims sought aid from the Muslim ruler of
the neighboring kingdom of Jaunpur. When the Sharqui king threatened to
intervene, Ganesh vacated the throne in favor of his son, who accepted Islam. He
ruled from 1415 to 1431. Six years later his successor was assassinated, possibly as
a result of rivalry between the Hindu and Muslim nobles, and the Ilyas Shahi
dynasty was restored to power.
[[83]] Much briefer, but somewhat better documented, was the tenure of the
Hussain Shahi dynasty (14931539). It produced two able rulersAla-ud-din Husain
Shah (r.14931519) and his son Nusrat Shah (r.15191532). They were competent
rulers, liberal in outlook, and great patrons of cultural activities. They recovered lost
territories, and left magnificent buildings at Gaur and Pandua. Their patronage of
letters was not confined to Persian, the court language; they gave encouragement
to the rising Bengali literature, and many Sanskrit works were translated into
Bengali at their court. The confusion following the assassination of Nusrat Shah in
1532 enabled the Afghan, Sher Khan Suri, to intervene, and he conquered the
province in 1539. It remained in Afghan hands until 1576, when Akbar annexed it to
the Mughal empire.

Another important independent kingdom was the Bahmani sultanate in the

Deccan which lasted from 1347 to 1527. For a little less than a century and a half
(13471482) it prospered until it extended from the western to the eastern coasts of
South India. Ultimately it broke into five principalitiesthe Adil Shahis of Bijapur
(14901686), the Nizam Shahis of Ahmadnagar (14801633), the Imad Shahis of
Berar (14901568), the Barid Shahis of Bidar (14801609), and the Qutb Shahis of
Golkunda (15121687).
The rulers of these Deccan kingdoms attracted scholars, poets, and statesmen
from Persia and Iraq, but local talent was employed to a much larger extent than
was the case at Delhi. At one time the principal ministers at Bijapur were Hindu, and
the Maratha chief, Shahji of Ahmadnagar, the father of Shivaji, occupied a
distinguished position in the army. In linguistic matters also there was closer
collaboration between the Hindus and the Muslims. Marathi was the language used
for village records, and the rulers helped the development of the Deccani variety of
Hindustani. They themselves composed verses in that language and encouraged
others, and it was no accident that although Hindustani appeared in northern India
in the very beginning of the Muslim rule, it was the Deccani idiom that first attained
literary status.
Other important regional kingdoms which rose were Gujarat (1403
1572), [[84]] Jaunpur (13931479), Malwa (14001561), Khandesh (13821601),
and Multan (14441524). Sind was also independent at this time, as indeed it had
been for centuries. During the two centuries of their independent rule, the kings of
Gujarat built many magnificent buildings and founded new cities, including
Ahmadabad. Their encouragement of arts and crafts laid the foundation of many of
the industries for which Gujarat became famous during the Mughal period. Jaunpur,
in the central Gangetic plain, became a great cultural center after Timur's
destruction of Delhi. The rulers provided asylum for the leading scholars from the
capital, and by bestowing rich endowments on scholarly families laid the foundation
for that intellectual preeminence of the region which has been maintained until
recent times. The last king of Jaunpur, Sultan Husain Sharqi, was an ineffective
ruler, but, because of his patronage, he occupies an important place in the history
of Indian music.
Kashmir was also an independent Muslim kingdom, having remained outside
the kingdom of Delhi until its conquest by Akbar in 1586. Muslim rule had been
established there in the first half of the fourteenth century. Its most noteworthy
ruler was Zain-ul-Abidin, who ruled from 1420 to 1470. He abolished jizya and freely
patronized Hindu learning. At his court several works were translated from Sanskrit
into Persian and Persian and Arabic works were translated into Kashmiri.
The breakup of the Delhi Sultanate led not only to the establishment of a
number of Muslim kingdoms, but in certain areas the Hindu chiefs also reasserted
themselves. In addition to the minor chieftains who became independent, a

powerful state was established at Mewar in Rajputana. Rana Sanga, who came to
the throne in 1509, was successful in battle against the Muslim kings of Gujarat and
Malwa as well as the Lodi ruler of Delhi. By 1526 he had become the most powerful
ruler of northern India, and when Babur was establishing Mughal rule, his most
important victory was not that against the Lodi ruler at Panipat but against Rana
Sanga and his Afghan confederates at Kanwah in 1527. Sanga was poisoned shortly
after his defeat, and Mewar's importance declined.
In the south an even more important Hindu kingdom was established [[85]] in
1336 at Vijayanagar. This lasted until 1564, when the Muslim rulers of the Deccan
united and administered a complete defeat to the Vijayanagar army at Talikota.
Mention must be made also of another power that made its appearance at this
time. On May 27, 1498, the Portuguese admiral Vasco da Gama, guided by the Arab
pilot Ahmad ibn Majid whom he had pressed into service on reaching the East
African coast, appeared before Calicut. A new chapter had opened not only in the
history of India but of the entire East. Soon the Portuguese established themselves
as the masters of the Indian Ocean. They did not establish a regional kingdom, but
instead occupied and fortified the key points of Daman, Diu, and Goa. They
controlled Indian coastal waters until their mastery was challenged first by the
Dutch,
and
then
by
the
British.
VII. The Administrative System of the Sultanate
*Political Theory* == *Structure of Government* == *Revenue* == *The Army* ==
*Justice*
==
*Provincial
Administration*
[[86]] A RAPID survey of the three-hundred-year history of the Delhi Sultanate
is likely to leave the reader with two impressions. One is of a political structure in
which violence, based on a powerful fighting force, was the only support of a ruler's
government; the other is that anything like a coherent political philosophy was
completely lacking. What is becoming increasingly plain, however, as the period is
studied in more depth, is that the sultanate under its abler rulers had a quite
sophisticated administrative structure. In addition, the Turkish sultans were heirs to
a tradition in which political theory had been considerably evolved, and there were
many scholars in Islamic India who had given thought to both the general principles
underlying government and the techniques of public administration. We know of the
works of some of these writers only from casual references in other books, but a
number which have survived suggest the background of thought against which the
sultanate's
actual
administrative
structure
developed.
Political Theory

The earliest work of importance for the history of political thought of Muslim
India was probably intended to be a blueprint for the first Muslim government at
Delhi. It was written by a contemporary of Iltutmish, Fakhr-i-Mudabbir, who had
spent a considerable part of his life at Lahore, where he met Sultan Muhammad
Ghuri and Sultan Qutb-ud-din Aibak, to whom one of his works, a book on
genealogies, was presented in 1206. The historical introduction to this work has
been translated into English,/1/ but his more important work, variously styled Adabul-Muluk wa Kifayat al Mamluk (Rules for the Kings [[87]] and the Welfare of the
Subjects) or Adab-ul-Harab wal-Shujaat (Rules of Warfare and Bravery), has not yet
been published in its entirety. It was undoubtedly intended to be a guide for rulers
and administrators. The first part of this book deals with the privileges and
responsibilities of kings, with separate chapters giving the qualifications and
functions of different officers of state. The rest of the book is a manual dealing
systematically and in some detail with the art of war. The work was presented to
Iltutmish and, as the contemporary histories show, the government organization set
up by him corresponded very closely to the structure visualized by Fakhr-i-Mudabbir.
Another early work, of which only an incomplete copy has survived, belongs to
a different category. This is Fatawa-i-Jahandari (Rulings on Government) by Ziya-uddin Barani (12851357), the greatest of fourteenth-century historians of Muslim
India. A political phantasy consisting mainly of a number of discourses purporting to
have been addressed by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni to his successor, it was written
after Barani had retired from the royal court in disgrace. It reflects Barani's
bitterness against recent trends, his extremism, and his acute class-consciousness.
He is bitter not only against the Hindus but also against the Muslim lower classes
who, he believed, should not be "taught reading and writing, for plenty of disorders
arise owing to the skill of the low-born in knowledge For on account of their skill,
they became governors, revenue collectors, auditors, officers and rulers." If the
teachers disregard this edict, and it is discovered that "they have imparted
knowledge or taught letters or writing to the low-born, inevitably the punishment for
disobedience will be meted out to them."/2/Fatawa-i-Jahandari represents an
individual's views, and made no impression on the course of Indo-Muslim history or
political thought. Indeed, it is not referred to by any later writer or historian, and is
not included in the fairly full list of Barani's works given by his contemporary, Amir
Khurd. The importance of the book is partly personal, as an insight into the mind of
Barani, and partly topical, as it gives his views in the context of the political and
social situation then prevailing. In spirit and sentiments, Fatawa-i-Jahandari[[88]] is
in complete contrast with Fakhr-i-Mudabbir's book, which is throughout inspired by
practical idealism, moderation and good sense.
Barani dealt at length with political philosophies of early Muslim rulers,
statesmen, and religious leaders in his great historical work, Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi.
The long discourses on political affairs and statecraft contained in his book are
dramatizations and expansions by an eloquent historian who is also a creative

artist. Among the most interesting of these discourses are Nur-ud-din Mubarik
Ghaznavi's advice to Iltutmish on the responsibilities of a Muslim "Defender of the
Faith" (Din Panah); Balban's views on kingship, and his long lecture to his son,
Bughra Khan, the governor of Bengal, on the relationship between the central and
the provincial governments; Ahmad Chap's advice to Jalal-ud-din Khalji; Kotwal Alaul-Mulk's discourses at Ala-ud-din's consultative assemblies; and Qazi Mughis's
views on major political and legal problems of the day. They are presumably colored
by his own predilictions, and should not be treated as verbally authentic, but the
views attributed to different rulers and dignitaries are so distinct and so much in
character that they may be taken to represent generally the individual views of the
persons to whom they are attributed.
To turn from theory to practice, the first comment that should be made on the
Islamic state in India is that it was not a theocracy, as sometimes has been
suggested. Aside from the question of the relevance of the concept of a theocracy
to a society that does not recognize a priesthood, by the time the Delhi Sultanate
was established the religious function of the caliph had ceased to be of much
significance for the outlying Islamic world. It is true that a few of the Delhi rulers
obtained formal recognition of their titles from the caliph, but this pious legal fiction
did not alter the reality. The temporal authority of the caliph at Baghdad dwindled to
a mere shadow even within his own territories, and the actual reality of the Indian
links with the caliphate may be judged by the fact that occasionally a caliph would
have been dead for years before Delhi became aware of the event. The patents
obtained by the rulers meant so little that at one time a caliph sent patents
simultaneously to both rulers of Delhi and Bengal.
In any case the policy adopted by the early sultans under the stress [[89]] of
circumstances with which they were confronted could scarcely permit the growth of
theocracy. Iltutmish, recognizing the essentially secular nature of the sultanate saw
that under the conditions prevailing in India, it was not possible for him to be a
"Defender of the Faith" except in limited spheres. Balban went even further. In spite
of his courtesy to the leading ulama and his personal observance of religious
practices, in matters of administration he was guided by the needs of the state, not
Islamic law. Ala-ud-din Khalji followed the same policy. "When he became sultan,"
Barani records, "he came to the conclusion that polity and government are one
thing, and the rules and decrees of Islamic law are another. Royal commands belong
to the sultan, Islamic legal decrees rest upon the judgment of the qazis and
muftis."/3/ It was under the Tughluqs, particularly under Firuz, that Muslim jurists
gained some recognition, but by then the pattern of Muslim rule in India had
become firmly established.
The early ulama, realizing the complexity of the Indian situation and the need
for strengthening the Muslim government, accepted Iltutmish's policy. Their lack of
power may be judged by the fact that Raziyya ascended the throne of Delhi
although Muslim legal opinion is firmly opposed to female rulers; it was left to a

much later scholar, Shaikh Abdul Haq Muhaddis (15511642), in the more legalistic
days of the Mughals, to criticize the selection of Raziyya and express surprise at the
action of the contemporary jurists and Shaikhs in confirming it. There was an
equally glaring departure from the correct legal position in Qutb-ud-din Aibak's
acceptance as sultan before his manumission. In general, then, the position was
that so long as a sultan undertook to safeguard the honor and the observances of
Islam, did nothing in open defiance of the principles of shariat, appointed qazis and
made arrangements for religious education and observance of religious practices,
the ulama did not interfere in the affairs of the state.
The use of the title "sultan" in itself indicates the transition from the quasitheocratic caliphate to a secular institution. Although the process was implicit in the
establishment and administration of the [[90]] Umayyad caliphate, it was
strengthened by the Persian belief in the divine right of kings. This idea, which had
become dominant in Baghdad under the later Abbasids, was even more marked at
Ghazni. At Delhi, in the early days of the Turkish rule, there was some opposition to
it in orthodox Muslim circles, and Iltutmish was almost apologetic about his kingly
role./4/ The position completely changed with Balban, who was an advocate of
Persian ideas, modeled his court after the Persian style, assumed the title
of zillullah, and introduced Persian etiquette, court ceremonial, and festivities. With
him Persian ideas of monarchy became dominant. The process was facilitated by
the fact that the Hindus regarded a king as a representative of divine powers.
These theories gave medieval rulers powers which occasionally were used
arbitrarily, but a number of checks remained on the absolute exercise of authority
by the sultan. For one thing, the Islamic theory curtails the law-making power of a
ruler, and although there was nothing to stop an autocratic ruler from becoming a
law unto himself, he could do so only in defiance of the system which gave him
power. Even the autocratic Ala-ud-din Khalji admitted that administration of justice
was the concern of the Muslim jurists.
Equally important was the opinion of the nobility. The sultans consulted their
chief nobles and the routine affairs of the state were left to them. Minhaj refers to a
dignitary, Amir-i-Majlis, whose duty was to arrange meetings of the sultan's closest
associates. Important questions were discussed freely, and some favorite royal
schemes (such as Ala-ud-din's proposal to establish a new religion) were ruled out.
Together with the influence of public opinion and the natural desire of the sultan to
maintain his position, the nobles in this way exercised a check on the theoretical
absolutism enjoyed by him.
According to Muslim theory, held particularly by the Sunnis who formed the
bulk of the Muslim population in India, election was the accepted method for
selecting the ruler. This was rarely observed anywhere, and both Turko-Iranian and
Hindu conceptions of sovereignty were opposed to it, but a form of limited election
or acceptance was generally followed at Delhi. The oath of allegiance taken by the

governors [[91]] of the provinces, the principal nobles of the capital, and the chief
theologians was taken as a symbol of the indirect consent of the mass of the
people.
Structure of Government
Fakhr-i-Mudabbir lists the principal dignitaries of the state as follows:
wazir, wakil-i-dar, amir-i-dad, amir-i-hajib, mushrif, mustaufi,
and sahib-i-barid.
The wakil-i-dar (not to be confused with the wakil-i-sultanat of the Sayyid dynasty
and the wakil-i-mutliq of the Mughals) was the controller of the household.
The amir-i-dad (literally lord of justice) was the most important judicial dignitary.
The amir-i-hajib is often designated as the chief chamberlain, but this does not fairly
describe the functions and duties of this officer. He was the master of ceremonies at
the court; no one could enter the royal presence without being introduced by one of
his assistants, and all petitions were presented to the sultan through him. The post,
therefore, was one of great prestige and was reserved for trusted nobles. One
holder of this post, Balban, was the most powerful noble of his day. Themushrif was
the accounts officer responsible for income, and the mustaufi for expenditure.
The sahib-i-barid was in charge of communications and intelligence.
The chief minister of the sultan was called the wazir. Fakhr-i-Mudabbir
considered the wazir a "partaker in sovereignty" and recommended that in his own
technical domain he must be left free by the monarch. He describes the normal
functions of the wazir in the following passage: "The kings know well how to lead
expeditions, conquer countries, give rewards, and shine in the assembly or
battlefield; but it is the domain of the wazir to make a country prosperous, to
accumulate treasures, to appoint officials, to ask for accounts, to arrange for the
stock-taking of the commodities in the karkhanas, and the census of horses, camels,
mules, and other animals, to assemble and pay the troops and artisans, to keep the
people satisfied, to look after the men of piety and fame and to give them stipends,
to take care of the widows and the orphans, to provide for the learned, to administer
the affairs of the people, and to organize the business of [[92]] the state."/5/ This
was the position in early days, when the wazir was in charge of the entire
government, both the civil and the military departments and the functions which
were later entrusted to Sadr-i-Jahan, but this arrangement underwent drastic
changes in the light of practical experience. In view of the importance of the office,
and to illustrate the administrative experiments that were carried on under the
sultanate, it will be useful to sketch the history of the wizarat [=vazir-ship].
Although few details are known about administrative arrangements during the
brief rule of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, presumably the practice of combining civil and
military offices (which was introduced by the Ghaznavids at Lahore, and was
continued under the Ghuris) remained in operation. This was also the position under
Iltutmish. His first wazir, Nizam-ul-Mulk Junaidi, was in charge of all sections of the
government, and in addition to his civil duties, was occasionally entrusted with

military commands. During the troubled reign of Raziyya and her successors,
Khwaja Muhazzab-ud-din used his influence with the weak rulers and his own
capacity for intrigue to consolidate his position by taking all power out of the hands
of the nobles. An attempt was made to curb the wazir's powers by the creation of
the post of naib (deputy of the realm), but this was unsuccessful and the wazir
continued to be all-powerful. Muhazzab's opponents, therefore, joined forces and
had him assassinated.
His death marks the close of a period in the history of the wizarat. The
provincial governors and other administrative officers would not permit an individual
selected for his ability in office to obtain so much power. His successors were
selected for their docility. Balban, even before he became deputy, was more
powerful than the wazir, and when he became sultan, he took away the military
functions of the wizarat. The rawat-i-arz (the muster-master, who was originally in
charge of the finances and records of military personnel) was made independent of
the wazir.
Some fifty years later, Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq made an even more interesting
experiment. He created a board of three ex-wazirs, with the senior having the high
title of malik-ul-wuzara (chief minister). [[93]] Ghiyas consulted them in all
important matters, but the routine work of the wizarat was carried on by Malik
Shadi, his son-in-law.
With the general policy of the Tughluqs to approximate standard Muslim
practice in all matters and with Muhammad Tughluq's preference for Arab and
Persian ways, we notice a reversion to the earlier character of the wizarat. Khwaja
Jahan, though essentially a civil servant, was occasionally entrusted with military
duties. This change is more marked under Firuz, whose wazir fulfilled the Arab
notion of an all-powerful wazir. Khan Jahan, a Hindu from Telingana who had
accepted Islam at the hands of Hazrat Nizam-ud-din Auliya, exercised both civil and
military powers. His position may be judged by Firuz's frequent remark that Khan
Jahan was virtually the sultan of Delhi. After his death in 1372, his son became wazir
and followed his father's ideas for a long period, but this led to jealousy, and in
1387 he was killed in a quarrel with a noble. This also marked the end of Firuz
Tughluq's power and the decline of the dynasty. Khwaja Jahan Sarvar-ul-Mulk, the
wazir (13901394) of Muhammad Shah, exercised authority both in civil and military
spheres, but realizing that the sultanate was tottering, he had one of the military
leaders made wakil-i-sultanat, and he himself left for the eastern provinces, where
he carved out a kingdom for himself in Jaunpur.
With the accession to power of the Lodi dynasty, the wizarat lost some of its
importance, for Buhlul Lodi, with his tribal conception of kingship did not establish
an organized wizarat. Sikandar Lodi, however, saw the impossibility of applying this
tribal conception to a huge territory and had a regular diwan and a wizarat. His
wazir, however, seems to have confined himself to civil work.

The developments that took place under the Mughals will be described later,
but essentially their wizarat was based on Balban's model, with the holder of the
office confined to civil duties. This meant that the wazir in the Indian Islamic state
had less power than that assigned to him by Muslim political theorists, but the
system worked fairly well. Indian tradition and the needs of the Islamic rulers
favored strong monarchs. It is probably true that the people, insofar as they had a
preference,
preferred
an
absolute
monarch
to
an
absolute
wazir.
Revenue
[[94]] The financial arrangements of the sultanate were in accordance with
the normal Islamic theory and practice as inherited from the Ghaznavid
predecessors, but they were modified in the light of local needs and usages. Land
revenue was, as in Hindu India, the mainstay of the government. Sultan Qutb-ud-din
Aibak, the first Muslim ruler, fixed the state demand (kharaj) at one-fifth of the gross
produce. In land revenue, as in other spheres, Balban laid down the administrative
pattern for the sultanate. According to W. H. Moreland, one of the most careful
students of Indian economic history, Balban "had grasped the main principles of
rural economy in an Indian peasant-state, at a period when the environment
afforded little scope for individual advance; he aimed at a peaceful and contented
peasantry, raising ample produce and paying a reasonable revenue; and he saw
that it was the king's duty to direct the administration with this object in
view."/6/ Under Ala-ud-din Khalji, because of the need to build up a large army, the
state demand was raised to one-half of the produce, the uppermost limit allowed by
Muslim law. In the following reign the heavy demands were lowered. The scale of
demand in the reign of the first Tughluq king has been a matter of dispute.
According to R. R. Tripathi, Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq fixed the demand at 10 percent of
the produce; according to Moreland, the relevant reference in the contemporary
history refers to the limit of increase being 10 percent. I. H. Qureshi, on the other
hand, holds that except for a few areas the general charge on land was a fifth of the
produce, which was maintained from the earliest days of the sultanate until the end
of Firuz Shah's reign. Under the Mughal rulers who followed Timur's precedent in
charging a third of the produce as land revenue, the scale was raised and Sher
Shah, who had seen the increase in the state demand under Babur and Humayun,
followed their example./7/
[[95]] Apart from the land revenue there were a number of local imposts
imposed on various occasions. Orthodox Muslims considered them illegal, and the
two monarchs who made an attempt to run the state in accordance with Islamic
law, Firuz Tughluq and Aurangzeb, abolished these taxes. These imposts were of
ancient origin, however, and most sultans permitted them. And when the rulers
abolished them, they were realized by corrupt officials or even by panchayats. A tax
which gained importance during Firuz's reign was the charge levied for use of canal
water. Firuz was not the first to dig canals, but he was the first monarch to ask

Muslim jurists whether an irrigation tax was lawful. The jurists' reply was in the
affirmative, and so a 10 percent addition was made to the land revenue in cases
where canal water was used for irrigation.
During the early period, when the subcontinent was being conquered and new
areas were being occupied, the ghanimah (the spoils of war) provided an important
source of state income. According to Islamic law, all booty should be collected and a
fifth set apart for the state, the rest being distributed among the soldiers. Later the
practice was reversed and four-fifths of the booty was appropriated by the state
treasury. Firuz's ulama considered it illegal, and Firuz ordered the restoration of the
old rate as fixed by the law.
The taxes which had a special religious significance in an Islamic statezakat
and jizyahave been the subject of much controversy, both as regards their nature
and their actual imposition during Muslim rule in India. Zakat was imposed only on
Muslims; it is not, strictly speaking, a tax in the normal sense, since its payment was
an act of piety. Contemporary historians do not record that zakat was levied by the
sultans of Delhi, and their silence has been taken to mean that the procedure,
common to all Islamic states, was followed. There were, at any rate, arrangements
for the receipt of zakat, paid voluntarily by Muslims as a religious duty, and Fiqh-iFiruz Shahi mentions a separate treasury for zakat. Toward the end of the sultanate,
Sikandar Lodi abolished the zakat on grain and it was not renewed by any
subsequent sultan.
The question of jizya is even more complex, not only because of the lack of
clarity in the contemporary records but also because of [[96]] the strong emotional
reaction that has been aroused in discussion concerning it. Under Islamic law, jizya
was a tax levied on non-Muslims. This action can be interpreted as an equitable
arrangement, since only Muslims had to pay zakat; and, in addition, they alone were
liable to military service. From this point of view it was, in the words of a modern
historian, a poll tax levied on non-Muslims "in return for which they received
protection of life and property, and exemption for military service."/8/ In the Quran
jizya is used in the same sense as kharaj, meaning simply a tax, and the fact that
early Muslim writers in India preserve this usage without attaching any technical
significance to the term suggests that it was not levied during the first conquests.
However it was later levied as a poll tax. As such it was borrowed from Persia, where
it was called gezit. The failure of the historians to indicate when jizya was paid
cannot be taken as an indication, as has been sometimes suggested, that some
rulers, notably Ala-ud-din, did not levy jizya because they refused to accord the
Hindus the status of zimmis, or protected peoples./9/ The reason jizya is not more
definitely mentioned in the records is probably that for the sake of convenience in
rural areas, where the population was overwhelmingly Hindu, jizya and kharaj, the
land tax, were realized as a consolidated tax. In the early days of the sultanate the
rulers had not built up an elaborate organization, and tax farmingthrough Hindu
middlemenwas the normal means of recovery. It appears unlikely that apart from

a comprehensive demand made on a village or a territory, separate or specific

realization of jizya was feasible. Where jizya was recovered it was charged in three
categories. The wealthy paid four dinars per head per annum, the middle groups
two dinars, and the poor, one dinar./10/ Women, children, and those on a bare
subsistence level were excused.
Nothing better illustrates the practical approach of the early Muslim rulers to
administrative problems than the cautious evolution of their coinage system.
Muhammad Ghuri has usually been pictured as an ardent Muslim, zealous in the
destruction of Hindu idols and the establishment [[97]] of Islamic religion. Yet of the
three of his coins which are extant, two are mere imitations of earlier Hindu coins,
with even the figure of the goddess Lakshmi reproduced, the only distinguishing
element being the sovereign's name inscribed in Indian characters. The third coin,
though based on the dinar of the Muslim countries, bears a Devanagri legend and
the figure of a horseman, much in the tradition of the Hindu coins. This evidence
suggests that Muslim rulers, faced with the problem of establishing a new currency
among a people unacquainted with the Muslim coinage system, much less with
Arabic, disturbed existing usages and practices as little as possible. Not until sixty
years after the conquest of Delhi did Balban finally complete the process, begun by
Iltutmish, of replacing the Hindu device of the bull and horseman with the
sovereign's name in Devanagari characters.
In the early days of the sultanate, the jital, an adaptation of the old dehliwala
current before Muslim rule, was the token coin in use. Iltutmish introduced the silver
tankah (which was replaced by the rupiah of Sher Shah and Akbar), but even this
innovation, in addition to its indigenous name, was linked to an Indian weight
standard. Once the monetary system was established, the rulers introduced
changes and improvements in the designs and legends of their coins and made
them approximate to the normal Muslim coinage in legend and appearance. Apart
from Muhammad Tughluq's unsuccessful effort to introduce token currency of mixed
metals, the coins were made of pure metal and the state took precautions to
maintain
their
purity
and
weight.
The Army
An effective army was a vital feature of the administrative structure of the
Islamic state in India; it is significant that Fakhr-i-Mudabbir's book on government
was largely a war manual. Good generalship, disciplined troops, and sound
knowledge of warfare techniques had been responsible for the conquest of India,
and the ablest of the sultans were aware that continuance of power depended upon
these same factors.
[[98]] The steps taken by Balban to keep his troops in good trim, and by Alaud-din Khalji to raise and maintain a large standing army, have been described by
Barani. The cavalry was the backbone of the army, but the sultans did not confine

their organization to the traditional pattern. They soon began to employ elephants
on an extensive scale, and Balban considered a single war elephant to be as
effective in battle as five hundred horsemen. The foot-soldiers (payaks) were mainly
Hindus of the lower classes. The military grades were organized on a decimal basis:
a sar-i-khail had ten horsemen under him; a sipah salar commanded ten sar-i-khails;
an amir ten sipah salars; a malik ten amirs; and akhan ten maliks./11/
The use of naphtha and Greek fire was known from early times. Incendiary
arrows and javelins as well as pots of combustibles were hurled against the enemy.
The Delhi army used grenades, fireworks, and rockets against Timur, but although
there are references to a crude form of cannon, and in the provincial kingdoms of
Gujarat and the Deccan this weapon was properly developed, the sultanate of Delhi
had not made much progress in the use of artillery. It was the neglect of this
weapon which turned the scales against the Delhi forces in the battle of Panipat in
1526.
For maintaining the army, the important functionary within the central
government was the ariz. Although Fakhr-i-Mudabbir, writing at the beginning of the
sultanate, does not emphasize the office of ariz, possibly because it was directly
under the wazir, by the time of Balban the position was independent of the wizarat.
With the expansion of the empire and the growth of the military side of the
government, the importance of the ariz increased. Not only did he function
sometimes as the general of the forces, but he also acted as the chief recruiting
officer and fixed the salary of each recruit. The commissariat was under him, and
his office, diwan-i-arz, disbursed salaries to the troops. Even the poet Amir Khusrau
and the other court officials who held a military rank received salaries from this
office. Thus already under the sultanate we can see the beginnings of the Mughal
system of placing all public servants on the army pay-list and giving them mansabs.
The ariz-i-mumalik was not the commander-in-chief, [[99]] or even the senior
generalthe sultan named the generals for different campaignsbut it is not
difficult to see in contemporary accounts the power and the importance of the head
of the diwan-i-arz. Jalal-ud-din Khalji held this post before he ascended the throne,
and the part played by Shaikh Farid, who held the corresponding position of mir
bakhshi under Akbar, in securing the accession of Jahangir is well known.
Justice
The administration of justice received attention quite early in the sultanate,
and here as elsewhere traditional Islamic practice was modified to suit the peculiar
problems of India. Four types of courts were normally recognized in Islamic society:
the diwan-i-mazalim, the court of complaints, presided over by the ruler or his
representative; the qazi's court, which administered the Holy Law of Islam; the
courts of the muhtasib, or censor, which dealt with public morals and offenses
against religious ordinances; and the shurta, or police courts. In India the third type

of court gained in power and prestige under the Tughluqs, and later under
Aurangzeb.
The first important judicial dignitary of the sultanate at Delhi to whom a
reference is found in contemporary records was the amir-i-dad, or chief magistrate.
He was a layman, and the office was usually reserved for a leading noble with
special aptitude for judicial work. Fakhr-i-Mudabbir suggested that only a member of
the royal family, or a nobleman known for piety and learning, should be appointed
to this post. A large salary was to be paid to him, as he might have to try complaints
against governors and high commanders. In the absence of the sultan, who
functioned as supreme judge throughout Muslim rule, the amir-i-dad presided over
the court of complaints, but his office had many other functions. He controlled the
police, was responsible for public works, including the maintenance of the city walls,
kept copies of documents registered with the qazi, and forbade covenants which
transgressed the law./12/ If he felt that there had been a miscarriage of justice he
could either draw the attention of the qazi [[100]] to the fact or delay the execution
of the decision until the matter was reconsidered by a fuller or a higher court; he
also ordered the arrest of criminals, dealt with breaches of law, and tried cases,
where necessary with the assistance of a qazi who functioned as a legal adviser.
While the system of dispensation of justice by the sultan or his representative
continued, administration of justice by the qazis grew in importance and became a
prominent feature of the Tughluq rule. The main concern of the qazi was civil
disputes among Muslims, although later his jurisdiction was widened to include the
supervision and management of the property of orphans and lunatics. Appointed by
the central government, he was completely independent of the provincial
governors. The office of the qazi-i-mumalik, or chief judge, was normally held by the
head of the ecclesiastical department, who was generally known as the sadr-i-jahan.
It is not certain whether he heard appeals against the judgments of the qazis. He
was also the sultan's legal adviser in matters relating to shariat, the holy law of
Islam. With the monarch retaining the powers of appointment of the chief qazi,
though the enlightened opinion and books on Muslim statecraft emphasize the
importance of appointing only honest, pious, and well-qualified qazis in the realm,
the sultan had the final say in the framing of the judicial structure. Public opinion
was critical of the appointment of chief qazis for considerations other than those of
merit, and most of the kings took steps to uphold the prestige of the judiciary. The
manner in which on one occasion Muhammad Tughluq appeared like an ordinary
plaintiff in the court of a qazi and saluted him may be nothing more than a
theatrical gesture, but such episodes built up the prestige of the courts and enabled
the general public and the legal profession to realize what was expected of the
judges. Although under a despotic monarchy there were obvious limitations to the
role which an individual could play, the jurists generally acted with courage and
independence. When Jalal-ud-din Khalji wanted Sayyid Maula, who was accused of
high treason, to vindicate himself by walking through fire, the jurists vetoed the idea

by contending that fire did not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty. The
sultan bowed to their decision, though he later connived at Sayyid's murder.
Similarly, in spite of Ala-ud-din Khalji's reputation for ruthlessness, [[101]] Qazi
Mughis-ud-din did not fail to criticize his actions, and in spite of this condemnation,
he rewarded the qazi. The sanctity attached to the office of qazi, as an expert in
Islamic law, and the pressure of public opinion, encouraged an honest and
independent judiciary, the need for which was universally recognized.
An important development during the sultanate was the crystallization of the
Indo-Muslim legal tradition. The first important figure in the legal history of the Delhi
Sultanate was Sayyid Nur-ud-din Mubarik, originally of Ghazni (d.1234). He was held
in high regard by Sultan Muhammad Ghuri, and he maintained his position even
though he was extremely critical of court etiquette and the mode of living adopted
by Muslim rulers. He wanted Iltutmish to deal firmly with non-Muslims, and he
condemned not only all heresy but also the study of philosophy. Barani often puts
some of his own ideas in the discourses which he attributes to important
personalities, but the puritanical, ascetic approach which he attributes to Nur-ud-Din
Mubarik appears typical of the early days of Muslim India, when simplicity and piety
found favor with the jurists and the ruling monarch.
A different type of personality, and one whose policy left a great mark on the
history of Islamic law in India, was Qazi Minhaj-us-Siraj, the most important historian
of the Slave dynasty. A native of Ghazni, he came to the subcontinent during the
reign of Iltutmish and received many important assignments. In the days of
Iltutmish's successors, including Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, he held the important office
of the chief qazi of the realm. It is said that the sama (ecstatic dances performed by
groups similar to the "whirling dervishes") to which most orthodox lawyers objected,
became prevalent in Delhi when Minhaj was qazi. A contemporary of Minhaj thought
that he was not fit to be a qazi, but should have been the principal Sufi shaikh.
These statements give a clue to his policies, for as he himself has recorded, he was
so unpopular with other ecclesiastics that once they even attempted to have him
assassinated./13/
In the light of these observations it is reasonable to infer that Minhaj was not
rigid in the application of Islamic law, and that his [[102]] long tenure as chief qazi
contributed toward the evolution of a suitable modus operandi for the new Muslim
government. His views on Islamic law in fact appear to have been in agreement with
those of Balban. Although personally punctilious in his religious observations, and
careful about showing formal courtesy to religious leaders, Balban attached no
importance to the views of ulama in political and administrative matters. He used to
say that these things had to be decided in accordance with political considerations
and not the views of jurists. According to Barani, "he would order whatever he
considered to be in the interest of the realm, whether it was or was not sanctioned
by Islamic law." Balban's practice and Minhaj's theory united to provide the
flexibility needed by Islamic law if it were to operate in the peculiar conditions

created by the existence of a tiny Muslim ruling class and a vast Hindu populace.
The tradition of strong common sense and a realistic approach to problems built up
by Minhaj was maintained by his daughter's son, Sadr-ud-din Arif, who was a deputy
to the chief qazi for a long time, and whom Ala-ud-din Khalji promoted early in his
reign. According to Barani he was not distinguished for scholarship, but he was a
strong executive officer who understood the temperament of the people, so that "in
spite of the freed slaves who overran Delhi, it was not possible for anyone to resort
to swindling, deception, or trickery before his court."/14/
The man who most directly influenced the course of Indo-Muslim legal history
was not a high official, as was Minhaj, but a scholar who introduced the systematic
study of Islamic law into India. This was Maulana Burhan-ud-din, who brought with
him to India from Balkh the Hidaya, the great legal textbook. This remained the
basis of Muslim law for centuries, and was finally translated into English by officials
of the East India Company. So great was Burhan-ud-din's reputation as a teacher
that Balban, accompanied by his entire royal retinue, visited him after Friday
prayers. Despite his orthodoxy, he was not particularly rigid in his application of
Islamic law. On the crucial question of sama, the ecstatic dances, which remained
the major legal controversy of the day and generally provided the
dividing [[103]] line between the mystics and the ecclesiasts, his practice was not
different from that of the more tolerant Minhaj. "I have not committed any major sin
in life," he said, "except hearing of sama, which I have heard and want to hear
again, if I have an opportunity."/15/ The popularity of Hidaya and other textbooks
from Central Asia ensured that in legal affairs, as in much else, Muslim India
followed the traditions of Central Asia. These books, which were brought to India
mainly by refugees during Balban's reign, were in Arabic. With the efforts made by
Firuz Tughluq to run the government according to Islamic law, it became necessary
to have summaries and abstracts of Islamic law in Persian, the court language of
Muslim India. We accordingly see a large number of manuals prepared in his reign,
usually based on the compilations of the lawyers of Central Asia. In addition more
substantial efforts for compilation of books on Islamic law in Persian and Arabic
were made. The earliest of such compilations prepared in India was in the time of
Balban and was dedicated to him. Others were prepared during the Tughluq period
but the most comprehensive digest compiled in Muslim India prior to the
compilation of Fatawa-i-Alamgiri in Aurangzeb's reign was the Fatawa-i-Tatar Khania,
named after the pious nobleman, Tatar Khan, who sponsored the compilation.
Prepared by a committee of ulama, it consisted of thirty volumes. It attracted
attention ouside the subcontinent, and a summary was prepared by Shaikh Ibrahim,
the imam of the mosque of the Ottoman sultan, Muhammad the Conqueror, in
Istanbul.
Provincial Administration

Although contemporary historians give meager details about the provincial

governments, it seems a fair inference that the provincial administrative structure
did not crystallize until the days of Sher Shah and Akbar. It is possible that this
development was facilitated by the establishment of regional kingdoms in the
original iqtas (regions) of the Delhi Sultanate. From the earliest period governors
were appointed for large iqtas which later became provinces, but their
responsibilities [[104]] were mainly the maintenance of peace, establishment and
extension of the authority of the government, and recovery of tribute from the
Hindu chiefs and others. The observance of state laws and the maintenance of order
depended on the ability and the interest of the individual governor, and in some
areas their authority must have been confined to main centers of administration
and places easily accessible. The provincial boundaries were shifting and vague,
and it was a long time before the territorial units took a stable form. Even the
powers of all the governors were not identical. Governors in charge of bigger or
more important areas or with special personal claims exercised wider powers than
ordinary muqtis [=holders of iqtas] and were referred to as walis.
Before Balban's time, the governors were often semi-independent military
chiefs of the territories conquered by them or by their ancestors, but even then
many functions remained outside their domain. They were not given authority in
religious and judicial affairs, nor were the local intelligence officers under their
control. The governor's main concern was military control and revenue collection.
With Balban the wizarat became more organized at the center and the provincial
diwans were posted from Delhi, and a close check was exercised by the central
government over the recovery and transmission of revenue. The provincial sahib-idiwan was appointed by the sultan on the recommendation of the wazir, and
submitted detailed statements of provincial accounts to the capital. On the basis of
these statements the wazir's department settled the accounts with the muqtis. Even
in the military sphere the powers of the provincial governors came to be regulated
by the presence of the provincial ariz who was under the chief ariz at Delhi.
Balban had asserted the authority of the central government over the
provincial chiefs, and Ala-ud-din Khalji tried to introduce system and uniformity in
the administration of the Doab (the fertile area between the Ganges and the
Jamna), the most dependable source of state revenue. Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq, who
had a long experience of provincial administration in the Punjab, tried to improve
the administration, but details of his provincial administration have not been
recorded. Under his son, Muhammad Tughluq, we get details of the hierarchy of
provincial officials, and this possibly follows a pattern [[105]] introduced earlier.
The empire consisted of twenty-four provinces divided into a number of shiqs, or
rural districts. The next smallest unit after the shiq was the pargana, or group of
villages. In a pargana and in the villages the old Hindu organization continued. The
head of each pargana was a chaudhari, while a muqaddam or a mukhiya was the
head man of the village. The most important feature of Muslim administration in

India was the acceptance of the local autonomy enjoyed by rural areas. This policy
had been followed by Muhammad ibn Qasim in the earliest days of Muslim rule in
the Sind and was maintained by the sultans of Delhi. Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who
originally handed back Ajmer to a son of Prithvi Raj, first adopted the policy of
appointing Hindu officers for the administration of the country. "The Hindu chief
played such an important role in the rural life of the period that to many he was the
government, whereas the sultan was almost a mythical figure."/16/
The position of the nobility and the officers was so dominant in the early period
that Minhaj, the historian of the period, devotes more space to an account of the
principal officers of the realm than to the sultans. The existence of this bureaucracy
made possible a large degree of stability in administration, and even in the periods
of decline the succession of dynasties at Delhi was not usually reflected in changes
of government at the local level.
Emphasis on administrative stability during the sultanate should not be taken
as an indication that the period was peaceful or that normal judicial processes were
always respected by either the sultans or their officials. Maintenance of control in a
conquered area requires force, and, in addition, the ceaseless struggle for power
that went on made violence commonplace. The smallest incident could be turned
into a pretext for the drawing of the sword and the shedding of blood. Nor was
violence confined to the cruel and heartless. Rulers such as Balban were not
deficient in a sense of justice or in political ability, but these qualities did not deter
him from severe punishments and free spilling of blood. At times a sense of justice
and concern for the public welfare seemed to militate against human kindness.
Once the deterrent theory of punishment was adopted and carried to extremes, all
other human considerations gave way before it. In vain [[106]] did the religious
lawyers and intellectuals try to curb the extreme punishments inflicted by the
sultans. Qazi Mughis argued before Alaud-din Khalji that his punishments were
unauthorized and opposed to Islam, and the historian Barani told Muhammad bin
Tughluq that human life could be taken only for eight specific crimes, but the
autocratic sultans listened unmoved.
Not only was human life held in little esteem, but there were abhorrent cases
of torture and mutilation. In this Muhammad bin Tughluq, who was a highly
educated monarch and enjoyed the company of intellectuals and philosophers, was
the worst offender. Some of the punishments meted out by himfor example to his
cousin Gurshashpare truly revolting. The Moorish traveler Ibn Battuta wrote of
him: "Notwithstanding all his modesty, his sense of equality and justice, and his
extraordinary liberality and kindness to the poor, he had immense daring to shed
blood. His gate was hardly ever free from the corpse of a man who had been
executed. And I used to see frequently a number of people killed at the gate of the
royal palace and the corpses abandoned there. The sultan used to punish all
wrongs whether big or small and he would spare neither the men of learning and
probity, nor those of high descent. Every day hundreds of people in chains with their

hands fastened to the neck and their feet tightened were brought into the council
hall. Those who were to be killed were killed and those who were to be tortured
were tortured and those who were to be beaten were beaten. May God save us
from calamity."/17/
It is true that these punishments were reserved for treason, and it is also true
that conditions in the medieval ages in other parts of the world were not very much
better, but the position in Muslim India in this respect seems to have worsened
distinctly during the hundred years or so following the death of Iltutmish. Possibly
the instances of brutality and cruelty during the sultanate in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries reflect the impact of the Mongols; certainly the extremes of
ruthless severity associated with Muhammad Tughluq or even with Balban and Alaud-din Khalji, did not exist in the days of Muhammad ibn Qasim, Aibak, and
Iltutmish.
VIII. Society and Culture under the Sultanate
*Industry

and

Trade*

==

*Learning,

Literature,

and

the

Arts*

[[107]] WHILE the historians of the Delhi Sultanate have left full accounts that
make possible a reconstruction of military and political affairs, unfortunately no
such records exist for social and economic history. Scattered comments in the
histories, however, as well as such works as the Travels of Ibn Battuta, the narrative
poems of Amir Khusrau, and the table talk of Hazrat Nizam-ud-din, illuminate the
social life of the time.
Muslim society during the period was dominated by the Turkish rulers and
nobles who sought to maintain their position not only against non-Muslims or the
Muslims of indigenous origin, but also against other non-Turkish immigrants, or over
other Turks whose long separation from the Turkish homeland marked them off
themselves. It can be argued that most of the sultans and nobles were ultimately
Turkish in origin, even though they bear different designations, but the first hundred
years of the Delhi Sultanate was clearly a period of Turkish supremacy: rule by
groups that regarded themselves as Turks, and heirs of a definite cultural and
historical tradition. During this time they produced not only three great rulers,
Iltutmish, Ala-ud-din Khalji, and Balban, but also a great poetAmir Khusrau.
One of the most interesting features of Islamic society during the sultanate is
the long struggle of Indian MuslimsHindu and Buddhist converts or their
descendantsto assert themselves. They tried to gain power in the middle of the
thirteenth century, but Balban and other Turkish nobles were too powerful for them.
Their position gradually improved under the Khaljis, and under the Tughluqs a
distinct change can be seen. Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq had an Indian mother,
Muhammed Tughluq appointed a Hindu as the governor of Upper Sind, and the

dominant personality of the reign of Firuz Tughluq was Khan-i-Jahan, a Hindu

convert from Telingana.
Although it took a long time for the Indo-Muslims to reach positions [[108]] of
power, local usages and customs influenced social life and behavior at an early
period. The Indian pan (betel leaf) soon became popular among the Muslims; the
use of spices for seasoning food became common; and standard Muslim dishes such
as pilau were transformed. The newcomers also adopted Indian headgear; but, more
significantly, religious ceremonies, especially those related to marriage and death,
showed a definite Indian influence. The popularity of music, as well as its forms,
reflected the local atmosphere.
The lives of the Muslim upper classes, especially in Delhi, were modeled on
those of their Turkish and Persian counterparts, with the sports of a society that
valued the horsepolo, riding, racingbeing the chief outdoor amusements; these
were the prerogatives of the rich. All classes enjoyed chess and backgammon,
although the more orthodox regarded them with disapproval. Most of the Muslims,
at least during the earliest period of the sultanate, were city dwellers, many of them
attached to the garrisons. For this reason there was a good deal of communal life
among the ordinary people. There were, for example, bakeries instead of individual
kitchens, and hammams (Turkish baths) in the larger towns.
As for the Hindus, their social life was relatively unchanged, although during
military operations they suffered losses in property and life. Even when the harsh
laws of war gave place to peace, the Hindus were burdened by certain handicaps.
The loss of sovereignty itself was a major loss, especially in the case of the
Brahmans and the Kshatriyas. The sultanate period was more difficult for them than
any other period of Muslim rule. The liberal and conciliatory policy adopted by
Muhammad ibn Qasim had given place to a new relationship, and the integration of
the Hindu population into the political and administrative structure was not to come
about until later. Muslim conquest of Sind and Multan and even of Lahore and
Peshawar had not led to the same tensions and conflicts which followed their
domination over the heart of Aryavarta. Even the indirect effect of the Mongol
invasion of Muslim lands led to a stiffening of attitude, as the Muslim refugees, who
had suffered so much at the hands of the pagan Mongols, were not disposed to be
friendly towards the non-Muslims of India.
[[109]] All these factors make the sultanate a period of tensions and conflicts.
The theory of Turkish racial superiority which held sway during the rule of early
Slave kings was not favorable to the employment of Hindusor even indigenous
Muslimsin high civil and military appointments, as was the case under the Arabs
in Sind or even under the Ghaznavids. It would, however, be wrong to think that the
Hindus were completely excluded from service. In rural areas the Hindu landed
aristocracy still occupied a position of prestige and power, and the muqaddams, the
chaudharis, and the khuts had important roles in the administration. The land

system was not altered, and the Hindu peasant must have led much the same kind
of life as he did before the coming of the Muslims. Trade and commerce also
remained in Hindu control, for to the Muslim invader from Central Asia, the complex
Hindu banking system would be unfamiliar and unworkable. The Hindu merchant
might be heavily assessed, or, during a war have his movable goods confiscated,
but he was too much a part of the intricate commercial structure to be easily
replaced. The money-lender thrived under the new, as under the old, dispensation.
We hear, for example, about the large incomes of the Muslim grandees and the
splendor of their households, but Barani leaves us in no doubt that most, if not all,
borrowed from the Hindu money lenders. "The maliks and the khans and the nobles
of those days were constantly in debt, owing to their excessive generosity,
expenditures, and beneficence. Except in their public halls no gold or silver could be
found, and they had no savings on account of their excessive liberality. The wealth
and riches of the Multani merchants and the shahs [money lenders] were from the
interest realized from the old maliks and nobles of Delhi, who borrowed money from
them to the maximum limit, and repaid their debts along with additional gifts from
their [lands]. Whenever a malik or a khan held a banquet and invited notables, his
agents would rush to the Multanis and shahs, sign documents, and borrow money
with interest."/1/ That the money lenders recovered their money along with interest
(forbidden under Islamic law), is an [[110]] indication of how vital they were to the
system. Even the powerful Ala-ud-din Khalji who, seeing the danger to his
government from the power of the Hindu rural chiefs, made a determined attempt
to curb their power and reduce their wealth, found it necessary to make Hindu
traders
the
main
instrument
of
his
price
control
measures./2/
Industry and Trade
Hindus occupied an important role in foreign, as in domestic, trade, although
foreign Muslim merchants, known as khurasani, also had a large share of it. The
rulers of the coastal kingdoms in the Deccan accorded to foreign merchants certain
extra-territorial rights and special concessions, in consideration of the heavy taxes
which they paid to the treasury. An organized class of brokers handled the business
on the coast and inside the country. The imports consisted mainly of certain luxury
items for the upper classes, and a general supply of all kinds of horses and mules, in
which India was deficient. Hindus had never attached any importance to cavalry,
but seeing the success of the Muslim horsemen, they started to substitute horses
for elephants. The exports included large quantities of food-grains and cloth. Among
the agricultural products were wheat, millet, rice, pulses, oilseeds, scents, medicinal
herbs, and sugar. Some of the countries around the Persian Gulf depended on the
subcontinent for their entire food supply. Cotton cloth and other textiles were
especially important items of export, particularly to Southeast Asia and East Africa,
although some reached Europe. They were carried by the Arabs to the Red Sea and
from there found their way to Damascus and Alexandria, from where they were
distributed to the Mediterranean countries and beyond.

Many industries of considerable size and importance developed during this

period, the most important of which were textiles, various items of metal work,
sugar, indigo, and in certain localities, paper. The Indian textile industry is very old,
but the variety of cloth produced was originally limited. Taking advantage of the
local talent, the [[111]] Muslims introduced a number of fine varieties of textiles,
most of which had Persian or Arabic origin. Bengal was the main center of this
industry, but Gujarat rivaled it as a supplier of the export trade during the sultanate
period.
Next in importance were a number of industries connected with metal work:
the manufacture of swords, guns, and knives, as well as household needs such as
trays and basins. Manufacture of sugar was also carried on on a fairly large scale,
and in Bengal enough was produced to leave a surplus for export after meeting the
local demand. Paper-making was a minor industry, of which little is known except
that Delhi was the center of a considerable market.
These industries were mainly privately owned, but the government equipped
and managed large-scale karkhanas, or factories, for supplying its requirements.
The royal factories at Delhi sometimes employed as many as four thousand weavers
for silk alone. The example of the sultan of Delhi was followed by the rulers of the
regional kingdoms, and the contribution of the state to the development of the
industry was not a minor one.
In certain aspects of social life, the Hindus had virtual autonomy during the
sultanate. This was in accordance with the established axiom of Islamic law that
while Muslims are governed by the Shariat, non-Muslim zimmis are subject to their
own laws and social organization, but it was also a product of the Indian situation.
The Muslim rulers from the days of the Arab occupation of Sind accepted the right
of the village and caste panchayats to settle the affairs of their community. This
meant that the Hindu villages remained small autonomous republics, as they had
been since ancient times, and in commerce and industry the Hindu guilds were
supreme. This position continued throughout the Muslim rule, but during the
sultanate, when the provincial administration had not been properly organized,
Hindu autonomy outside the principal towns was particularly effective.
It is often forgottenand Muslim court chroniclers were not anxious to mention
itthat a large number of independent or quasi-independent Hindu chiefs remained
after the establishment of the sultanate. Some of them were rajas, or kings; others
were only petty chieftains, controlling a few villages. Many of them belonged to
old [[112]] families, but new principalities grew up even after the establishment of
Muslim power at Delhi. Rajputs often found new kingdoms for themselves in remote,
easily defended areas in Rajputana and the Himalayas. From such movements
during the sultanate come also some of the large landed estates still held by
Rajputs in Oudh and in Bihar. In these predominantly Hindu areas the old religion
was fostered, and its cultural expressions kept alive even in the periods of greatest

Islamic

power.

Learning, Literature, and the Arts

After the sack of Baghdad in 1258, Delhi was perhaps the most important
cultural center in the Muslim East. Heir to the traditions of Ghazni and Lahore, its
importance increased when the Mongols destroyed the cultural centers of Central
and Western Asia, and the poets, scholars and men of letters from these areas took
refuge in Muslim India. Balban, who gave high offices of the state only to persons of
good families, welcomed these distinguished refugees, and many illustrious families
of Muslim India trace their origin to this period. This influx bore fruit in a large
number of works, many of which are lost, but the contemporary historians attest to
their worth. During the reign (12961316) of Ala-ud-din Khalji the general prosperity
engendered by his conquests enabled the nobles, and not just the sultan, to
become literary patrons. This probably explains why Barani could devote fourteen
pages to an account of the scholars, poets, preachers, philosophers, physicians,
astronomers, and historians who thronged Delhi in the days of Ala-ud-din Khalji. If
the surviving poetry of Khusrau, the historical works of Barani, and the table talk of
Hazrat Nizam-ud-din Auliya are any indication of the cultural vitality and richness of
the age, one can well understand why Amir Khusrau and others felt that Delhi was
the metropolis of the Muslim East.
Yet despite the cultural eminence of the capital, it cannot be claimed that the
sultanate is a period marked by that solid scholarship and study of sciences which
distinguished Baghdad and Cordova. The reason is obvious. Learned and gifted men
had come to India, but [[113]] without their libraries. Those who were escaping
with their lives could not be expected to carry heavy loads of books over long
distances. We get a glimpse of this in the case of Fakhr-i-Mudabbir, who fled from
Ghazni without even his family papers, and had to wait for an opportunity to go
back to reclaim them. The result was that only those cultural activities gained
prominence which, like poetry, belles-lettres, local history, architecture, and music,
were not dependent on accumulated stores of knowledge.
Probably for the same reasonthe lack of librariesgreat educational
institutions of the kind found in Baghdad and Cairo did not develop in India. There
were, however, schools and colleges in Delhi and all the important provincial
capitals.
In Muslim society, teaching and the promotion of educational enterprises are
regarded as necessary marks of religious vocation, and the Muslim state is expected
to facilitate this by providing teachers with ample means of subsistence. This was
the procedure generally adopted during Muslim rule in India, and the official in
charge of religious endowments, the sadr-i-jahan, arranged for the grant of tax-free
lands to imams, qazis, and other religious groups who provided education,
particularly in Islamic subjects. This education was usually on the elementary level,

but the system also provided for the maintenance of scholars who had specialized
in different branches of learning. We find even nobles and distinguished men of
affairs teaching subjects in which they had become proficient. Hazrat Nizam-ud-din
Auliya, for example, studied under Shams-ul-Mulk, who became the wazir of Balban.
The children of nobles were taught at their own residences by private tutors, whose
guidance was often available for other students also.
For advanced students madrasas, or colleges, were set up by pious and publicspirited rulers, and this activity received special attention during the early period.
Two major madrasas called Muizziya and Nasiriya were established during the
beginning of Muslim rule at Delhi. Details about these madrasas are lacking, but
probably one of them was the college built by Iltutmish and repaired a century later
by Firuz Tughluq. Similar steps to establish educational institutions were taken by
Muslim rulers in the distant provinces, and we read [[114]] of Muhammad
Bakhtiyar Khalji setting up madrasas at Devkot and other places in Bengal. Firuz
Tughluq was unusual in that he looked after the institutions established by his
predecessors; probably most of these establishments fell into decay when the
original founders passed away, and the grants made for the madrasas were
diverted to other purposes.
Historians give little information about the staff or the curriculum of madrasas,
but some details are available for one founded by Firuz Tughluq near Hauz-i-Alai in
Delhi. Barani has given a lengthy account of the beautiful building and gardens
which provided a center around which people built their houses. Both Barani and
Mutahar, a well-known poet, praise the comprehensive knowledge of Maulana Jalaud-din Rumi, the head of the institution. The main subjects taught seem to have
been
religioustafsir (interpretation
of
the
Quran), hadith (tradition),
and fiqh (jurisprudence).
The intellectual activity of the schools owed much to the refugee scholars from
Central Asia, Persia, and Iraq who came to Delhi in the thirteenth century. After this
influx had ceased and the Mongols had established their rule in the northwestern
borderland, communication between Central Asia and northern India became
difficult. It appears that in the Deccan, where contact was maintained with Iran by
the sea route, intellectual activity during the later centuries encompassed a wider
range than was the position in the north. In northern India, apart from religious
subjects, literature, history, mysticism, and ethics were the principal subjects
studied. In the Deccan, scientific subjects also received attention. The great
Bahmani king, Firuz (13971422), for example, encouraged botany, geometry, and
logic. He was interested also in astronomy, and in 1407 started work on an
observatory near Daulatabad. The untimely death of Hakim Hashim Gilani, the
astronomer who was to supervise the observatory, put an end to the project. When
Sayyid Gisu Daraz, who has left a large number of books on mysticism and who was
famous for his knowledge of religious subjects, reached the Deccan, Firuz went to
meet him. The historian Firishta records that the sultan found the saint lacking in

solid scholarship, and made no secret of his disappointment. The fact that Firuz was
not alone in intellectual pursuits is evident from the [[115]] account of a prince
who used to teach students mathematics (including Euclid), theology, and
rhetoric./3/ Promotion of learning in the Deccan was largely the work of Persian
statesmen and scholars whom the rulers had attracted from Iran, and an interesting
monument to the age is the ruined college of the Bahmani minister, Mahmud
Gawan, in Bidar. It was a magnificent building, as can be seen from its beautiful
minarets and facade, but it was badly damaged during the wars of the Deccan kings
with Aurangzeb.
The one scientific subject that received considerable attention in the schools
was medicine. The earliest work on medicine, of which an imperfect manuscript
copy has survived, was written about 1329 in the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq.
Its author, Zia Muhammad, went to the Deccan under the orders of the sultan. His
book, Majmua-i-ziai, based on Arabic and Indian sources, gives local counterparts
for Arabian medicines as well as the prescriptions of Hindu physicians. Following this
work, other writers combined Greek and Indian works. The history of Indo-Islamic
medicine has not yet been carefully studied, but it is reasonably certain that in the
books written in India during the sultanate one sees the blending of the three
streams of Greek, Arabic, and Hindu medical knowledge. The most famous of these
works is the Tibb-i-Sikandari, written by the court physician Mian Bhuwa about
1512. It draws freely on the classical Sanskrit writers, and it long remained a
standard textbook for followers of the indigenous medical systems.
Of the purely literary works of the early period, very few have survived. This is
especially true of poetry, for barring the works of major poets like Amir Khusrau and
Hasan, only those poems have been preserved which, because of their topical
nature, were included in general histories. Examples are the poems of Sangreza on
the arrival of Iltutmish's patent of sovereignty from the Abbasid caliphate and his
verses on the accession of Iltutmish's son or Ruhani's poem on Iltutmish's conquest
of Ranthambhor. While these poems have the usual limitations of occasional poetry,
they indicate high poetic skill.
The early men of letters represented a trans-Indus tradition. Most [[116]] of
them had received their education beyond the border, and although they had
settled down in Islamic India, an indigenous literary tradition was slow in
developing. The two most important representatives of the early tradition were
Muhammad Aufi and Muhammad bin Mansur Qureshi, generally known as Fakhr-iMudabbir. Aufi (c.11721242), a native of Bukhara who lived in Lahore and Delhi,
was the author of the earliest extant collection of biographies of Persian
poets, Lubabul-Albab. He also completed the voluminous encyclopedia of
anecdotes, Jawami-al-Hikayat, which, apart from its literary interest, is a mine of
curious and interesting information relating to this and earlier periods. The major
work of Fakhr-i-Mudabbir, who lived in Lahore at the beginning of the thirteenth
century, was a study of statecraft; this has already been discussed in Chapter VII.

The first Persian poet of eminence who was born in India was Reza, or, as he
was sometimes known, Sangreza. He was Iltutmish's secretary. The most
distinguished writer of the early sultanate, however, was Amir Khusrau (c.1253
1325). His father, a junior Turkish officer under Iltutmish, had married a daughter of
Rawat-i-Arz, Balban's famous minister. Khusrau showed literary promise at an early
age, and, after spending some time at the provincial court of Oudh, became
attached at first to Prince Bughra Khan, the governor of Samana and later of Bengal,
and subsequently to Prince Muhammad, the heir-designate of Balban, who
maintained a magnificent court at Multan. The prince lost his life in a skirmish with
the Mongols in 1285, and the poet went to Delhi. Balban's successor, Kaiqubad, was
Khusrau's first royal patron. In all, seven rulers were to be his patrons, but it is
doubtful whether he was greatly concerned by the kaleidoscopic changes of royalty.
Apart from lyrics, Khusrau wrote poems relating to contemporary
events. Qiran-us-Saadain, completed in 1289, gives an account of the historic
meeting of Bughra Khan and Kaiqubad on the banks of the river Sarju, and contains
an interesting description of the Delhi of those days. Miftah-ul-Futuh (1291) is a
versified account of the exploits of Jalal-ud-din Firuz Khalji; in Ashiqa (1315) is an
account of the romance of the Gujarati princess Deval Devi and Prince Khizr Khan,
son of Ala-ud-din Khalji. The latter's conquests are the subject [[117]] matter
of Khazain-ul-Futuh (1311), an ornate prose work, while Nuh Sipihr, completed in
1318, celebrates the reign of Qutb-ud-din Mubarik Shah. In this book Amir Khusrau
challenged the poets of Iran and sang of his native land, its hoary past, its love of
learning, its flowers, and its fair, intelligent people. Tughlaq Nama describes the
successful expedition of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq against the usurper Khusrau Khan.
Khusrau was also among the earliest writers of Hindi poetry, and though the origins
of the Hindi poems attributed to him are doubtful, he referred to his Hindi verses in
the introduction to one of his Persian diwans. He also played a major role in the
development of Indian music, as noted below.
The work of Hasan (c.12521337), a friend of Khusrau, was praised by Jami,
the great Persian poet, a rare distinction for an Indian writer. He wrote prose as well
as verse, and his Fawaid-ul-Fuad, a record of the table-talk of his spiritual guide,
Nizam-ud-din Auliya, is a literary classic. Equally interesting, though not so well
known, was Ziya Nakhshabi (d.1350), who was a master of simple and eloquent
prose. His Tuti Nama (The Book of the Parrot) was based on a Sanskrit original. It
has been translated into Turkish, German, English, and many Indian languages. His
other translations include the Kok Shastra, a Sanskrit text on erotics.
While there were many distinguished names in poetry, perhaps the most
important literary contribution during the sultanate was in the field of history. Since
classical Hindu culture produced almost no historical literature, the Muslim works
are of special significance for Indian historiography. Written by contemporaries who
had taken part in the events they describe, these histories are of enormous value
for an understanding of the period. They are marred, however, by certain defects

which their very excellence tends to conceal. One is that many of the chronicles
were written specifically for certain rulers and nobles whom the historians glorified
at the expense of rivals; another is the tendency to picture the conquerors as
actuated by unselfish and religious motives. These peculiarities of method can
generally be discounted, however, and the historians do not seem to have falsified
historical facts even when they were writing panegyrics.
The number of historical works of the sultanate period which
have [[118]] reached us is not large, but the works possess rich variety. The
historians of the period, many of whom have already been mentioned, include
Barani, Fakhr-i-Mudabbir, Hasan Nizami, Minhaj-us-Siraj, Aufi, Khusrau, Yahya, and
Isami. Most of them occupied high official positions and wrote from personal
knowledge. Barani is the most interesting, but he is not very particular about dates
(normally the strong point of the Muslim historians), and this detracts from the
value of his book, Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi. But he wrote history as an artist, selecting
and carefully arranging his material so that his book, instead of being a chronicle of
events, emphasized the characteristics of various rulers and different reigns. He
does not confine himself to the kings, but gives details about the political
philosophies of different monarchs and leading men of the times, the literary and
the religious history, the prices in the market, and other matters of concern to the
ordinary people. Even more interesting is the gallery of portraits which he has
brought to life by a skillful analysis of personalities and by providing those
significant small details which most Indian historians omit.
As already noted, the rise of regional kingdoms in the fifteenth century played
an extremely important role in the dissemination of Islamic culture./4/ One
significant feature of this disintegration of the central authority, with its dependence
on Persian as the official language, was the rise of regional languages. Hindu kings
had given their patronage to Sanskrit as the language of religion and the classics;
Muslim rulers felt no such compulsion, and supported the common languages of the
people. It was Muslim rulers, therefore, who were responsible for many of the first
translations of the Sanskrit classics into the provincial languages. The Muslim rulers
of Bengal engaged scholars to translate the Ramayana and the Mahabharata into
Bengali. Maladhar Vasu translated the Bhagavata Purana into Bengali under the
patronage of Sultan Husain Shah (r. 14931518), and Chuti Khan, governor of
Chittagong, employed Srikara Nadi to translate parts of the Asvamedha Parva of the
Mahabharata into Bengali. In Kashmir, Hindu literature and philosophy were studied
enthusiastically at the court of Zain-ul-Abidin (14201470). Rajatarangini, one
of [[119]] the few histories written in Sanskrit, was translated into Persian, with a
supplement to bring the account up to date. Other works on music and
mathematics were composed by Hindu scholars at the Kashmir court. In the south
the Muslim rulers of Golkunda and Bijapur employed Hindus as ministers, and
maintained the state records in the Marathi language. Cultural histories of the

various provincial governments are yet to be written, but a similar process was at
work at all places.
Among the nonliterary arts, music, rather than painting or sculpture,
underwent important developments during the period of the sultanate. As already
noted, Indian music had made an impact on the Arab systems as early as the
conquest of Sind, and the interchange between the two forms was even more
fruitful when the rich heritage of Persia and Central Asia was added. The result was
the creation in North India of a new type of music, quite different from traditional
Indian music which maintained its hold in South India.
Credit for this important work of synthesis is given to the poet Amir Khusrau,
whose fame helped to give prestige to the new music, which had as its rival in the
Delhi court the musical modes favored by the Turkish rulers. The interest of the
Chishti Sufis in "Hindustani" music and its practical cultivation by them further
ensured its popularity. The next stage was reached during the establishment of the
independent Muslim kingdom at Jaunpur, not far from Benares, and Kanauj, the old
centers of Hindu arts. Here music received special attention, both at the royal court
and in the Sufi monasteries. The two most important Indian Muslim musicians of the
day were Sultan Husain Sharqi, the last king of Jaunpur, and the contemporary
saint, Pir Bodhan of Barnawa. The saint's dwelling became a rendezvous for
musicians from Delhi, the Deccan, and Jaunpur. The contribution of Sultan Husain to
the development of Indian music was much more specific. He is regarded as the
original founder of the khiyal (or romantic) school of music, which slowly matured
and took its final shape in the days of the later Mughals, particularly under
Muhammad Shah. Related to a Hindu devotional form that dealt with the love of
Krishna for the milkmaids, the khiyal transformed the devotional theme to thinly
veiled invocations of human love and romance.
[[120]] Another regional kingdom where music was highly cultivated after the
breakdown of the sultanate was Gwalior. Here the ruler, Raja Man Singh (r.1486
1516), was a Hindu, but the chief musician at his court, Nayak Mahmud, was a
Muslim. Under his leadership a band of musicians systematized Indian music in the
light of the changes it had undergone since the advent of the Muslims. This resulted
in the compilation of Man Kautuhal, which contains almost all the airs introduced by
the Muslim musicians./5/
Probably the greatest artistic achievement of the sultanate was neither
literature nor music, but architecture. As with the musicians, the creativity of the
Muslim architects was nourished by the mature styles of both the existing Islamic
and Hindu traditions. The Muslims brought to India the experience gained in the
great buildings of Cairo, Baghdad, Cordova, and Damascus, and they were able to
draw upon the skill of Indian stonemasons. The result was a profusion of mosques,
palaces, and tombs unmatched in any other Islamic country.

In the same year in which Delhi was occupied, the foundation of the mosque of
Quwwat-ul-Islam was laid by Qutb-ud-din Aibak to commemorate the capture of
Delhi and, as the name implies, to glorify the power of Islam. Aibak however spent
most of his brief reign at Lahore, and adornment of the new Muslim capital was
essentially the work of his successor, Iltutmish. He more than doubled the size of
the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, built the Qutb Minar, one of the world's loveliest
towers, erected the buildings for Nasiriya Madrasa, and, to meet the needs of the
growing population of Delhi for water, excavated the great water reservoir, the
Hauz-i-Shamsi. He also changed architectural methods. Previously material from
Hindu buildings had been used for constructing mosques, but in 1230, when he
extended the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, he used stone especially quarried for the
purpose. This gave the addition a more Islamic appearance.
In architecture, as in other spheres of culture, the Indo-Islamic society was
enriched by the dislocation in Central Asia and Persia caused by the Mongol
invasion. Not only scholars but artisans as well came to Delhi as refugees, and they
found a ready market for their [[121]] skills in the expanding Muslim state. One
important result was that the indigenous Indian artistic element ceased to be
dominant in Delhi during this period. By the time of Ala-ud-din Khalji, Muslim
traditions had become firmly established on Indian soil, with the result that methods
of construction were revolutionized and ornament became an integral part of the
scheme, rather than a quasi-independent accessory, as was the case in the earlier
buildings. The Jama'at Khana mosque, constructed in the reign of Ala-ud-din, is the
earliest surviving example in India of a mosque built wholly in accordance with
Muslim ideas.
In the provincial capitals, however, the influence of the refugee artisans was
slight, and the indigenous styles remained important. In Bengal the Muslim rulers
decorated their buildings with carving which is obviously the work of Hindu
craftsmen, and in Gujarat they adapted the local style to Muslim needs to create
some of India's most beautiful buildings. Yet even where most was owed to native
Indian skills and tradition, the peculiar Muslim architectural characteristics of
spaciousness and graceful forms are present. Furthermore, the Muslims made full
use of concrete and mortar, which were known but scarcely used before their arrival
in India. "Thanks to the strength of their binding properties, it was possible for the
Muslim rulers to span wide spaces with their arches, to roof immense areas with
their domes, and in other ways to achieve effects of grandeur such as the Indians
had never dreamt of."/6/
The Tughluqs in the fourteenth century introduced a new and austere phase in
architecture. Muhammad Tughluq, who shifted his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad,
had no interest in the old city. The many buildings erected in Delhi during the reign
of his successor Firuz show a severe simplicity, possibly due as much to the need for
economy as Firuz's own strict orthodoxy. Hindu influences were reduced to the
minimum, and Tughluq buildings are lacking in elegance and refinement. Under the

Lodis there reemerged a vigorous and catholic spirit of design, replete with creative
energy and imagination. [[122]] The explanation is probably that with the
conversion of the Mongols to Islam and the reduction of chaos in Central Asia,
inspiration from Persia was now available in architecture as in literature. The Lodis
were soon replaced by the Mughals, under whom Persian influences became even
more
dominant.
IX.

The

Interaction

of

Islam

and

Hinduism

[[123]] AN ASPECT of the cultural life of Islamic India that demands special
consideration is the nature of the interaction of faith and practice that took place
between Islam and Hinduism. There are, however, a variety of factors involved that
make the study of this interaction exceedingly complex and prevent any very
assured conclusions being attained. One is simply the lack of evidence, for the
religious movements of medieval India have left few records. Then there is the
uncertainty at times whether a pattern of behavior and belief in both religions has a
common origin in one, or if it grew up independently in both cultures. The intricate
question of the relation of Hindu and Islamic mystical movements is an example of
this difficulty. Finally, since one is confronted not just with the problem of identifying
Islamic influence on Hinduism but also Hindu influences on Islam, it is clear that the
process of interaction may be complicated by a double movement. Original Hindu
influences, for example, may have passed over into Islam; the movement or process
that resulted from this may then in turn influence Hinduism, causing a rather
different phenomenon. Mysticism again provides a possible illustration.
The most obvious result of the religious impact of Islam on Hinduism is, of
course, the existence of a large Muslim population in India. The view that Islam
propagated itself in India through the sword cannot be maintained; aside from other
evidence, the very distribution of the Muslim population does not support it. If the
spread of Islam had been due to the might of the Muslim kings, one would expect
the largest proportion of Muslims in those areas which were the centers of Muslim
political power. This, however, is not the case. The percentage of Muslims is low
around Delhi, Lucknow, Ahmadabad, Ahmadnagar, and Bijapur, the principal seats
of Muslim political power. Even in the case of Mysore, where Sultan Tipu is said to
have forced conversion to Islam, the ineffectiveness of royal [[124]] proselytism
may be measured by the fact that Muslims are scarcely 5 percent of the total
population of the state. On the other hand, Islam was never a political power in
Malabar, yet today Muslims form nearly 30 percent of its total population. In the two
areas in which the concentration of Muslims is heaviestmodern East and West
Pakistanthere is fairly clear evidence that conversion was the work of Sufis,
mystics who migrated to India throughout the period of the sultanate. In the
western area the process was facilitated in the thirteenth century by the thousands
of Muslim theologians, saints, and missionaries who fled to India to escape the

Mongol terror. The names and careers of some of these are well known. Thus Pir
Shams Tabriz came to Multan; Khwaja Qutb-ud-din Bakhtiyar went to Delhi; and
Syed Jalal settled in Uch, the great fortress south of Multan. The influence of such
men, and of many others, can be traced through the families of their spiritual
descendants.
In Bengal, the Muslim missionaries found the greatest response to their
message among the outcastes and the depressed classes, of which there were large
numbers in Bengal. To them, the creed of Islam, with its emphasis on equality, must
have come as a liberating force. Then too, the acceptance of the religion of the
conquerors would have been a powerful attraction, since it would undoubtedly carry
with it possibilities of advancement they had never known before. Another factor in
the large number of conversions is the somewhat peculiar religious history of
Bengal. From the eighth to the twelfth century the Pala dynasty had supported
Buddhism. Then in the twelfth century the Sena dynasty, which had its roots in
South India, began to encourage Hindu orthodoxy. The result was probably a good
deal of religious unrest and uncertainty, which made it possible for Islam to find an
opening for its work of proselytization. When the Islamic missionaries arrived they
found in several instances that the conquering armies had destroyed both the
temples of revived Hinduism and the monasteries of the older Buddhism; in their
placeoften on the same sitesthey built new shrines. Moreover, they very
frequently transferred ancient Hindu and Buddhist stories of miracles to Muslim
saints, fusing the old religion into the new on a level that could be accepted by the
masses.
[[125]] By the end of the fourteenth century Islam had permeated all parts of
India, and the process was fully under way which led to the conversion of a large
section of the Indian population to Islam, and resulted in far-reaching cultural and
spiritual changes outside the Muslim society. The developments in the cultural
spheredevelopment of regional languages, the rise of Hindustani, and the
evolution of Indo-Muslim music and architecturehave been outlined in the
preceding chapter; here an attempt will be made to examine those religious
movements which seem to owe something to the interaction of Hinduism and Islam.
The process of interaction is undeniably obscure, and knowledge of many vital
links is lacking, but what is certain is that the period was of great importance for the
development of the religious and cultural traditions of modern India. The fifteenth
century, it has been observed, "was marked by an extraordinary outburst of
devotional poetry inspired by these religious movements, and this stands out as one
of the great formative periods in the history of northern India, a period in which on
the one hand the modern languages were firmly established as vehicles of literary
expression, and on the other the faith of the people was permeated by new
ideas."/1/

The religious schools and movements which arose in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries are generally characterized as variants of bhakti, or devotional religion,
and the influence of Islam has been seen as a determining factor. This
understanding of the movements is, however, an oversimplification of a very
complex phenomenon. It is important to remember, first of all, that many of the
elements associated with the religious movements at the end of the sultanate had
already been dominant in Hinduism itself for many centuries. This is especially true
of those areas of South India where Muslim influence had not been strong. It is also
quite possible that the Islamic mystics, the Sufis, had been directly or indirectly
influenced by Hindu thought and institutions before the conquest of India. Hinduism
in the fifteenth century, then, was receiving in an elaborated form what it had
already given to Islam. But of even greater importance in examining [[126]] the
religious movements of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is an awareness of
two very different attitudes which Hindu religious leaders had toward Islam. One
group accepted what was congenial to it in the new spiritual system; the other
group adopted a few elements from the spiritual structure of the dominant race in
order to strengthen Hinduism and make it better able to withstand Islam. Both
reacted to Islam, but one was sympathetic while the other was hostile. The two
trends are similar to the growth of the tolerant, cosmopolitan Brahmo Samaj and
the militant Arya Samaj, when Hinduism was confronted with Christianity in the
nineteenth century. Kabir, Guru Nanak, Dadu, and other founders of syncretic sects
are included in the first group, while the movement in Bengal, associated with
Chaitanya, mirrors the latter tendency.
One of the earliest of the religious leaders, and probably the most influential,
was Kabir. His dates are uncertain, some scholars giving his birth date as 1398, and
some as late as 1440, but it is generally agreed that he flourished in the middle of
the fifteenth century. There has also been much controversy concerning his religious
origins, but it is quite certain that he was born into a Muslim family. The names of
Kabir and Kamal, his son, are both Islamic. According to the popular Tazkirah-iAuliya-i-Hind (Lives of Muslim Saints), he was a disciple of the Muslim Sufi, Shaikh
Taqi. A further indication of his Muslim origin is that his grave at Maghar has always
been in the keeping of Muslims. But Kabir was above all a religious radical who
denounced with equal zest the narrowness of Islamic and Hindu sectarianism.
According to one tradition he was a disciple of Ramananda, the great mystic who is
credited with the spread of bhakti doctrines in North India. That Ramananda himself
was influenced by Islam is not certain, but his willingness to admit men of all castes,
including Islam, as his disciples, suggests the possibility of this. The right conclusion
seems to be that Kabir was a Muslim Sufi who, having come under Ramananda's
influence, accepted some Hindu ideas and tried to reconcile Hinduism and Islam.
However it was the Hindus, and particularly those of the lower classes, to whom his
message appealed.

With many of his works not available for study, and serious
doubts [[127]] existing about the genuineness of others, it is difficult to assess
Kabir properly, but there is no difference of opinion about the general tenor of his
writings. He often uses Hindu religious nomenclature, and is equally at home in
Hindu and Muslim religious thought, but there is no doubt that one of the most
salient features of his teachings is denunciation of polytheism, idolatry, and caste.
But he is equally unsparing in his condemnation of Muslim formalism, and he made
no distinction between what was sane and holy in the teachings of Hinduism and
Islam. He was a true seeker after God, and did his best to break the barriers that
separated Hindus from Muslims. What has appealed to the millions of his followers
through the ages, however, is his passionate conviction that he had found the
pathway to God, a pathway accessible to the lowest as well as the highest. That he
has in the course of time become a saint of the Hindus rather than of the Muslims is
a reflection of the temper of Hinduism, which finds it easier than Islam to bring new
sects and doctrines within its spiritual hegemony.
The second great religious leader whose work shows undoubted Islamic
influence is Guru Nanak (14691539). The Sikh religion, of which Nanak was the
founder, is noted for its militant opposition to Islam, but this is largely a product of
historical circumstances in the seventeenth century. Nanak's own aim was to unite
both Hindu and Muslim through an appeal to what he considered the great central
truths of both. He acknowledged Kabir as his spiritual teacher, and their teachings
are very similar. His debt to Islam is shown in his rigorous insistence on the will and
majesty of God, while the underlying structure of his thought, with its tendency to
postulate a unity that comprehends all things, suggests his Hindu inheritance.
Accompanied by two companions, one a Muslim and the other a Hindu, he
wandered throughout North India and, according to some accounts, to Arabia,
preaching his simple gospel. The followers he gained became, in the course of a
century, a separate religious community, but the Sikh scriptures, of which Nanak's
sayings provide the core, are a reminder of the attempt to bridge the gap between
Hinduism and Islam.
Dadu (15441603) was the third of the religious leaders through [[128]] whose
teachings Islamic ideas found wide currency among non-Muslims. While he does not
belong chronologically in a survey of the early interaction of Hinduism and Islam,
since he lived into the seventeenth century, his membership in a Kabir sect makes a
brief consideration of his career useful. Furthermore, his biography shows the same
process at work that is seen in the accounts of the life of Kabir. Dadu is stated by his
later followers to have been the son of a Nagar Brahman, but recent researches
have shown that he was born in a family of Muslim cotton-carders. This is borne out
by his own works and the fact that all the members of his family have Muslim
names: his father's name was Lodi, his mother's, Basiran; his sons were Garib and
Miskin and his grandson, Faqir. His teacher was Shaikh Budhan, a Muslim saint of
the Qadri order. The early Hindu followers of Dadu were not disturbed by the

knowledge that he was a Muslim by birth, but later ones were. The legend of his
Brahmanical origin made its first appearance in a commentary on the Bhaktamala,
written as late as 1800. It is said that until recent times documents existed at the
monasteries of the followers of Dadu which suggested that he had been a Muslim,
but that these were destroyed by the keepers who were unwilling to admit that his
origins were not Hindu./2/
The metamorphosis which the life story and teachings of Kabir and Dadu have
undergone is not merely the work of those who were anxious to secure for their
heroes high lineage and a link with Hinduism; it is symptomatic of the general
movement of separation that became common in both Islam and Hinduism in later
centuies. As the Muslims grew more orthodox, they turned away from men such as
Kabir and Dadu, while the Hindus accepted them as saints, but forgot their Islamic
origins. In order to conform to the requirements of the Hindu bhakti tradition, they
have undergone a transformation that at times necessitates a falsification of history.
Two poet-saints who are clearly in the Hindu bhakti tradition but show traces of
Islamic influence are Namadeva and Tukaram, the great religious figures of the
Maratha country. Namadeva, who lived in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth
century, used a number of Persian and Arabic words, suggesting that even at this
early time the influence of Islam [[129]] was felt by a man, in a remote area of the
country, whose only concern seems to have been with religion. The writings of
Tukaram (15981649), the greatest of the Marathi poets, contain many obvious
references to Islam, such as the following:
First among the great names is Allah, never forget to respect it.
Allah
is
verily
one,
the
prophet
is
verily
one.
There Thou art one, there Thou art one, There Thou art one, O friend.
There is neither I nor thou./3/
In general the attitude of the Marathas to Muslim saints was one of respect, the
most vivid example of this being the great faith Shivaji's grandfather had in Shah
Sharif of Ahmadnagar. In honor of the saint he gave his sons the names of Shahji
and Sharifji. While a full study of the religious and social ferment of Maharashtra in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has yet to be made; it seems certain that the
new religious life did not take the form of a Hindu revivalism that emphasized the
separation of the Hindus from Islam. Antagonism toward Muslims came later, and,
as was the case with the Sikhs, had definite antecedents in particular historical
events. The creative spiritual and literary movement provided the basis on which
the Maratha nation could be built, and its emergence as the great antagonist of
Muslim power in India was based on political, not religious, factors. The evidence
from the songs of Namadeva and Tukaram strongly suggests that they were not
reacting in any hostile fashion to Islam. For this reaction one must look to Chaitanya
and the Vaishnavite movement in Bengal.

Chaitanya (14851533) of Bengal represents an aspect of the bhakti movement

that is very different from that seen in the lives and teachings of Kabir and his
successors. Chaitanya's concern, unlike that of Kabir, was not with bringing people
to an understanding of a God beyond all creeds and formulations; it was to exalt the
superiority of Krishna over all other deities./4/ It was, in other words, a revivalist,
not a syncretic, movement, a return to a worship of Vishnu under one of his most
appealing forms, the loving ecstatic Krishna. The attitude [[130]] of Bengal
Vaishnavites toward Islam was the antithesis of the attitude advocated by Kabir and
Nanak. Conscious of the appeal being made by Islam, they did not try to reform
Hinduism by adopting any of the attractive features of the rival faith. Instead, they
emphasized precisely those features, such as devotion to Krishna, which were most
antipathetic to the Islamic spirit. Another difference between Chaitanya's movement
and that of Kabir is the attitude toward caste. While it is true that Chaitanya made
disciples from all classes, one does not find the same note of condemnation of caste
as one does in Kabir. According to some students of the period, this indicates the
essential difference between the two aspects of bhakti in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries: only where Hinduism was directly influenced by Islam was there evidence
of concern for social inequities./5/
Because of the interest that is attached to such great names as that of Kabir,
there is a tendency to think of the movement of interaction between the two faiths
as mainly from Islam to Hinduism. This was not true, however, for Muslim society
was deeply influenced by its contacts with Hinduism. Some contacts had been made
even before Islamic rule was established in India; for example the probable Hindu
element in certain forms of Islamic mysticism, and the intellectual interchanges that
had taken place after the conquest of Sind in the seventh and eighth centuries.
During the sultanate, changes of a quite different order were apparent.
One of these concerns the lives of converts to Islam. Here the important point
to keep in mind is that when one sees Hindu practices followed by Indian Muslims, it
is not a case of Hindu influence, but simply of incomplete change from the old way
of life. Indian Muslims did not start with orthodox Islam, but began by accepting a
few basic features, and only in the course of time, particularly during the last two
centuries, have they become more orthodox. The process is less complete in the
lower classes, or those groups which, like the Khojas, adopted a somewhat
composite form of religion. More than religious beliefs, Indian Islam retained certain
characteristic features of Hindu society which, if not religious in themselves,
certainly had [[131]] been given religious sanction. One of these was the place
given to caste, with converts clinging to some memory of their former status in a
hierarchical society, while what may be called Muslim castes developed as Indian
Muslims classified themselves as Sayyid, Shaikh, Mughal, or Pathan. This structure
was never very rigid; as Bernier commented, anyone who put on a white turban
called himself a Mughal. An old saying makes the same point: "Last year I was a
Julaha (weaver); this year a Shaikh; and next year if the harvest be good, I shall be

a Sayyid." And in the mosque the Islamic ideals of brotherhood and equality
remained triumphant.
Muslims in India also adopted the Hindu practices of early marriages and of
objection to widow remarriage. Some social ceremonies connected with births,
deaths, and marriages may also be traced to Hindu origin. Some writers think that
reverence for pirs, or saints, and their graves, a marked feature of popular Indian
Islam, is a carry-over of Hindu practices. This interpretation overlooks the fact,
however, that even outside India pirs and their tombs are objects of great attention
and veneration.
The main influence of Hinduism on Islam, however, is probably seen not so
much in these specific instances as in a general softening of the original attitude of
the conquerors, particularly the Turks, in religious matters. This softening is to be
seen partly as a movement of Hindu attitudes toward the universe into Islamic
thought; it is also partly a recognition of the position of Islam in India. More striking
than the amount of interaction that took place in the first three centuries of Muslim
rule was the fact that there was not more. The impression one gains is that there
was never a very conscious attempt to create understanding, except on the part of
Kabir and Nanak, and that the contacts between the two great religions were, on
the whole, remarkably superficial as far as the total life of the country was
concerned. Writing in 1030, before the full tide of conquest had begun, Al-Biruni
spoke of how the Hindus differed from the Muslims in every respect, and, because of
the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni, "cherish the most inveterate aversion toward all
Muslims."/6/ Nearly three centuries later another traveler, Ibn Battuta, remarked
that [[132]] Hindus and Muslims lived in entirely separate communities. For Hindus,
there could be no intermarriage with Muslims nor even interdining. "It is the custom
among the heathen of the Malabar country," he remarked, "that no Muslim should
enter their houses or use their vessels for eating purposes. If a Muslim is fed out of
their vessels, they either break the vessels or give them away to the Muslims."/7/
It is against this background that one must see the greatness of the
achievements of men like Kabir and Nanak and, at the same time, the almost
insurmountable barriers to a genuine rapprochement. The tenacity with which
attempts continued to be made to establish links between the two religions is a
dominant theme in the cultural history of the Mughals, the new group who entered
India
at
the
beginning
of
the
sixteenth
century.
X.

The

Establishment

of

the

Mughal

Empire

[[135]] WHILE there is continuity in the history of Indo-Islamic civilization, with

the foundation of the Mughal empire in the second quarter of the sixteenth century
a political and cultural watershed was reached. The era of the sultanate (from 1206

to 1526) is often referred to as the medieval period of Indian history, partly because
of correspondence in time to the conventional classification of European history,
and partly because of certain analogies in spirit of the two historical epochs. But it is
also the Middle Ages of Indian history in that it divides ancient India and modern
India. While it is true, as has been shown in the preceding chapters, that the seeds
of the new life which bloomed so vigorously in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries were planted during the seemingly barren years of the sultanate,
nevertheless the Mughal empire has a different atmosphere from the preceding era.
It can be argued that the beginning of modern Indian history is to be dated not from
the establishment of British hegemony in the early nineteenth century, but from the
coming of the Mughals in 1526.
One obvious reason for the different tone and spirit of the Mughal empire is the
greater continuity of administration. For three hundred years the same dynasty
ruled from Delhi, and for half of this period, from 1556 to 1707, four rulers in direct
succession maintained control. This is a remarkable achievement in the dynastic
history of any great country, but it is particularly astonishing when measured
against the rapid overthrow, not just of rulers, but of dynasties, in the sultanate
period. Undoubtedly this dynastic stability contributed to the rich and varied cultural
life of the period. The basic reason for the different tone of the two periods is,
however, the success of Akbar, the third of the Mughal rulers, in creating an
enduring system of administration. Whatever evaluation may be put on the role of
individuals as creative forces in history, it is difficult to escape the
conclusion [[136]] that to quite an extraordinary degree Akbar was responsible for
many of the features that characterize the Mughal period.
The beginnings of Mughal rule followed a familiar pattern: an adventurous
chieftain in the mountainous areas to the northwest, attracted by possibilities of
wealth and power during a period of internal weakness in India, gathered his forces
for a sudden descent upon the Punjab./1/ Babur was ruler of a kingdom centered on
Kabul when he invaded India in 1526, but his original territory was the little
principality of Farghana in Turkistan. A Chaghatai Turk, he claimed descent from
both of the great Central Asian conquerors, Timur and, more remotely, Chingiz
Khan. It was this connection with the great Mongol invader that gave the dynasty
the misleading appellation of "Mughal" or "Mongol." This is especially ironic, since
Babur himself had an intense dislike for the Mongols. While it is too late to change
the long-accepted nomenclature, it is worth remembering that the Mughal dynasty
was Turkish in origin, and the cultural tradition which Babur imported into India was
the one which had flourished on the banks of the Oxus. Timur attracted a large
number of poets, musicians, and philosophers to his brilliant court, and built and
embellished his capital, Samarqand, in a truly magnificent style. After Timur's death
in 1405 these cultural traditions were more than maintained by his descendants,
who made their capitals centers of art and learning that drew upon the whole
Islamic world. This was the atmosphere in which Babur grew up, and which he and

his successor were to transplant to Lahore, Delhi, and Agra. Babur himself was a
writer of great distinction, and his autobiography is considered one of the great
monuments of Turkish prose.
Babur had established himself in Kabul in 1504, after he had been driven out of
Farghana by the westward movement of the Uzbegs, and when he found that he
was prevented from expansion towards Persia by the rise of a new dynasty there, he
turned his attention to India. There the revival of Hindu power and the virtual
independence of the Muslim governors provided him with an opportunity to attack
the [[137]] sultanate with the assurance that he would not be met by any united
resistance. In 1525 he captured Lahore, the capital of Punjab, whose ruler was in
virtual rebellion against the sultan, and then made plans for an attack on Delhi. The
decisive encounter with the sultan, Ibrahim Lodi, took place on the historic
battlefield of Panipat on April 21, 1526. It is probable that Babur had fewer than
12,000 men, in contrast to at least 100,000 in the army of the sultan, but he had
the decisive advantages of fine artillery and disciplined, well-led troops. The sultan
had neither, and before evening he and 15,000 of his soldiers were dead, and the
road was open to Delhi and Agra. After Babur had taken these, he swept on to
capture the other great centers of North IndiaGwalior, Kanauj, and Jaunpur. His
strongest opposition came from the famous Rana Sanga, the Rajput ruler of Mewar,
who had collected a great force of Hindu chieftains and a few Muslim nobles. The
two armies met at Khanua, a village near Agra, on March 16, 1527, and although
the rana was a far better leader than the sultan, his bravery was no match for
Babur's superior tactics and modern weapons. Rana Sanga's defeat meant the end
of Rajput hopes for a restoration of Hindu power; also it freed Babur's army for
mopping-up operations against the Afghan supporters of the sultan in the outlying
provinces. By 1529 he was master of the Gangetic plain as far as Patna in Bihar, but
he died in the following year before he could complete the conquest of North India.
Even so, the territory that he bequeathed to his son, Humayun, included
Afghanistan, the Punjab, the fertile Ganges plain, and a rim of forts along central
India.
Humayun was twenty-three when he succeeded his father, and while he had
experience as a military commander, he lacked his father's vigor and toughness.
These qualities were needed, for he was faced with a hostile combination of his own
jealous relatives, including his three younger brothers, and the Afghan nobles who
were not reconciled to their loss of power. He soon found himself fighting his
enemies on two widely separated fronts. In the west, Bahadur Shah, the ruler of
Gujarat, which had been independent of Delhi for over a century, provided shelter
for his enemies; in the east, his authority was challenged by the Afghan chieftains,
under Sher Khan [[138]] Sur. He was able to carry out a successful attack on
Bahadur Shah's territories, but he had to abandon his gains to move against the
threat to his power from Sher Khan Sur in Bihar.

Sher Khan Sur was one of the most colorful of the numerous Afghans who had
created places for themselves in the outlying provinces. The son of a petty Afghan
jagirdar in Bihar, he had gone at an early age to Jaunpur, where he acquired an
excellent knowledge of the Arabic and Persian classics. He entered the service of
the governor of Bihar, but apparently seeing the likelihood of a Mughal triumph in
North India, he joined the army of Babur when he invaded India. After Babur's death
he took advantage of the disturbed conditions to assert his own supremacy over
Bihar. This, however, did not satisfy him, and at the end of February, 1536, he
appeared at the gates of Gaur, the capital of Bengal, and retired only after receiving
a large payment. Next year he marched eastward again and entered Gaur in
triumph, but on the return of Humayun from Gujarat, he withdrew toward Bihar to
fight the Mughals in the area he knew best. In 1539 Humayun, who had occupied
Gaur, was caught in unfamiliar territory during the monsoon, and as he tried to
withdraw his forces toward Agra, Sher Khan blocked his communications and
defeated him at Chausa on the Ganges. The two armies met again at Kanauj, in
1540, but the Mughal army was so demoralized that on Sher Khan's advance they
fled in panic. Humayun's last chance of making a stand against the Afghans was
gone. He fled toward Rajputana and Sind, and at one time turned toward Qandahar
where his brother Kamran was in power, but he received no help and had to seek
refuge with the Shah of Persia. For the next fifteen years he wandered through the
Indian borderlands, quarreling with his brother and seeking support for a return to
India, but it was not until 1555, a year before his death, that he was able to enter
Delhi again.
Sher Khan Sur proclaimed himself ruler of North India in 1539, after the battle
of Chausa, with the title of Sher Shah Adil, and he quickly conquered Malwa,
Rajputana, and Sind. To guard against a Mughal invasion, he built a strong line of
forts in the northwest Punjab.
Although he reigned for only six years, and his successors lost control ten
years after his death, Sher Shah's rule is one of the more [[139]] significant Islamic
administrations in Indian history. His deep knowledge of earlier history and his
practical experience with the working of the system evolved by the Delhi sultans
enabled him to utilize what was good in the past and to improve and add to it. In
this way he paved the way for the final phase of Muslim administration under Akbar
and the later Mughals. For example, he undertook administrative reforms which had
been introduced originally by Ala-ud-din Khalji, such as a powerful standing army
officered by the nobles of the sultan's choice, and improved on them, leaving his
successors with a more efficient state service.
The principal reforms for which Sher Shah is remembered are those connected
with land revenue administration. The agency which he built up, and which with
further improvements under Akbar and the British continues to the present day,
fulfilled many functions. It was entrusted with the recovery of government dues,
collection of data regarding the villages and the holdings of the cultivators, and the

general economic situation. In this reform Sher Shah was able to draw upon his
experience of the detailed administration of a pargana of his father's jagir. The
fundamental change made by Sher Khan was the use of actual measurement,
rather than an estimation, of the cultivated land as the basis for revenue
assessment. The land was to be measured every year, and then one fourth or one
third of the average produce was to be taken as revenue. Allowance was to be
made for soils of different degrees of productivity.
The revenue system depended upon careful organization, and Sher Shah
attempted to create an administrative structure that would be under continual
supervision from the capital. Here again he was drawing upon the experience of the
past, which had shown the dangers of too much power in the hands of governors.
The smallest administrative unit was the pargana, or group of villages, and for each
of these Sher Shah appointed a shiqqdar, who was responsible for the general
administration, including the preservation of law and order, an amin, who
supervised assessment and collection of revenue, a treasurer, and two clerks to
keep accounts, one in Persian, and the other in Hindi. The next unit was a sarkar, or
a revenue district, which had a chief shiqqdar and a chief munsif, "whose duty it
was to see that the [[140]] revenue was collected in full, but that the cultivators
were not oppressed."
Sher Shah's desire for a centralized administration is also reflected in his
attempt to link the various parts of his empire by an efficient system of roads. Of his
four great roads, one connected Sonargaon (near modern Dacca) in Bengal, through
Agra, Delhi, and Lahore, with the Indus; others connected Agra and Mandu; Agra,
Jodhpur, and Chitor; and Lahore and Multan. Fruit trees were planted on both sides
of the roads and at short intervals caravansaries were set up with separate lodgings
for Muslims and Hindus, with servants to supply food to the travelers of each
religion. Safety was ensured by making the officials of the adjacent villages
responsible for incidents on the roads passing through their areas. Trade along the
highroads was encouraged by the abolition of all tolls, with custom duties levied
only on the frontiers. Although Sher Shah was rigidly orthodox, Hindus held high
positions in his army, and Todar Mal, who later gained renown under Akbar, was
originally in his service. One of his best-known generals was Brahmajit Gaur, whom
he sent in pursuit of Humayun, and Raja Ram Singh of Gwalior is also said to have
been in his service. His army included a contingent of Rajputs.
Islam Shah, who succeeded Sher Shah in 1545, made an effort to preserve the
institutions of his father. He kept the fortifications in good repair, increased the
number of caravansaries, and ordered the compilation of a detailed statement of
government regulations, extracts of which were read every Friday in meetings of
government officials of each area. He was, however, unable to keep his rebellious
nobles in check, and religious unrest among his subjects further undermined his
power.

The religious ferment of Islam Shah's reign was part of a widespread

movement. At this time the millennium of the migration of the Prophet of Islam from
Mecca was approaching, and many people believed in the imminent appearance of
a Mahdi who would convert the whole world to Islam and fill the earth with equity
and justice. Sayyid Muhammad, a leading scholar and saint of Jaunpur, encouraged
this expectation and later claimed to be the Mahdi. Those who accepted his claims
and followed his injunctions were known as [[141]] Mahadwis. The Mahadwi
movement gradually lost its importance in northern India, but it flourished longer in
the south, and Mahadwi doctrines have been held by some important persons in
Hyderabad Deccan (including the late Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang). Even in northern
India, the struggle which it generated and the conflict which ensued between the
court jurists and the Mahadwi notables had their effect on the religious history of
Akbar's day.
Sayyid Muhammad Jaunpuri died in Farah, in modern Afghanistan, in 1504; but
his doctrines were kept alive by his enthusiastic followers. In Sher Shah's reign,
Shaikh Alai, son of a leading religious teacher of Bengal, established himself at
Bayana near Agra, where he came under the influence of Shaikh Abdullah, an
Afghan follower of Sayyid Muhammad. The two leaders confined their preaching,
marked by rigid puritanism and asceticism, to the poor. They kept no property and
encouraged others to do the same, and admonished anyone who committed
irreligious acts. The group carried arms and permitted no interference with their
actions by officials. This defiance brought them into conflict with the established
government, in particular Makhdum-ul-Mulk, an important office-holder in the state,
who strongly objected to the new cult and used his influence with Islam Shah to
punish those who believed in its doctrines. Shaikh Alai and Shaikh Abdullah had
many powerful friends, but their unwillingness to acknowledge any superior secular
authority, including a refusal to salute even the emperor, gave Makhdum-ul-Mulk an
opportunity to have them both flogged. The bitterness and animosity engendered
by the strife between the sect's leaders and the government help to explain, in part
at least, the growing confusion and disorder of Islam Shah's reign.
Quarrels over the succession at the time of Islam Shah's death in 1554
provided the opportunity for which Humayun, now established as ruler of Kabul, had
long been waiting. Just prior to this he had finally freed himself of his brother's
opposition, and he was able to move against India without fear of an attack from the
rear. He took the great key cities of the north, Lahore and Delhi, in a series of
campaigns in 1555, but bad luck pursued him before he had a chance to consolidate
his gains. In January, 1556, he was killed in a fall on [[142]] the stairs of his library
in Delhi. To his young son Akbar he left the royal title and a foothold in Hindustan,
but little security against the members of the Sur family and their supporters. To
make good the claims of Babur's descendants to the throne of Delhi was to be the
work of Akbar, not of the unfortunate Humayun.

While Humayun's career as an Indian ruler was brief and insecure, his
contribution to the cultural synthesis of the Mughal period was of very considerable
importance, for from his reign dates the increasing Persian influence on Islamic
civilization in India. During years of exile at the court of Shah Tahmasp of Persia, he
had come in contact with the artists who were making Tabriz a great cultural center.
Two of them, Mir Sayyid Ali and Khwajah Abdus Samad, apparently were given offers
of employment by Humayun, and in 1550 both of them joined him at Kabul, which
he had occupied prior to his reconquest of India. Humayun entrusted the two artists
with various commissions including the preparation and illustration of the famous
Persian classic, Dastan-i-Amir Hamzah, portions of which have survived. They
accompanied Humayun to Agra, and were retained later by Akbar as his court
painters. By training local talent and attracting other artists from abroad, a school of
painting was established which was to be one of the glories of the Mughal empire.
To the Perso-Turkish culture Akbar added other elements such as Indo-Muslim
music, Hindu philosophy, and Hindi literature, which had received little official
support at Delhi during the sultanate, although they had flourished in the regional
kingdoms. With this broadened basis, Mughal culture assumed a pattern which has
left a permanent mark on the cultural life of the subcontinent.
X.

The

Establishment

of

the

Mughal

Empire

[[135]] WHILE there is continuity in the history of Indo-Islamic civilization, with

the foundation of the Mughal empire in the second quarter of the sixteenth century
a political and cultural watershed was reached. The era of the sultanate (from 1206
to 1526) is often referred to as the medieval period of Indian history, partly because
of correspondence in time to the conventional classification of European history,
and partly because of certain analogies in spirit of the two historical epochs. But it is
also the Middle Ages of Indian history in that it divides ancient India and modern
India. While it is true, as has been shown in the preceding chapters, that the seeds
of the new life which bloomed so vigorously in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries were planted during the seemingly barren years of the sultanate,
nevertheless the Mughal empire has a different atmosphere from the preceding era.
It can be argued that the beginning of modern Indian history is to be dated not from
the establishment of British hegemony in the early nineteenth century, but from the
coming of the Mughals in 1526.
One obvious reason for the different tone and spirit of the Mughal empire is the
greater continuity of administration. For three hundred years the same dynasty
ruled from Delhi, and for half of this period, from 1556 to 1707, four rulers in direct
succession maintained control. This is a remarkable achievement in the dynastic
history of any great country, but it is particularly astonishing when measured
against the rapid overthrow, not just of rulers, but of dynasties, in the sultanate
period. Undoubtedly this dynastic stability contributed to the rich and varied cultural

life of the period. The basic reason for the different tone of the two periods is,
however, the success of Akbar, the third of the Mughal rulers, in creating an
enduring system of administration. Whatever evaluation may be put on the role of
individuals as creative forces in history, it is difficult to escape the
conclusion [[136]] that to quite an extraordinary degree Akbar was responsible for
many of the features that characterize the Mughal period.
The beginnings of Mughal rule followed a familiar pattern: an adventurous
chieftain in the mountainous areas to the northwest, attracted by possibilities of
wealth and power during a period of internal weakness in India, gathered his forces
for a sudden descent upon the Punjab./1/ Babur was ruler of a kingdom centered on
Kabul when he invaded India in 1526, but his original territory was the little
principality of Farghana in Turkistan. A Chaghatai Turk, he claimed descent from
both of the great Central Asian conquerors, Timur and, more remotely, Chingiz
Khan. It was this connection with the great Mongol invader that gave the dynasty
the misleading appellation of "Mughal" or "Mongol." This is especially ironic, since
Babur himself had an intense dislike for the Mongols. While it is too late to change
the long-accepted nomenclature, it is worth remembering that the Mughal dynasty
was Turkish in origin, and the cultural tradition which Babur imported into India was
the one which had flourished on the banks of the Oxus. Timur attracted a large
number of poets, musicians, and philosophers to his brilliant court, and built and
embellished his capital, Samarqand, in a truly magnificent style. After Timur's death
in 1405 these cultural traditions were more than maintained by his descendants,
who made their capitals centers of art and learning that drew upon the whole
Islamic world. This was the atmosphere in which Babur grew up, and which he and
his successor were to transplant to Lahore, Delhi, and Agra. Babur himself was a
writer of great distinction, and his autobiography is considered one of the great
monuments of Turkish prose.
Babur had established himself in Kabul in 1504, after he had been driven out of
Farghana by the westward movement of the Uzbegs, and when he found that he
was prevented from expansion towards Persia by the rise of a new dynasty there, he
turned his attention to India. There the revival of Hindu power and the virtual
independence of the Muslim governors provided him with an opportunity to attack
the [[137]] sultanate with the assurance that he would not be met by any united
resistance. In 1525 he captured Lahore, the capital of Punjab, whose ruler was in
virtual rebellion against the sultan, and then made plans for an attack on Delhi. The
decisive encounter with the sultan, Ibrahim Lodi, took place on the historic
battlefield of Panipat on April 21, 1526. It is probable that Babur had fewer than
12,000 men, in contrast to at least 100,000 in the army of the sultan, but he had
the decisive advantages of fine artillery and disciplined, well-led troops. The sultan
had neither, and before evening he and 15,000 of his soldiers were dead, and the
road was open to Delhi and Agra. After Babur had taken these, he swept on to
capture the other great centers of North IndiaGwalior, Kanauj, and Jaunpur. His

strongest opposition came from the famous Rana Sanga, the Rajput ruler of Mewar,
who had collected a great force of Hindu chieftains and a few Muslim nobles. The
two armies met at Khanua, a village near Agra, on March 16, 1527, and although
the rana was a far better leader than the sultan, his bravery was no match for
Babur's superior tactics and modern weapons. Rana Sanga's defeat meant the end
of Rajput hopes for a restoration of Hindu power; also it freed Babur's army for
mopping-up operations against the Afghan supporters of the sultan in the outlying
provinces. By 1529 he was master of the Gangetic plain as far as Patna in Bihar, but
he died in the following year before he could complete the conquest of North India.
Even so, the territory that he bequeathed to his son, Humayun, included
Afghanistan, the Punjab, the fertile Ganges plain, and a rim of forts along central
India.
Humayun was twenty-three when he succeeded his father, and while he had
experience as a military commander, he lacked his father's vigor and toughness.
These qualities were needed, for he was faced with a hostile combination of his own
jealous relatives, including his three younger brothers, and the Afghan nobles who
were not reconciled to their loss of power. He soon found himself fighting his
enemies on two widely separated fronts. In the west, Bahadur Shah, the ruler of
Gujarat, which had been independent of Delhi for over a century, provided shelter
for his enemies; in the east, his authority was challenged by the Afghan chieftains,
under Sher Khan [[138]] Sur. He was able to carry out a successful attack on
Bahadur Shah's territories, but he had to abandon his gains to move against the
threat to his power from Sher Khan Sur in Bihar.
Sher Khan Sur was one of the most colorful of the numerous Afghans who had
created places for themselves in the outlying provinces. The son of a petty Afghan
jagirdar in Bihar, he had gone at an early age to Jaunpur, where he acquired an
excellent knowledge of the Arabic and Persian classics. He entered the service of
the governor of Bihar, but apparently seeing the likelihood of a Mughal triumph in
North India, he joined the army of Babur when he invaded India. After Babur's death
he took advantage of the disturbed conditions to assert his own supremacy over
Bihar. This, however, did not satisfy him, and at the end of February, 1536, he
appeared at the gates of Gaur, the capital of Bengal, and retired only after receiving
a large payment. Next year he marched eastward again and entered Gaur in
triumph, but on the return of Humayun from Gujarat, he withdrew toward Bihar to
fight the Mughals in the area he knew best. In 1539 Humayun, who had occupied
Gaur, was caught in unfamiliar territory during the monsoon, and as he tried to
withdraw his forces toward Agra, Sher Khan blocked his communications and
defeated him at Chausa on the Ganges. The two armies met again at Kanauj, in
1540, but the Mughal army was so demoralized that on Sher Khan's advance they
fled in panic. Humayun's last chance of making a stand against the Afghans was
gone. He fled toward Rajputana and Sind, and at one time turned toward Qandahar
where his brother Kamran was in power, but he received no help and had to seek

refuge with the Shah of Persia. For the next fifteen years he wandered through the
Indian borderlands, quarreling with his brother and seeking support for a return to
India, but it was not until 1555, a year before his death, that he was able to enter
Delhi again.
Sher Khan Sur proclaimed himself ruler of North India in 1539, after the battle
of Chausa, with the title of Sher Shah Adil, and he quickly conquered Malwa,
Rajputana, and Sind. To guard against a Mughal invasion, he built a strong line of
forts in the northwest Punjab.
Although he reigned for only six years, and his successors lost control ten
years after his death, Sher Shah's rule is one of the more [[139]] significant Islamic
administrations in Indian history. His deep knowledge of earlier history and his
practical experience with the working of the system evolved by the Delhi sultans
enabled him to utilize what was good in the past and to improve and add to it. In
this way he paved the way for the final phase of Muslim administration under Akbar
and the later Mughals. For example, he undertook administrative reforms which had
been introduced originally by Ala-ud-din Khalji, such as a powerful standing army
officered by the nobles of the sultan's choice, and improved on them, leaving his
successors with a more efficient state service.
The principal reforms for which Sher Shah is remembered are those connected
with land revenue administration. The agency which he built up, and which with
further improvements under Akbar and the British continues to the present day,
fulfilled many functions. It was entrusted with the recovery of government dues,
collection of data regarding the villages and the holdings of the cultivators, and the
general economic situation. In this reform Sher Shah was able to draw upon his
experience of the detailed administration of a pargana of his father's jagir. The
fundamental change made by Sher Khan was the use of actual measurement,
rather than an estimation, of the cultivated land as the basis for revenue
assessment. The land was to be measured every year, and then one fourth or one
third of the average produce was to be taken as revenue. Allowance was to be
made for soils of different degrees of productivity.
The revenue system depended upon careful organization, and Sher Shah
attempted to create an administrative structure that would be under continual
supervision from the capital. Here again he was drawing upon the experience of the
past, which had shown the dangers of too much power in the hands of governors.
The smallest administrative unit was the pargana, or group of villages, and for each
of these Sher Shah appointed a shiqqdar, who was responsible for the general
administration, including the preservation of law and order, an amin, who
supervised assessment and collection of revenue, a treasurer, and two clerks to
keep accounts, one in Persian, and the other in Hindi. The next unit was a sarkar, or
a revenue district, which had a chief shiqqdar and a chief munsif, "whose duty it

was to see that the [[140]] revenue was collected in full, but that the cultivators
were not oppressed."
Sher Shah's desire for a centralized administration is also reflected in his
attempt to link the various parts of his empire by an efficient system of roads. Of his
four great roads, one connected Sonargaon (near modern Dacca) in Bengal, through
Agra, Delhi, and Lahore, with the Indus; others connected Agra and Mandu; Agra,
Jodhpur, and Chitor; and Lahore and Multan. Fruit trees were planted on both sides
of the roads and at short intervals caravansaries were set up with separate lodgings
for Muslims and Hindus, with servants to supply food to the travelers of each
religion. Safety was ensured by making the officials of the adjacent villages
responsible for incidents on the roads passing through their areas. Trade along the
highroads was encouraged by the abolition of all tolls, with custom duties levied
only on the frontiers. Although Sher Shah was rigidly orthodox, Hindus held high
positions in his army, and Todar Mal, who later gained renown under Akbar, was
originally in his service. One of his best-known generals was Brahmajit Gaur, whom
he sent in pursuit of Humayun, and Raja Ram Singh of Gwalior is also said to have
been in his service. His army included a contingent of Rajputs.
Islam Shah, who succeeded Sher Shah in 1545, made an effort to preserve the
institutions of his father. He kept the fortifications in good repair, increased the
number of caravansaries, and ordered the compilation of a detailed statement of
government regulations, extracts of which were read every Friday in meetings of
government officials of each area. He was, however, unable to keep his rebellious
nobles in check, and religious unrest among his subjects further undermined his
power.
The religious ferment of Islam Shah's reign was part of a widespread
movement. At this time the millennium of the migration of the Prophet of Islam from
Mecca was approaching, and many people believed in the imminent appearance of
a Mahdi who would convert the whole world to Islam and fill the earth with equity
and justice. Sayyid Muhammad, a leading scholar and saint of Jaunpur, encouraged
this expectation and later claimed to be the Mahdi. Those who accepted his claims
and followed his injunctions were known as [[141]] Mahadwis. The Mahadwi
movement gradually lost its importance in northern India, but it flourished longer in
the south, and Mahadwi doctrines have been held by some important persons in
Hyderabad Deccan (including the late Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang). Even in northern
India, the struggle which it generated and the conflict which ensued between the
court jurists and the Mahadwi notables had their effect on the religious history of
Akbar's day.
Sayyid Muhammad Jaunpuri died in Farah, in modern Afghanistan, in 1504; but
his doctrines were kept alive by his enthusiastic followers. In Sher Shah's reign,
Shaikh Alai, son of a leading religious teacher of Bengal, established himself at
Bayana near Agra, where he came under the influence of Shaikh Abdullah, an

Afghan follower of Sayyid Muhammad. The two leaders confined their preaching,
marked by rigid puritanism and asceticism, to the poor. They kept no property and
encouraged others to do the same, and admonished anyone who committed
irreligious acts. The group carried arms and permitted no interference with their
actions by officials. This defiance brought them into conflict with the established
government, in particular Makhdum-ul-Mulk, an important office-holder in the state,
who strongly objected to the new cult and used his influence with Islam Shah to
punish those who believed in its doctrines. Shaikh Alai and Shaikh Abdullah had
many powerful friends, but their unwillingness to acknowledge any superior secular
authority, including a refusal to salute even the emperor, gave Makhdum-ul-Mulk an
opportunity to have them both flogged. The bitterness and animosity engendered
by the strife between the sect's leaders and the government help to explain, in part
at least, the growing confusion and disorder of Islam Shah's reign.
Quarrels over the succession at the time of Islam Shah's death in 1554
provided the opportunity for which Humayun, now established as ruler of Kabul, had
long been waiting. Just prior to this he had finally freed himself of his brother's
opposition, and he was able to move against India without fear of an attack from the
rear. He took the great key cities of the north, Lahore and Delhi, in a series of
campaigns in 1555, but bad luck pursued him before he had a chance to consolidate
his gains. In January, 1556, he was killed in a fall on [[142]] the stairs of his library
in Delhi. To his young son Akbar he left the royal title and a foothold in Hindustan,
but little security against the members of the Sur family and their supporters. To
make good the claims of Babur's descendants to the throne of Delhi was to be the
work of Akbar, not of the unfortunate Humayun.
While Humayun's career as an Indian ruler was brief and insecure, his
contribution to the cultural synthesis of the Mughal period was of very considerable
importance, for from his reign dates the increasing Persian influence on Islamic
civilization in India. During years of exile at the court of Shah Tahmasp of Persia, he
had come in contact with the artists who were making Tabriz a great cultural center.
Two of them, Mir Sayyid Ali and Khwajah Abdus Samad, apparently were given offers
of employment by Humayun, and in 1550 both of them joined him at Kabul, which
he had occupied prior to his reconquest of India. Humayun entrusted the two artists
with various commissions including the preparation and illustration of the famous
Persian classic, Dastan-i-Amir Hamzah, portions of which have survived. They
accompanied Humayun to Agra, and were retained later by Akbar as his court
painters. By training local talent and attracting other artists from abroad, a school of
painting was established which was to be one of the glories of the Mughal empire.
To the Perso-Turkish culture Akbar added other elements such as Indo-Muslim
music, Hindu philosophy, and Hindi literature, which had received little official
support at Delhi during the sultanate, although they had flourished in the regional
kingdoms. With this broadened basis, Mughal culture assumed a pattern which has
left a permanent mark on the cultural life of the subcontinent.

XII.

Religion

at

Akbar's

Court

[[156]] OF ALL the aspects of Akbar's life and reign, few have excited more
interest than his attitude toward religion. There is every indication that he began his
rule as a devout, orthodox Muslim. He said all the five prayers in the congregation,
often recited the call for prayers, and occasionally swept out the palace mosque
himself. He showed great respect for the two leading religious leaders at the court,
Makhdum-ul-Mulk and Shaikh Abdul Nabi. Makhdum-ul-Mulk, who had been an
important figure during the reign of the Surs, became even more powerful in the
early days of Akbar. Shaikh Abdul Nabi, who was appointed sadr-ul-sadur in 1565,
was given authority which no other holder of the office (the highest religious
position in the realm) had ever enjoyed. Akbar would go to his house to hear him
expound the sayings of the Prophet, and he placed his heir, Prince Salim, under his
tutorship. "For some time the Emperor had so great faith in him as a religious leader
that he would bring him his shoes and place them before his feet."/1/
Further indication of Akbar's orthodoxy and of his religious zeal was shown in
his devotion to Khwaja Muin-ud-din, the great Chishti saint whose tomb at Ajmer
was an object of veneration. He made his first pilgrimage to the tomb in 1565, and
thereafter he went almost every year. If there was a perplexing problem or a
particularly difficult expedition to undertake, he would make a special journey to
pray at the tomb for guidance. He always entered Ajmer on foot, and in 1568 and
1570, in fulfillment of vows, walked the entire way from Agra to Ajmer.
It was probably devotion to Khwaja Muin-ud-din that was responsible for
Akbar's interest in Shaikh Salim Chishti, a contemporary saint who lived at the site
of what was to become Akbar's capital at Fathpur Sikri. It was there that he built the
Ibadat Khana, the House [[157]] of Worship, which he set apart for religious
discussions. Every Friday after the congregational prayers, scholars, dervishes,
theologians, and courtiers interested in religious affairs would assemble in the
Ibadat Khana and discuss religious subjects in the royal presence.
The assemblies in the Ibadat Khana had been arranged by Akbar out of sincere
religious zeal, but ultimately they were to drive him away from orthodoxy. This was
partly the fault of those who attended the gatherings. At the very first session there
were disputes on the question of precedence, and when these were resolved, a
battle of wits started among the participants. Each tried to display his own
scholarship and reveal the ignorance of the others. Questions were asked to belittle
rivals, and soon the gatherings degenerated into religious squabbles. The two great
theologians of the court, Makhdum-ul-Mulk and Shaikh Abdul Nabi, arrayed on
opposite sides, attacked each other so mercilessly that Akbar lost confidence in
both of them. His disillusionment extended to the orthodoxy they represented.

Of the two, Makhdum-ul-Mulk was a powerful jurist and had received the title
of Shaikh-ul-Islam from Sher Shah Suri. He used his position for two main purposes:
to persecute the unorthodox and to accumulate fabulous wealth. Badauni says that
when he died, thirty million rupees in cash were found in his house, and several
boxes containing gold blocks were buried in a false tomb.
Shaikh Abdul Nabi, although not personally accused of graft, is said to have
had corrupt subordinates. He was a strict puritan, and his hostility toward music was
one of the grounds on which his rival attacked him in the discussions in the House of
Worship. The petty recriminations of the ulama disgusted the emperor, but probably
a deeper cause for his break with them was an issue that is comparable in some
ways to the conflict between the church and the state in medieval Europe. The
interpretation and application of Islamic law, which was the law of the state, was the
responsibility of the ulama. Over against this, and certain to come in conflict with it,
was Akbar's concentration of all ultimate authority in himself. Furthermore, with
Akbar's organization of the empire on new lines, problems were arising which the
old theologians were unable to comprehend, much less settle in a way acceptable to
the emperor.
[[158]] One such problem brought matters to a climax in 1577. A complaint
was lodged before the emperor by the qazi of Mathura that a rich Brahman in his
vicinity had forcibly taken possession of building material collected for the
construction of a mosque and had used it for building a temple. "When the qazi had
attempted to prevent him, he had, in presence of witnesses, opened his foul mouth
to curse the Prophet, and had shown his contempt for Muslims in various other
ways."/2/ The question of suitable punishment for the Brahman was discussed
before the emperor, but, perplexed by conflicting considerations, he gave no
decision. The Brahman languished in prison for a long time. Ultimately Akbar left the
matter to Shaikh Abdul Nabi, who had the offender executed. This led to an outcry,
with many courtiers like Abul Fazl expressing the view that although an offense had
been committed, the extreme penalty of execution was not necessary. They based
their opinion on a decree of the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic law. Abdul
Nabi's action was also severely criticized by the Hindu courtiers and by Akbar's
Rajput wives./3/
Akbar was troubled not only by this incident but by the general legal position
which gave so much power to the ulama that he was at their mercy on such vital
issues. He explained his difficulties to Shaikh Mubarik, the father of Faizi and Abul
Fazl, who had come to the court on business. The shaikh, who was liberal minded
and independent in his views, had suffered at the hands of Makhdum-ul-Mulk. He
stated that according to Islamic law, if there was a difference of opinion between
the jurists, the Muslim ruler had the authority and the right to choose any one view,
his choice being decisive. He drew up a brief but important document, the
arguments of which were supported by quotations from the Holy Quran and
traditions of the Prophet. It read as follows:

Whereas Hindustan has now become the center of security and peace, and the land
of justice and beneficence, a large number of people, especially learned men and
lawyers, have immigrated and chosen this country for their home. Now we, the
principal ulama, who are not only well versed in the several departments of the law
and in the principles of [[159]] jurisprudence, and well acquainted with the edicts
which rest on reason or testimony, but are also known for our piety and honest
intentions, have duly considered the deep meaning, first, of the verse of the Quran:
"Obey God and obey the Prophet, and those who have authority among you"; and
secondly, of the genuine tradition: "Surely, the man who is dearest to God on the
day of judgment is the imam-i-adil; whosoever obeys the Amir obeys Thee; and
whoever rebels against him rebels against Thee" ; and thirdly, of several other
proofs based on reasoning or testimony; and we have agreed that the rank of
a sultan-i-adil is higher in the eyes of God than the rank of a mujtahid. Further, we
declare that the King of Islam, Amir of the Faithful, Shadow of God in the world, Abul
Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar Padshah Ghazi (whose kingdom God
perpetuate), is a most just, most wise, and a most God-fearing king. Should,
therefore, in the future, a religious question come up, regarding which the opinions
of the mujtahids are at variance, and His Majesty, in his penetrating understanding
and clear wisdom, be inclined to adopt, for the benefit of the nation, and as a
political expedient, any of the conflicting opinions, which exist on that point, and
issue a decree to that effect, we do hereby agree that such a decree shall be
binding on us and on the whole nation.
Further, we declare that should His Majesty think it fit to issue a new order, we and
the nation shall likewise be bound by it, provided always that such order be not only
in accordance with some verse of the Quran, but also of real benefit to the nation;
and further, that any opposition on the part of his subjects to such an order passed
by His Majesty shall involve damnation in the world to come, and loss of property
and religious privileges in this life.
This document has been written with honest intentions, for the glory of God and the
propagation of Islam, and is signed by us, the principal ulama and lawyers, in the
month of Rajab of the year nine hundred and eight-seven./4/
The document has been referred to as the "Infallibility Decree of 1579," with
the implication that it gave to Akbar unlimited powers in both the spiritual and
temporal spheres. This is an erroneous reading, for the king's authority was
confined to measures which were "in accordance with some verse of the Quran" and
were of "real benefit for the nation." The modern Islamic scholar Abul Kalam Azad
has argued that the central thesis of the document was in line with traditional
Islamic political theory. "The khalifa of the day and those in [[160]] charge of
affairs, and their advisers have the right of ijtihad (independent judgment) at all
times and in all ages, and its denial has been responsible for all the misfortunes of
Islam."/5/

But the limitations laid down in the declaration of 1579 were not observed by
Akbar, and in practice it became an excuse for the exercise of unrestrained
autocracy. Soon the gatherings of the Ibadat Khana were exposed to new and more
hostile influences. Before long, in addition to the Muslim scholars, Hindu pandits,
Parsi mobeds and Jain sadhus began to attend the gatherings. They expressed their
own points of view, and the emperor, ever open to new ideas, was attracted by
some of their practices. A more serious complication arose when the emperor
invited Jesuits from Goa to the discussions. They did not confine themselves to the
exposition of their own beliefs, but reviled Islam and the Prophet in unrestrained
language.
When the news of these discussions and the new decrees promulgated by the
emperor became known, there was serious disaffection among the Muslims. The
first to criticize the new developments was Mullah Muhammad Yazdi, the Shia qazi
of Jaunpur, who declared in 1580 that the emperor had ceased to be a Muslim and
the people should rise against him. Even some courtiers like Qutb-ud-din Khan Koka
and Shahbaz Khan Kamboh criticized the emperor in the court. Akbar sent for
Mullah Muhammad Yazdi and Muiz-ul-Mulk, the chief qazi of Bengal, and had them
put to death by drowning. His punitive action against others did not prevent open
rebellion from breaking out in 1581. Akbar's enemies did not confine themselves to
sporadic outbursts and regional risings, but made a serious attempt to dethrone him
and place his brother Mirza Muhammad Hakim, ruler of Kabul, on the throne.
Akbar's brilliant diwan, Khawaja Shah Mansur, was executed for alleged conspiracy
with Mirza Hakim, who got as far as Lahore, but being no match for Akbar, was
driven back to Kabul.
The historian Vincent Smith, in his biographical study of Akbar, declares that
the emperor, after he had returned from his successful expedition against the
rebels, called a formal council to promulgate [[161]] his new religion the Din-iIlahi./6/ This reading of the evidence is, however, almost certainly erroneous. The
Jesuits apparently had not heard of any such proclamation. In fact, Father
Monserrate, who accompanied Akbar to Kabul and back, thought that the emperor
had grown more cautious in the expression of his views. On the return journey Akbar
performed prayers in the customary Muslim manner in a mosque near Khyber, was
reluctant to have religious discussions with the Jesuits, and during one debate in
which Muslim spokesmen appeared likely to lose, Akbar took their side and brought
his own knowledge into play./7/ Not only Smith, but most European historians, have
assumed that Akbar abandoned Islam. Hindu writers, on the other hand, have
generally held that although he followed a tolerant policy, he lived and died a
Muslim. Muslim historians are about equally divided on the question. These
conflicting judgments partly reflect the inevitable differences that result from
assessing a complex personality, but they are due also to conflicting contemporary
accounts and, in no small degree, to erroneous translations of the relevant Persian
texts.

The foundation for the misunderstanding of Akbar's religious history was laid
by Blochmann in the introduction to his translation of Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari; here
he set the pattern for relying on Badauni, Akbar's enemy, rather than Abul Fazl, his
friend, for studying Akbar's religious history. The crucial question about Akbar's
religious activity is whether he established a new religion or a new spiritual order.
Badauni's account is clearly intended to give the impression that Akbar no longer
respected Islam and, indeed, actively persecuted it./8/ The expressions used by
both
Abul
Fazl
and
Badauni
in
this
connection,
however,
are iradat or muridi (discipleship) but Blochmann habitually translates these
expressions as "divine faith," thus converting a religious order (or even a bond of
loyalty) into a [[162]] new religion. He translated the expression ain-i-iradat
gazinan, which correctly means "rules for the (royal) disciples," as the "principles of
divine faith," and gives the subsection the heading, "ordinances of the divine faith,"
although there is no such heading in the original text./9/
The sharp difference between the viewpoints of Abul Fazl and Badauni is
obvious, but our study of the subject has revealed a surprisingly large area of
common ground between them, and if the present divergence of opinion about
Akbar's religion is to be resolved, more attention will have to be given to what is
common ground between these two principal sources of our information. It appears
that modern historians, fascinated by the wit and sarcasm of Badauni, have paid
scant attention to Abul Fazl's informative sections on Akbar's religion contained in
his Akbar-Nama and Ain-i-Akbari. Akbar's regulations which were not of an
ephemeral or tentative character have been preserved in the voluminous Ain-iAkbari, and it would be illogical to suppose that important royal orders, which were
to be given general currency in the empire, would have been omitted. Since
the Ain's accounts of Akbar's religious innovations and of the practices of the royal
disciples contain much that would shock an orthodox Muslim, there is no reason to
suppose that regulations for the Din-i-Ilahi would not have been included. Judging by
its contents and the public nature of the information which is sought,
the Ain appears to be the most dependable source of information regarding Akbar's
religious regulations and spiritual practices.
According to Ain-i-Akbari the emperor discouraged people from becoming his
disciples, but the person whom he accepted for initiation approached him with his
turban in his hand and put his head on the emperor's feet. This was to express that
the novice had "cast aside conceit, selfishnessthe root of so many evils." The
emperor then stretched out his hand, raised up the disciple and replaced the turban
on his head. The novice was given a token containing the ruler's symbolic motto
Allah-u-Akbar (God is Great). When the disciples met each other, one would say,
"Allah-u-Akbar" and the [[163]] other responded, "Jall-u-Jallaluhu." "The motives of
His Majesty in allowing this mode of salutation," Abul Fazl wrote, "is to remind men
to think of the origin of their existence and to keep the Deity in their fresh, lively
and grateful remembrance."/10/ The disciples were to endeavor to abstain from

flesh and not to make use of the same vessels as butchers, fishermen, and bird
catchers. Each disciple was to give a party on the anniversary of his birthday and to
bestow alms. The dinners customarily given after a man's death were to be given by
a disciple during his lifetime.
For students of history, general orders intended for compliance by all are more
important than the regulations framed for the royal disciples. According to Abul Fazl,
the kotwals were asked to ensure that no ox or bufalo or horse or camel was
slaughtered, and the killing of all animals was prohibited on many days of the year
including the whole month of Abanexcept for feeding the animals used in
hunting and for the sick.
Akbar interested himself in the reform of marriage customs. He abhorred
marriages before the age of puberty, and also considered marriages between near
relations highly improper. He disapproved of large dowries, but admitted that they
acted as a preventative to rash divorces. "Nor does His Majesty approve of everyone
marrying more than one wife; for this ruins the man's health, and disturbs the peace
of the home." Circumcision before the age of twelve was forbidden. The kotwals
were to "forbid the restriction of personal liberty and the selling of slaves," and a
woman was not to be burned on her husband's funeral pyre without giving her
consent. Government officers were not to consider homage paid to the sun as
worshiping fire. A governor was expected to accustom himself to night vigils and to
partake of sleep and food in moderation. He was to pass the dawn and evening in
meditation and pray at noon and midnight. Nauroz, the Parsi New Year, was to be
celebrated officially, with the kotwal keeping a vigil on that night.
It was true that Akbar adopted and prescribed for his disciples and even others
many practices which were borrowed from alien creeds, but precedents for this may
be found in the lives of many Sufi [[164]] saints who continue to be considered
Muslims in spite of wide departures from traditional Islam. For all of his innovations,
Islamic texts or precedents, genuine or spurious, were cited by his courtiers. But
while Akbar did not claim to be a prophet or to establish a new religion, Islam lost its
privileged position and many of his practices and regulations differed widely from
the normal Muslim practices. It is not surprising that by many Muslims he wasand
isregarded as having gone outside the pale of Islam. Writing of the proclamation
of 1579, Abul Fazl very ably summed up the popular misconceptions concerning
Akbar, noting that he was accused by the "ill-informed and the unfair" of claiming
divinity, or at least prophethood, of being anti-Muslim, a Shia, and partial to
Hinduism./11/ While Abul Fazl answered these criticisms, he admitted that Akbar's
policy and some of his regulations facilitated the task of his enemies. Possibly Akbar
sincerely believed that the powers conferred on him by the ulama in 1579
authorized him to initiate his regulations, and the court flatterers pandered to this
belief by citing precedents in Islamic history. That they caused serious misgivings
and resentment among orthodox Sunni Muslims was to be expected.

In any assessment of Akbar's religious policy, it is important to see that it had

two quite distinct aspects. On the one hand were the political and administrative
measures which he took to broaden the basis of his government and secure the
goodwill of all his subjects. For this policy of religious tolerance and of giving an
adequate share in the administration to all classes there can be nothing but praise,
and it became a part of the Mughal political code. In themselves, these measures
involved nothing more than what Muhammad ibn Qasim, the Arab conqueror of
Sind, had adopted eight centuries before with full concurrence of the ulama of
Damascus. Zain-ul-Abidin introduced similar measures in Kashmir without a murmur
on the part of Muslims. They were adopted by Akbar in the very beginning of his
reignmainly between 1662 and 1665at a time when the ulama were dominant
at the court, without offending Muslim opinion.
An aspect of Akbar's religious policy that began several years after [[165]] the
acrimonious debates of the House of Worship was on a different footing. His attempt
to set himself up as a jagat guru, the spiritual leader of the people, was a political
mistake. Akbar's Hindu well-wishers like Raja Bhagwan Das and Raja Man Singh left
him in no doubt about their dislike of his religious innovations. The only prominent
Hindu who became his disciple was Birbal, regarded by succeeding generations as
the court jester. Muslims were greatly offended and a reaction began against
Akbar's policy which was to destroy much that he had created.
Akbar's failure was also due to forces operating outside the court. At this time
a great Hindu religious revival was sweeping the country. It commenced in Bengal,
but under Chaitanya's successors, Mathura in northern India became the great
center of resurgent Hinduism. It was there that the great crisis had arisen over the
wealthy Brahman who had taken building material collected for the construction of
a mosque, and used it for building a Hindu temple. It is possible that this particular
incident occurred in connection with the large-scale Vaishnava temple-building
operations which were going on at Mathura at this time. Among the temple-builders
was Raja Man Singh, Akbar's great Hindu general. The defiant spirit which had been
inculcated by the new movement can be seen in the Brahman's action.
With such developments in the country, possibly with the support of his Hindu
officers, Akbar's efforts at religious syncretion were doomed to failure. In fact, as we
shall see, the new aggressive attitude of the Hindu revivalists and the offense which
the emperor's religious innovations gave to the Muslims led to a reaction which was
to destroy even the existing basis of harmony.
XIII.

The

Orthodox

Reaction

[[166]] THE OLD spiritual orders of Islam in India adopted the practice of
keeping out of affairs of state, but toward the end of Akbar's reign a new religious
group, following quite different traditions, entered the subcontinent. This was the

Naqshbandi movement, which was introduced into India under the leadership of
Khwaja Baqi Billah. The order's intention of seeking to influence temporal rulers is
indicated in the statement of one of its leaders: "If I were after spiritual prominence,
no disciple would be left with the other saints. But I have another missionto bring
comfort to the Muslims. To achieve this, I have to associate with the worldly rulers,
gain influence over them, and thereby fulfill the objects of the Muslims."/1/
Khwaja Baqi Billah was born at Kabul in 1563, and after completing his
scholastic education there and at Samarqand he visited several saints for spiritual
training. Ultimately he was initiated in the Naqshbandi order by a leading saint of
Bukhara, who asked him to make India the center of his work. Khwaja Baqi Billah
came first to Lahore, where he spent more than a year before moving to Delhi.
Partly owing to his great spiritual powers, and partly because he represented the
order belonging to the native land of the ruling family, he acquired a prominent
position in the religious life of the capital. He was particularly active as a link
between the various nobles who were displeased with Akbar's religious innovations.
One of these was Shaikh Farid, who, according to Jesuit accounts, extracted a
promise from Jahangir, Akbar's heir, to uphold Islam in the kingdom./2/ Other nobles
who had great regard for the khwaja included Qulich Khan, [[167]] the devout
viceroy of Lahore, Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, the commander-in-chief of the
Deccan, and Khan-i-Azam, the deputy of the realm. In some of the khwaja's letters
there are references to Sadr Jahan (the head of the religious endowments under
Akbar) coming to him for spiritual training. The khwaja died in 1603, but before his
death the Naqshbandi order had been firmly established in India.
Khwaja Baqi Billah's most prominent disciple was Shaikh Ahmad, popularly
known as Mujaddid Alif Sani (reviver of Islam during the second millennium). He was
born at Sirhind on June 26, 1564, and was educated there and at Sialkot. He
established himself at Sirhind, but he was soon attracted to Akbar's capital, Fathpur
Sikri. Here he moved in the most distinguished intellectual circles, and seems to
have favorably impressed Abul Fazl and his versatile brother, Faizi. Shaikh Ahmad's
views and temperament had little in common with those of the two brothers
(though he himself passed through a period of youthful free-thinking and at one
time wrote verses with the poetic surname of Kufri, the "heretic"), but they had
enough respect for each other's learning to be able to carry on this intellectual
comradeship in spite of the difference in views. The shaikh is even stated to have
helped Faizi in the completion of his commentary on the Quran.
He visited Delhi in 1599 and went to see Khwaja Baqi Billah, who asked him to
spend a few days in his hospice. Within two days Ahmad requested the khwaja to
take him into discipleship. After having initiated Shaikh Ahmad into various stages
of spiritual development under the Naqshbandi order, the khwaja wrote: "Shaikh
Ahmad is rich in knowledge and vigorous in action. I associated with him for a few
days, and noticed truly marvelous things in his spiritual life. He will turn into a light
which will illuminate the world."

Shaikh Ahmad returned to Sirhind, convinced that he had a major role to play
in the religious life of the times. He twice visited Delhi during the lifetime of the
khwaja, who deputed him to work at Lahore. After the khwaja's death, he retired to
Sirhind, which remained the main seat of his activities. He carried on his work partly
through personal guidance and oral instructions, but he had discovered his literary
gifts, and believed that he could also fulfill his mission by writing letters on religious
and public subjects to important personages [[168]] of the day. Khwaja Baqi Billah
had, by his warm praise and encouragement, made Shaikh Ahmad aware of his
potentialities. He had also facilitated the achievement of his task by providing him
useful contacts with persons in key positions in the state. Shaikh Ahmad was able to
make full use of these opportunities. A profound scholar, a master of polemics, and
possessing a polished and forceful literary style, he began sending letters to
important nobles bemoaning the sad state into which Islam had fallen in India and
reminding them of their duty./3/ The rhetoric and appeal of these letters kindled a
religious fervor which, although it took some time to bear fruit, profoundly affected
the history of Islam in India by strengthening the position of the orthodox in places
of power.
But Shaikh Ahmad's letters touched on more than just religious revival, and it
was this that placed him in serious difficulties. Some of his letters stated that in his
trances he saw that at one time he had gone ahead of all the Companions of the
Prophet. The theologians criticized these claims, and asked Emperor Jahangir to
take action. The wazir, Asaf Khan, who was a Shia, could not have been fond of the
anti-Shia views of Shaikh Ahmad, and he is said to have pointed out the political
dangers inherent in the growing influence and organization of Shaikh Ahmad. In
1619, through the governor of Sirhind, he was summoned to the emperor's court
and asked to explain his statements. The shaikh behaved at the court with great
dignity and courage. He made it clear that there could be no question of his
considering himself superior to the Companions of the Prophet, and gave an
explanation of the relevant entry in his letters. The emperor seemed to be satisfied
with this, but he took offense when somebody pointed out that the shaikh had not
performed thesijdah (deep obeisance), which Akbar had prescribed for everybody
coming in the royal presence. The shaikh's reply that he was not prepared to
perform the sijdah before any human being seemed to be open defiance, and he
was imprisoned in Gwalior fort.
After about a year the shaikh was released from the fort, presented with a
dress of honor and a thousand rupees for expenses and given an option of
accompanying the royal camp or returning to Sirhind. [[169]] The shaikh preferred
to remain in the royal camp, and this enabled him to visit the whole of the empire,
and even establish friendly contacts with the emperor. It appears that Jahangir
came to hold the shaikh in great respect; in his autobiography he twice refers to
having made large offerings to the saint, and among the shaikh's letters there is
one addressed to the emperor. In another letter the shaikh gave a detailed account

of a lengthy conversation he had with the emperor on religious subjects, with the
emperor apparently taking a great interest.
Shaikh Ahmad was in the royal camp for nearly three years. His letters written
during this period contain few biographical details, but the entries in Jahangir's
autobiography suggest that during this period the easy-going Jahangir was
unusually religious. It would not be surprising if the emperor's orthodox mood were
due to the shaikh's presence in the camp. For example, in describing the conquest
of Kangra and his visit there in early 1622, Jahangir says: "I went to see the fort of
Kangra, and gave an order that the qazi, the Chief Justice, and other learned men of
Islam should accompany me and carry out in the fort whatever was customary,
according to the religion of Muhammad. Briefly by the grace of God, the call to
prayer and the reading of the khutba and the slaughter of a bullock, which had not
taken place from the commencement of the building of the fort till now, were
carried out in my presence. I ordered a lofty mosque to be built inside the
fort."/4/ It is more than probable that Shaikh Ahmad was one of "the learned men of
Islam" who accompanied Jahangir to Kangra. Soon after, the saint's health began to
fail, and with the emperor's permission he returned to Sirhind. Here he lived in
seclusion, devoting himself to charity and prayers, until his death on December 10,
1624.
Shaikh Ahmad was the most forceful and original thinker produced by Muslim
India before the days of Shah Waliullah and Iqbal. Indeed he occupies a high place
in the religious history of the entire Muslim world, for his exposition of tawhid-ishahudi was a distinct contribution to Islamic thought. Perhaps even more important
was the attitude[[170]] of vigorous self-confidence and self-assertion which he
contributed to Muslim thinking, the like of which had been seen rarely since the
days of Ibn Taimiya in the eighth century.
The white heat of revivalist fervor which one finds in his writings is not visible
among early members of his order, the Naqshbandi. In spite of Shah Waliullah's
emphasis on moderation (see Chapter XIX), the Mujaddidiya revival, associated with
the shaikh, ultimately superseded other branches of the Naqshbandi order, not only
in the subcontinent but in the Ottoman empire as well. This is remarkable
considering that the main order was of Central Asian and Turkish origin. The
influence of the Mujaddidiya seems to have been a factor in creating those forces
which ultimately led to the rise and widespread acceptance of Wahhabism.
In discussing Akbar's religious policy, reference was made to the circumstances
which made its failure inevitable. The inability of the Hindus and Muslims to evolve
a common spiritual brotherhood was the result of the basic fact that to the Hindus
the Muslims were (and are) untouchables. This attitude of the Hindus, nourished by
the revivalistic fervor of the Vaishnava Gosains of Mathura, became more marked
during Akbar's era of toleration. The writings of the shaikh, which reveal the anguish
he felt at the low position of Islam under Akbar and even later, also militated

against the success of Akbar's policy. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that the
swing of religious policy from Akbar to Aurangzeb was in some measure due to the
influence and teachings of Shaikh Ahmad.
His forceful and eloquent letters addressed to the leading nobles at Jahangir's
court, calling on them to rise in defense of Islam and uphold the dignity of their
religion, have great power and effectiveness. These letters were meant not only for
the individuals to whom they were addressed; they were really "open letters" and
were no less forceful than the poems with which Byron tried to engender
enthusiasm for the cause of Greek independence, or with which Hali tried to
reawaken Indian Muslims. Copies of them were supplied to the shaikh's disciples
and admirers, and given wide circulation.
Some Naqshbandi writers state that Aurangzeb became a disciple of Khwaja
Muhammad Masum, son and successor of Shaikh Ahmad, [[171]] but even though
Aurangzeb's contemporary, the satirist Nimat Khan Ali, refers to it in his Wiqaya, the
connection is not certain, since it is not mentioned in the historical accounts of the
reign. The official history of the period, however, does refer to his visits to the
emperor's court, where he received high honors and rich gifts. After his death, his
son, Shaikh Saif-ud-din, came to stay at the royal capital and apparently was in
close contact with Aurangzeb. The court history speaks of his being a formal witness
at the wedding of Prince Azam Shah. Next year, on June 3, 1669, the emperor
visited the saint at his residence for one hour late at night, and then returned to the
palace./5/
Even more remarkable than these historic links between Aurangzeb and Shaikh
Ahmad's family is the fact that almost all the steps which are associated with
Aurangzeb's religious policy had been advocated so forcefully by the shaikh in his
letters. Shaikh Ahmad had seen those days when, according to him, "non-Muslims
carried out aggressively the ordinances of their own religion in a Muslim state and
the Muslims were powerless to carry out the ordinances of Islam; if they carried
them out, they were executed." He had described with great anguish those tragic
days those who believed in the Holy Prophet were "humiliated and powerless, while
those who denied his prophethood enjoyed high position, and used to sprinkle salt
on the wounds of the Muslims with ridicule and taunts."
These developments had filled Shaikh Ahmad with anger and hatred against
Akbar and the non-Muslims. What had troubled him even more was that with
Akbar's withdrawal of patronage from Islam, and an aggressive religious revival
among the Hindus, non-Muslims had started persecuting Islam. "The non-Muslims in
India," he wrote, "are without any hesitation demolishing mosques and setting up
temples in their place. For example, in Kurukshetra there was a mosque and the
tomb of a saint. They have been demolished and in their place a very big temple
has been erected." Hindus were even interfering with Muslim observances.
"Moreover, non-Muslims openly carry out their observances, but Muslims are

powerless to carry out [[172]] openly many of the Islamic injunctions. During
Ekadashi, Hindus fast and strive hard to see that in Muslim towns no Muslim cooks
or sells food on these days. On the other hand, during the sacred month of
Ramadan, they openly prepare and sell food, but owing to the weakness of Islam,
nobody can interfere. Alas, the ruler of the country is one of us, but we are so badly
off!"
Shaikh Ahmad was convinced that the considerations shown to Hindus in
Akbar's reign had emboldened them, and that this policy must be reversed. In a
number of his letters he expressed regret at the abolition of jizya and urged its
revival. In another letter he demanded the abolition of the ban on cow slaughter. He
called upon the Muslim nobles not to associate with non-Muslims and unorthodox
Muslims, including Shias. In a letter to Shaikh Farid, one of the chief nobles, he went
so far as to say that the company of Muslim nonconformists was worse than that of
non-Muslims. Once the preacher at the principal mosque of Samana did not follow
the Sunni practice of mentioning all the four caliphs in his Id sermon; Shaikh Ahmad
immediately wrote an open letter to the religious leaders of the city, rebuking them
for the neglect of their duties, and for their failure to deal "aggressively and
offensively" with that "unjust preacher."
Shaikh Farid and other leaders did not accept the extremist point of view, and
in some of his letters Shaikh Ahmad has expressed his disappointment with Farid's
failures and omissions. But his warnings and his denunciations had their effect, and
there is no doubt that he had a wide following in the highest places. Is it a mere
coincidence that the attitude which Aurangzeb had toward Shiasat least during his
early dayswas identical with that of Shaikh Ahmad?
Elsewhere in India other saints and prophets were upholding orthodoxy with
scarcely less vigor and success than Khwaja Baqi Billah and Shaikh Ahmad. On the
northwest frontier Sayyid Ali Shah Tirmiz, known as Pir Baba, and his disciple
Akhund Darweza took as their special task the uprooting of the heretical Raushaniya
sect which flourished in the mountains. Pir Baba's descendants wielded great
influence among the Pathan tribesmen, and three centuries later provided a rallying
point against the Sikhs and the British.
Signs of religious activity of a somewhat different nature, but
conducive [[173]] to the strengthening of the forces of orthodox Islam, were visible
at about the same time in Bengal. The religious history of Muslim Bengal is as yet
unwritten, but there are indications that after the vigor and energy displayed by
Chaitanya and his prominent disciples, and particularly the vigorous expression
which their devotions and religious yearnings found in the new Bengali literature,
Islamic influences in the area gradually weakened, especially outside the principal
cities. This happened partly because the waves of the immigrant Sufis and
preachers had subsided, but the lack of knowledge of Persian and Arabic among the
general populace also prevented the propagation of Islam. At the same time, a

vigorous new Bengali literature was coming into existence, often under the
patronage of the Muslim rulers. This was concerned largely with the stories of the
Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and the Muslim masses, not well-versed in any
language other than Bengali, heard the Bengali poems and stories connected with
these themes or saw them acted at Hindu festivals under the patronage of the
Hindu landlords. Their mental background thus became more Hindu than Islamic.
As a counter-measure to the popular Bengali Hindu literature, marked literary
activity among Bengali Muslims took place at the end of the sixteenth and the
beginning of the seventeenth century, with a special emphasis on the writing of
lives of the prophets and other saints in the language of the people. Sayyid Sultan,
a leader of this movement, gave the reasons for the literary activity in his Wafat-iRasul:
All
the
Bengalis
do
not
understand
Arabic;
None
understands
the
words
of
your
religion.
Everyone
remains
satisfied
with
[Hindu]
tales.
I, the despised and sinful, am in the midst of these people.
I do not know what Ilahi [God] will ask me in the afterlife.
If He asks, Having been in their midst, why did you not tell them about the
religion? and blames me for this fault, I will have no power to give a proper reply.
Considering this, I have composed Nabi-vamsa [a history of the Prophet's family] for
the
benefit
of
the
ignorant
people.
For this reason many people blame me for having polluted this religious
book. [[174]]
When the learned read from the books, which are in Arabic, and do not translate
them into Hindustani [i.e., Bengali], how can our people follow?
In whatever language God has given one birth, that alone is his highest treasure.
Thus, as men like Shaikh Ahmad appealed to the upper classes to maintain the
Faith through their political power, men like Sayyid Sultan took the Prophet's
message to the common people. Both appeals explain the resurgent power of Islam
in the century following Akbar's experiments.
XIV. The Age of Splendor
*The

Reign

of

Shah

Jahan*

[[175]] AKBAR'S only surviving son, Prince Salim, succeeded to the throne on
November 3, 1605, under the title of Jahangir. To prove his desire to end the
bitterness that had divided the court when he had made an unsuccessful attempt to
usurp power during the last years of his father's reign, he granted a general
amnesty to all his former opponents. Abdur Rahman, the son of Abul Fazl (Akbar's
friend who had been murdered at Jahangir's instigation), was promoted to higher

rank. The nobles who had endeavored to have Jahangir's son, Khusrau, made
Akbar's successor were allowed to retain their ranks and jagirs.
Despite his attempts at conciliation, Jahangir was soon faced with the task of
suppressing a revolt led by Khusrau, who had fled to the Punjab. The revolt was
quelled without great difficulty, with Khusrau brought back in chains, but it led,
incidentally, to one important development. Khusrau had received help from Arjan
Dev, the guru or leader of the Sikhs. After Khusrau's defeat, Arjan Dev was
summoned to the court to answer for his conduct. Sikh historians say that the
enmity of Chandu Lal, the Hindu diwan of Lahore, who had a family quarrel with the
guru, was responsible for his troubles. When the guru was unable to give any
satisfactory explanation for his part in the rebellion, he was put to death. He might
have ended his days in peace if he had not espoused the cause of the rebel, but this
punitive action against him marked the beginning of a long and bitter conflict
between the Sikhs and the Mughal government.
An event of Jahangir's private life that was to have great significance for his
reign was his marriage to Nur Jahan in 1611. She was the widow of a Persian
nobleman, Sher Afghan, a rebellious official of Burdwan who met his death while
resisting arrest at the hands of Qutb-ud-din Khan Koka, the viceroy of Bengal.
Nur Jahan was taken to the court, and three years later, at the age of forty, she
became the royal consort. A capable woman, she acquired such an ascendency over
her husband that she became in effect [[176]] the joint ruler of the kingdom. Coins
were struck in her name, and Jahangir used to say that he had handed her the
country in return for a cup of wine and a few morsels of food. Nur Jahan's relatives
soon occupied the chief posts of the realm. Her brother, Asaf Khan, became the
prime minister, and his daughter, Mumtaz Mahal, the Lady of the Taj, married Prince
Khurram, who succeeded his father as Shah Jahan. The influence of the gifted but
masterly queen and her relatives was not entirely beneficial, but they were all
capable people, and until toward the end of the later part of Jahangir's reign they
administered the empire efficiently. Their influence attracted a large number of
brilliant soldiers, scholars, poets, and civil servants from Iran who played an
important role in the administration and the cultural life of Mughal India.
One of the most fruitful achievements of Jahangir's reign was the consolidation
of Mughal rule in Bengal. This province had been incorporated in the empire under
Akbar, but the governors of Akbar's time had not attempted to bring the existing
local chiefsHindu and Muslimunder the full control of the central government.
The imposition of Mughal power and the crushing of local resistance was largely the
work of Jahangir's foster-brother, Shaikh Ala-ud-din, entitled Islam Khan, who was
viceroy of Bengal from 1608 to 1613. He employed all possible methodsforce,
reward, and diplomacyto terminate the independence of the powerful zamindars.
He also enlarged the territorial limits of the empire by subjugating Cooch Behar in
1609 and Kamrup in 1612. In 1612 he shifted his capital from Rajmahal to Dacca, a

singularly appropriate choice in view of the menace of Magh raids on the eastern
rivers. Islam Khan died in 1613, and after an interval of four years, during which his
incompetent brother was in charge of the area, his good work was continued by
another capable viceroy, Ibrahim Khan Fath-i-Jung. He devoted the six years of his
viceroyalty (16171623) to consolidating the gains already made and died fighting
loyally against Prince Khurram when he revolted against his father the emperor and
tried to seize the government of Bengal.
Outside Bengal, the main military events of Jahangir's reign were the victory
over the Rajputs of Mewar in 1615, the reassertion of the Mughal authority in the
Deccan, and the capture of Kangra in 1620. [[177]] Two years later the Mughals
lost the great fort of Qandahar to the Persians, and in spite of efforts made during
Jahangir's and Shah Jahan's reigns, they were never able to recover it. This was also
a time of internal difficulties. Hitherto, Nur Jahan, Asaf Khan, and Prince Khurram
had cooperated in controlling the affairs of the country, and Khurram had been the
leader of victorious expeditions in Rajputana and the Deccan. Nur Jahan, however,
had now attained complete ascendency over the emperor, and tried to promote the
claims of his youngest son, Prince Shahryar, to whom her daughter by Sher Afghan
was married. This brought her into conflict with Prince Khurram, who revolted in
1623. He became master of Bengal and Bihar for a brief time, but was ultimately
defeated and obliged to retire to the Deccan. In the end he asked his father's
pardon and was reconciled in 1626.
Jahangir died in the following year on his way back from Kashmir, and was
buried at Shahdara, a suburb of Lahore. Through a relay of messengers, Asaf Khan
sent word to Prince Khurram, his son-in-law, who was still in the Deccan, and the
succession was secured without much difficulty. Prince Shahryar, Nur Jahan's son-inlaw, was captured and blinded; Nur Jahan herself retired from the world she had
dominated, living quietly until her death sixteen years later.
Owing to his likable personality, the brilliance of his court, and his friendliness
toward foreigners, Jahangir has been favorably treated, especially by English
writers. There are, however, certain aspects of his administration which cast a
shadow on his regime and darken the course of the later Mughal history. The
extension of the Mughal dominion came practically to a halt in his reign, and the
empire suffered a serious blow in the loss of Qandahar. In spite of vast imperial
resources, no serious attempt was made to bring the great unconquered areas of
the Deccan under the empire. A contemporary Dutch writer commenting on this
said: The probable explanation is to be found in the sloth, cowardice, and weakness
of the last emperor, Salim, and in the domestic discords of his family."/1/ There is
little reason to doubt the essential truth of this harsh judgment.
A significant change took place in the composition of the nobility [[178]] and
the holders of high office during the years of Nur Jahan's ascendency. Akbar had
made good use of the indigenous elementsuch men as Abul Fazl, Faizi, Todar Mal,

Shaikh Farid, Man Singh, and Bhagwan Singh come to mindand had maintained a
due balance between the Irani and Turani elements. Under Jahangir this balance
was upset, and the Iranis became all-powerful. This was facilitated by the early
death of Shaikh Farid and by the stigma attached to Man Singh, the Rajput leader,
and to Khan-i-Azam, the premier Turani noble, because of their association with
Khusrau. Held in check, the Irani element was a source of strength, but this ceased
to be the case in the eighteenth century, when its political role during the decline of
the empire weakened the realm.
Even more objectionable was the mushroom growth of bureaucracy and the
resultant increase in government expenditure. No large territory was added to the
empire, but the number of mansabdars, which under Akbar numbered about eight
hundred, was increased to nearly three thousand in Jahangir's reign. The author
of Maasir-ul-Umara, himself a financial expert, in dealing with the fiscal history of
the Mughal period, said: "In the time of Jahangir, who was a careless prince and paid
no attention to political or financial matters, and who was constitutionally
thoughtless and pompous, the fraudulent officials, in gathering lucre, and hunting
for bribes, paid no attention to the abilities of men or to their performance. The
devastation of the country and the diminution of income rose to such a height that
the revenue of the exchequer-lands fell to five million rupees while expenditure rose
to fifteen million, and large sums were expended out of the general treasury."/2/
Jahangir must bear the ultimate responsibility for this state of affairs, but the
immediate cause was the dominance and policy of Nur Jahan. She was a woman of
noble impulses and good taste who spent large sums in charity, particularly for the
relief of indigent women, and worked hard to relieve the drabness of Indian life.
Many innovations which enhanced the grace and charm of Mughal culture can be
directly traced to her, and her influence led to the maintenance of a magnificent
court. But all this strained the royal resources.
[[179]] The lavish style of living introduced at the royal court was initiated by
the nobility, and an era of extravagance, with its concomitants of corruption and
demoralization among officers of the state, was inaugurated. This corroded the
structure of the Mughal government. A contemporary Dutch account sharply
criticized Nur Jahan and her "crowd of Khurasanis" for what it was costing the state
to maintain "their excessive pomp," and complained that the foreign bureaucrats
were particularly indifferent to the condition of the masses./3/ To Nur Jahan herself
belongs the doubtful honor of introducing the system of nazars or gifts to the court
corruption at the royal level. Asaf Khan emerges in the pages of Sir Thomas Roe's
account of his negotiations at the Mughal court as exceedingly greedy for such
gifts./4/
The era of extravagance which was ushered in during Jahangir's reign was fed
from two other sources. One was the change in the prevalent philosophy of life. The
old Indian emphasis on plain living and the excellence of limitation of wants was not

consistent with the way of life introduced by Muslim rulers in the subcontinent, but
(coupled with the Sufi philosophy) it was not without a certain influence. In Akbar's
days in particular, with emphasis on the spiritual side of things, it is easy to trace a
certain idealism, an other-worldliness, and the ability to rise above purely
materialistic values, in spite of the elaborate grandeur of a great empire. The Irani
newcomers were alien to this approach, and under their influence the gracious
living became the summum bonum, the goal of human existence.
The other factor responsible for increased extravagance was the vast
opportunity for spending provided by the new commercial contacts with Europe. By
now the fame of the Mughal empire had spread to distant lands, and in Jahangir's
day embassies came to his court from European countries. England sent Captain
Hawkins in 1608, and Sir Thomas Roe, the ambassador of James I, came to conclude
a commercial treaty in 1615. By September, 1618, he was able to obtain
a farman signed by Prince Khurram as viceroy of Gujarat which gave facilities for
trade, but owing to the prince's opposition, [[180]] did not allow a building to be
built as a residence. The new trade, which will be noted more fully later, brought out
some pathetic propensities in the Mughal nobility. Costly toys were devised to
please the taste of the court. In this Jahangir led the way. He was described as "an
amateur of all varieties and antiquities, and displayed an almost childish love of
toys." One traveler tells how he presented the emperor with "a small whistle of gold,
weighing almost an ounce, set with sparks of rubies, which he took and whistled
therewith
almost
an
hour."/5/
The Reign of Shah Jahan
The charge made against Jahangirthat he had been too slothful to extend the
empirecould not be made against his son, Prince Khurram, who ascended the
throne as Shah Jahan on February 6, 1628. Although under him the splendor and
luxury of the court reached its zenith, he revived the expansionist policy of Akbar,
and widened the frontiers of the empire to include territories that had so far
escaped Mughal domination.
Before he could bring new areas under his sway, however, he had to meet a
number of threats within the existing empire. One came at the very beginning of his
reign: on the death of Bir Singh Bundela, the favorite of Jahangir and murderer of
Abul Fazl; his son revolted and tried to establish himself as an independent chieftain
in Bundelkhand. This revolt was put down quickly. More serious was one in the south
led by Khan Jahan Lodi, a former viceroy of the Deccan, who gained some support
from Hindu chieftains. He fought Shah Jahan's troops for three years but was finally
killed in 1631. Another threat came from the Portuguese who had been permitted
by the last independent king of Bengal to settle at Hugli. They had received
commercial privileges, but they began to abuse their position through their relations
with the Portuguese at Chittagong, who indulged in piracy in the Bay of Bengal and
on Bengal rivers. Another cause for [[181]] dispute was that the Portuguese had

fortified their settlement at Hugli and, owing to their command of the sea and
superiority in the use of firearms, the Mughal authorities "could not but conceive
great fears," to quote a contemporary Portuguese account, "lest His Majesty of
Spain should possess himself of the kingdom of Bengal." Shah Jahan, who had
become particularly aware of the problem in the course of his wanderings in Bengal
during his revolt against his father, gave orders in 1631 to Qasim Khan, viceroy of
Bengal, to drive them out. As the Portuguese were well-organized, elaborate
measures were necessary. They offered stiff resistance, but Hugli was captured in
1632, and the garrison was severely punished. This was followed by the reconquest
of Kamrup (163738), which had been lost to the Ahom ruler of Assam in the
previous reign.
In the Deccan, Shah Jahan was faced by the opposition of the virtually
independent Muslim ruler of Ahmadnagar. Akbar had succeeded in annexing
Khandesh, Berar, and a part of Ahmadnagar, but the ruler of Ahmadnagar took
advantage of Jahangir's preoccupation with the rebellion of Shah Jahan to reassert
his independence. Shah Jahan, having acted as governor for the area, knew the
Deccan well, and adopted a vigorous policy. In 1633 the last king of the Nizam Shahi
dynasty of Ahmadnagar was captured, and the famous fort of Daulatabad fell into
the hands of the Mughals. Three years later Shah Jahan went to the Deccan himself,
and compelled the rulers of Golkunda and Bijapur to acknowledge the Mughal
suzerainty and to pay tribute. He appointed his son Aurangzeb as viceroy of the
Deccan. Under him were the four provinces of Khandesh, Berar, Telingana, and
Daulatabad. In 1638 Aurangzeb added Baglana to the empire.
Having attained his goal in the Deccan, Shah Jahan turned his attention to the
northwest. The Mughals had not reconciled themselves to the loss of Qandahar, and
in 1638 Shah Jahan's officers persuaded Ali Mardan Khan, the local Persian
governor, to hand over the fort to the Mughals and enter their service. Ali Mardan
Khan was a capable officer and proved a great acquisition to the empire. While
governor of Kabul and Kashmir he erected many magnificent buildings. The
recovery of Qandahar was only temporary, however, for [[182]] the Persians
regained the fort in 1648. Attempts made by the Mughals in 1649, 1652, and 1653
to dislodge them were all unsuccessful.
Shah Jahan's efforts to interfere in the affairs of Central Asia were equally
fruitless. In 1645 conditions at Bukhara were disturbed, and Shah Jahan took this
opportunity to send an army under Murad, who entered Balkh in 1646. Aurangzeb,
who was appointed governor, fought bravely to hold his own against the Uzbegs,
but he found it impossible to hold the country, and evacuated Balkh in 1647.
Despite Shah Jahan's failures in Central Asia, he was singularly successful in
dealing with the northwest frontier. This area had given trouble in the days of Akbar,
mainly because of the opposition of the Yusufzais and the followers of the
Raushaniya sect. Shah Jahan's chief official in the area, Sad Khan, who was

appointed governor of Kabul, dealt with Abdul Qadir, the Raushaniya leader, in an
effective way.
He dispersed the hostile tribesmen with heavy casualties, but by tact and
firmness he persuaded Abdul Qadir and his mother to surrender on promise of safeconduct. Abdul Qadir died shortly thereafter, but his mother, with other relatives
and Raushaniya leaders, appeared before the emperor at Delhi. "They were kindly
treated, and sent with rank and dignity to the Deccan provinces, where they were
allowed to gather round them their adherents in the empire's service."/6/
Aurangzeb, who was the viceroy of the Deccan from 1636 to 1644, had placed
the affairs of the newly conquered territory on a satisfactory basis, but the viceroys
who succeeded him were unable to administer the area effectively. A large number
of soldiers and officials belonging to the Deccani kingdoms, who had been
displaced, fomented unrest; cultivation was neglected; and revenues diminished.
Aurangzeb was sent back to the Deccan in 1653, and worked arduously to restore
order and good government. He introduced the land revenue system which Akbar
had adopted in the north, and with the adoption of a regular system of land
revenue, cultivation was extended and revenue increased.
Aurangzeb's relations with his eldest brother, Dara Shukoh, who had gained
great power at the capital with their father, were not [[183]] happy. His requests for
additional funds received little attention, and many other difficulties were placed in
his way. He was hampered even in his dealings with the rulers of the Deccan. They
failed to pay the annual tribute regularly and, after obtaining the approval of the
court, Aurangzeb demanded from the ruler of Golkunda a part of his territory to
cover his tribute. He marched on Golkunda and laid siege to the fort, but the sultan
made representations to Delhi and Aurangzeb was ordered to pardon him.
Lack of harmony between the viceroy of the Deccan and the authorities at Delhi
became even more manifest in the case of Bijapur. In 1657 disorder broke out in
that kingdom, and after obtaining the permission from the emperor, Aurangzeb set
out to conquer Bijapur. Bidar and Kalyani were captured and the Bijapur army was
decisively defeated, but again Dara Shukoh and Shah Jahan interfered. Aurangzeb
was ordered to withdraw.
Shah Jahan fell seriously ill in 1658, and was unable to attend to affairs of state
for so long a time that there were even rumors of his death. His sons, feeling that
his end was near, began to assert their claims. Dara Shukoh, the eldest, viceroy of
the Punjab and Allahabad, had been treated practically as heir-apparent, and toward
the end of Shah Jahan's reign the administration of the state had been left largely to
him. His brothers, who also were in charge of vast territoriesAurangzeb as viceroy
of the Deccan, Shah Shuja in charge of Bengal, and Murad ruler of Gujarat
contested Dara's claims. On hearing of their father's illness and Dara Shukoh's
assumption of the administration of the imperial affairs, Shuja and Murad claimed

the succession, but the ever-cautious Aurangzeb bided his time. He corresponded
with Shuja and Murad, and all three brothers started moving toward the capital from
their respective territories. The forces of Murad and Aurangzeb met near Ujjain in
Central India and continued toward Agra. Dara sent Jaswant Singh to oppose them,
but he was defeated, and the victorious armies of the allies reached Samugarh,
near Agra. Here Dara, with the bulk of the imperial army, gave them battle, but he
was no match for Aurangzeb in generalship, and the battle ended in his complete
defeat.
Aurangzeb entered Agra and was invited by Shah Jahan to meet [[184]] him,
but his well-wishers, Khalil Ullah Khan (who had originally been sent by Shah Jahan
as an intermediary and later switched allegiance to Aurangzeb) and Shayista Khan,
informed him that there was a plot to have him arrested and assassinated. Shah
Jahan was so closely allied with Dara that Aurangzeb refused to trust him. A point
had been reached where there could be no turning back; Aurangzeb therefore
placed his father under restraint and assumed the imperial authority on July 21,
1658.
In the meanwhile, Murad, who had shown resentment at the growing power of
Aurangzeb, was arrested and imprisoned in the fort of Gwalior. Some three years
later, after an attempt at escape, Aurangzeb decided that alive he was dangerous. A
complaint was lodged by the son of a former diwan of Gujarat whom Murad had put
to death, and, obtaining a legal decree, Aurangzeb had Murad executed on
December 4, 1661.
Dara fled to the north, but after wandering in the Punjab, Sind, Gujarat, and
Rajputana, he was captured and put to death in 1659. Shuja, after the initial
setback, reorganized his forces and moved toward Allahabad. Aurangzeb met him at
Khajuha and decisively defeated him. He took refuge in Arakan, where the Magh
chief had him assassinated.
Thus ended the grim struggle for the throne, and Aurangzeb, who was already
exercising royal powers, held a grand coronation ceremony in 1659. Shah Jahan
recovered from his illness, and though there was an exchange of bitter letters
between him and his son, ultimately he became reconciled to Aurangzeb's
assumption of power. When he died in 1666, his daughter Jahan Ara Begum, who
was with him throughout his internment, presented Aurangzeb with a letter of
pardon written by Shah Jahan.
Shah Jahan, whose reign ended on such a sad note, was perhaps the most
magnificent of the Muslim rulers of India. His empire extended over an area greater
than that of any of his Mughal predecessors. Largely due to the financial ability of
his wise wazir, Saadullah Khan, the royal treasury was full. Because of this, Shah
Jahan was able to embark on a great building program in Delhi and Agra and to
encourage the other arts, particularly music and painting.

[[185]] Shah Jahan wanted to earn the title of Shahanshah-i-Adil, the Just
Emperor. He took a personal interest in the administration of justice, and tried to be
like a father to his subjects. During the first few years he seems to have been under
the influence of religious revivalists, although later, under Sufi influences, he
became more tolerant. The apathy and indifference that had characterized
Jahangir's attitude disappeared, and the regime was marked by attempts to
approximate the administration to orthodox Islamic lawincluding the creation of a
department to look after new converts to Islam.
But if the developments of the period are closely studied, a major Hindu revival
is also noticeable in the reign of Shah Jahan. In Jahangir's time the rebellion of his
son Khusrau, who had a Rajput mother, drove the Rajput nobility into the
background, and after his marriage with Nur Jahan, Persians became supreme in the
state. Shah Jahan's reign was marked not only by the predominance of the
indigenous Muslim elements, but also by the dominating position of Rajputs in the
army and Hindu officials in the imperial secretariat. Rai Raghunath officiated for
some time as diwan, while Rai Chandra Bhan Brahman was in charge of the
secretariat. The explanation seems to be that by now Hindus were in a position to
take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Mughal polity, and with the
increasing influence of their patron, Dara, they made rapid headway.
Akbar had based his policy of equal treatment for all subjects on laws of natural
justice; in Shah Jahan's time the Muslim scholars advocated it on the basis of Islamic
law and principles. Shah Muhibullah of Allahabad wrote in a letter to Dara Shukoh
that the Holy Prophet had been referred to as Rahmat-ul-lil-Alimina blessing to all
the worlds and not only to Muslims. Mulla Abul Hakim, the greatest scholar of the
day, gave a ruling that according to Islamic law a mosque could not be set up on
the property of another, and that the conversion of a Jain temple into a mosque by
Prince Aurangzeb was unauthorized.
Such discussions remind one of the controversies of Akbar's time, but as they
were without Akbar's excesses and innovations, the Hindu case gained more
general support. But it also awakened anxieties, and the support which Aurangzeb
was able to get against Dara Shukoh [[186]] was probably due not only to Dara's
arrogance and tactlessness, but also to a feeling among the Muslim nobility
especially among the Persian nobles, who had lost their privileged positionthat
their interests were not safe.
Involved in this was not just the problem of increasing Hindu influence, but also
what may be called an "Indian-Irani" controversy. In the rebellion against his father,
Shah Jahan's main collaborator had been Mahabat Khan, whose opposition to Nur
Jahan and Irani nobles was well known. It is true that after his accession, Shah Jahan
maintained his father-in-law Asaf Khan, an Irani, as the prime minister, but his two
successorsFazil Khan and Saadullah Khanwere of indigenous origin. Irani
influence seems to have decreased in the secretariat. This Irani-Indian competition

in the administrative sphere found an echo in the literary controversies of the day.
Munir, a well-known poet of Lahore, complained of the airs assumed by Irani writers,
and Shaida, another prominent poet of the day, challenged contemporary Irani
poets, rated high by the Irani nobles on points of Persian language and style, to
compete with him.
These developments indicate that by now indigenous elements, benefiting by
the spread of learning and orderly government in the country, were able to assert
their claims in administrative and literary fields. Shah Jahan's own vision was not
narrow or parochial. The way in which the Taj Mahal was built is indicative of his
policy. At one time it was thought that it had been designed by a Venetian architect,
but this view has been abandoned. The Taj represents the culminating point of the
development of Indo-Muslim architecture. The particulars of those who took part in
the production of this incomparable masterpiece indicate that no effort was spared
to obtain the services of specialists in every phase of the work: craftsmen from
Delhi, Lahore, Multan; a calligraphist from Baghdad and another from Shiraz to
ensure that all the inscriptions were correctly carved; a flower-carver from Bukhara;
an expert in dome construction, Ismail Khan Rumi, who, by his name may have
come from Constantinople; a pinnacle-maker from Samarqand; a master-mason
from Qandahar; and lastly, an experienced garden designer. The chief supervisor
who coordinated [[187]] the entire work was Ustad Isa, according to one account
an inhabitant of Shiraz whose family had settled in Lahore.
Shah Jahan's reign represents the golden age of the Mughal empire, but as
some students have pointed out, the artistic productions of the period give an
impression of over-ripeness and a certain loss of vigor. Mughal civilization had
reached its climax and was moving toward its declining phase. But the resolute
vigor of Aurangzeb, a man of iron will, held the structure together for another half a
century and gave it new support, so that the end came very gradually.
A special word must be said of Dara Shukoh, who, except for Aurangzeb, is the
best-known of Shah Jahan's four sons. That he was not the paragon of virtue his
partisans would have him is indicated by the statement of the French traveler
Bernier that he had poisoned Saadullah Khan, Shah Jahan's able prime
minister./7/ And his interference with Aurangzeb's efforts to extend the empire in
the south shows his inability to rise above personal enmity. But as a figure in the
religious history of India he holds a unique place, and it is for this that he is
remembered.
When he was nineteen, Dara had recovered from a serious illness after having
visited Mian Mir, a famous saint who lived at Lahore. From this time on, his faith in
the power of saints and his interest in religion were firmly established. In 1640 he
became a disciple of Mullah Shah, one of Mian Mir's successors. In the meanwhile
he had already completed a book containing biographies of Sufi saints. A biography
of Mian Mir and his principal disciples followed two years later. He also wrote brief

Sufi pamphlets, one of which was a reply to those who criticized Dara for his
heterodox statements. In order to justify himself, he collected a number of
utterances and statements similar to those attributed to him by celebrated Sufis.
In Majma-ul-Bahrain (The Mingling of Two Oceans), which was completed in
1655, Dara Shukoh tried to trace parallels between Islamic Sufism and Hindu
Vedantism. In the introduction he says that after a deep and prolonged study of
Islamic Sufism and Hindu [[188]] Vedantism he had come to the conclusion that
"there were not many differences, except verbal, in the ways in which Hindu
monotheists and Muslim Sufis sought and comprehended truth." Here he sounded a
note that was to become the hallmark of many Hindu thinkers in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. None of his books is without interest, but his translation of the
Upanishads, which he made with the help of Sanskrit scholars, had a particularly
interesting history. It was completed in 1657, just before his disastrous struggle for
the throne. A French traveler, Anquetil Duperron, translated Dara Shukoh's Persian
version of the Upanishads into Latin. It was this version, which was published in two
volumes in 1801 and 1802, that fell into the hands of Schopenhauer. His enthusiasm
for the new world of speculation profoundly influenced many others, including
Emerson and other Transcendentalists in the United States.
In India itself Dara Shikoh's work had a considerable influence. Majma-ulBahrain was translated into Sanskrit by a Hindu scholar, and Hindu protegs of Dara
Shukoh gave expression to ideas of Islamic Sufism in moving Persian verse. Among
the distinguished people whom Dara attracted were the celebrated poet and Sufi,
Sarmad; the unknown author of that remarkable history of religions, Dabistan-iMazahib; and Muhandis, the son of Ustad Isa, the architect of the Taj. Indeed, Dara
Shukoh seems to have been a center of an entire literary, spiritual, and intellectual
movement, but with his defeat by Aurangzeb, the liberal group also lost its cohesion
and potency.
XV. Aurangzeb
*The Eastern Borders* == *The Northwestern Frontier* == *The Sikhs* == *The
Marathas* == *Religious Policy* == *The East India Company* == *The Enigma of
Aurangzeb's
Purposes*
[[189]] AURANGZEB, the third son of Shah Jahan, was born on October 24,
1618, at Dohad, on the frontier of Gujarat and Rajputana. Industrious and thorough,
he had distinguished himself as an able administrator during the years that he
spent in the Deccan and other provinces of the empire. He was also a fearless
soldier and a skillful general, and because of the hostile influence at court of his
brother Dara, he had had to learn all the tactics of diplomacy. As emperor, he ruled
more of India than any previous monarch, but in a court that had become a byword
for luxury, he lived a life of austere piety. Yet of all India's rulers, few pursued

policies that have excited more controversy among successive generations. In large
measure, this is the result of his religious policies, for it was these that have colored
men's evaluation of his reign.
Even as a young man, Aurangzeb was known for his devotion to the Muslim
religion and observance of Islamic injunctions, and in some of his letters written
during the struggle for the succession he claimed that he was acting "for the sake of
the true faith and the peace of the realm." As soon as he was securely on the
throne, he introduced reforms which could make his dominion a genuine Muslim
state. After his second (and formal) coronation on June 5, 1659, he issued orders
which were calculated to satisfy orthodoxy. He appointed censors of public morals in
all important cities to enforce Islamic law, and he tried to put down such practices
as drinking, gambling, and prostitution. He forbade the cultivation of narcotics
throughout the empire, and in 1664 he issued his first edict forbidding sati or the
self-immolation of women on funeral pyres. He also repeatedly denounced the
castration of children so they could be sold as eunuchs. In the economic sphere he
showed a determined opposition to all illegal exactions and to all taxes which were
not authorized by Islamic law. Immediately after his second coronation he abolished
the inland transport duty, which amounted to ten percent [[190]] of the value of
goods, and the octroi on all articles of food and drink brought into the cities for sale.
Although these measures were partly responsible for Aurangzeb's later
financial difficulties, they were popular with the people. But gradually the emperor's
puritanism began to manifest itself, and steps were taken which were not so
universally approved. In 1668 he forbade music at his court and, with the exception
of the royal band, he pensioned off the large number of state musicians and singers.
The festivities held on the emperor's birthday, including the custom of weighing him
against gold and silver, were discontinued, and the mansabdars were forbidden to
offer him the usual presents. The ceremony of darshan, or the public appearance of
the emperor to the people, was abandoned in 1679.
During the long struggle for the throne, the central authority had tended to
lose administrative control over the distant parts of the empire; and after he had
defeated his rivals, Aurangzeb started to reorganize the civil government. He had
used the need of revitalizing the instruments of imperial power as a justification for
his seizure of the throne, and his intention of making good his promise was soon felt
throughout the empire./1/ The provincial governors began to expand the borders of
the empire, and local authorities, who had grown accustomed to ignoring orders
from Agra, the imperial capital, discovered that the new regime could act swiftly
against
them.
The Eastern Borders
Aurangzeb's earliest conquests were in the eastern parts of the empire. In the
years when he had been fighting with his brothers for the throne, the Hindu rulers of

Cooch Behar and Assam, taking advantage of the disturbed conditions in the
empire, had invaded the imperial dominions. For three years they were not
attacked, but in 1660 the time came for restitution. Mir Jumla, the viceroy of Bengal,
was ordered to recover the lost territories. He started from Dacca in November,
1661, and occupied the capital of Cooch Behar after a few weeks. The kingdom was
annexed, and the Muslim army left for [[191]] Assam. The capital of the Ahom
kingdom was reached on March 17, 1662, and the raja was forced to sign a
humiliating treaty.
The Mughals received a heavy tribute, and annexed some forts and towns in
the cultivated districts near the frontier of Bengal, but their army had suffered great
hardships. The aged Mir Jumla died on his way back to Dacca, and was succeeded
as viceroy by Shayista Khan. The new viceroy took action against the Arakan pirates
who, with the help of Portuguese adventurers and their half-caste offspring, had
made the area unsafe. They carried their depredations to Dacca, the provincial
capital. "As these raids continued for a long time, Bengal became day by day more
desolated. Not a house was left inhabited on either side of the rivers lying on the
pirates' track from Chittagong to Dacca."/2/ Shayista Khan made thorough
preparations, built a powerful flotilla, won over some of the European collaborators
of the pirates by inviting them to Dacca, and in January, 1666, attacked the king of
Arakan. He captured the island of Sondip in the Bay of Bengal, and after defeating
the Arakanese fleet, compelled the king of Arakan to cede Chittagong, the pirates'
stronghold. Chittagong, which was renamed Islamabad, proved a valuable addition
to the empire.
The Mughal interest in Bengal had steadily increased. Since Shah Jahan's days,
the viceroy was usually either a leading noble of the realm or a member of the royal
family. Through the organization of the mansabdari system, and with an elaborate
system of supervision, close contact with the imperial capital was maintained.
Bengal became the most peaceful area of the empire, with its revenues the
mainstay of Aurangzeb's army.
The conquest and settlement of a great part of what is now East Pakistan was
essentially a Mughal achievementin a great measure, of Aurangzeb's reign. The
area east of the Brahmaputra, commonly called Bang, was one of the three wellmarked regions of the former province of Bengal (Varind, Radh, and Bang). Owing to
its geographical situation, climate, terrain, and the ethnic origin of the population, it
had remained isolated from the rest of the subcontinent. The [[192]] force of Aryan
colonization and Aryan culture had spent itself before it reached this area. The
people, who were related to the Mongoloid races, had retained their ancient
religious customs. Without written languages, they had not shared in earlier literary
movements. Even during the Hindu rule, the influence of the Hindu scholars and
priests of Western Bengal was confined to the large towns and rich monasteries.
After the Muslim conquest even this ceased. The people east of the Tista and the
Brahmaputra were Hindus and remained Hindus, but they had no learned

priesthood to maintain the purity of the tradition. During Aurangzeb's reign this
isolation of the eastern area was finally broken, for once the menace of the pirates
had disappeared, the jungles could be cleared and colonization begun. The Eastern
Bengalis remained the butt of satire in Bengali literature (as rough, uncouth people)
up to the nineteenth century, but they were no longer separated from the main
stream
of
Indian
history.
The Northwestern Frontier
Operations in the east were barely over when trouble started on the northwest
frontier of the empire. In 1667 a Yusafzai leader named Bhaku (who had supported
Dara Shukoh against Aurangzeb in the struggle for the throne) rebelled.
The faujdar of Attock defeated Bhaku, and with the help of reinforcements from
Lahore and Kabul, gradually subdued the area. The area remained quiet for some
time, but in 1672 trouble broke out again. Many tribes combined in opposition to the
authorities, and they had a stroke of good fortune when Muhammad Amin Khan, the
governor of Kabul, decided to risk an engagement with the rebels with a poorly
equipped contingent. His forces were annihilated, and he was barely able to escape
to Peshawar with a few of his senior officers. On hearing of the disaster the emperor
degraded Muhammad Amin Khan and transferred him to another area, but the
officers who were sent to replace him quarrelled among themselves and failed to
make much progress. In July, 1674, Aurangzeb himself went to Hasan Abdal, a
convenient half-way station between Rawalpindi and Peshawar, and stayed there for
over a year directing the operations. He took officers with him who knew
the [[193]] area, and by the use of force and diplomacy was able to restore peace.
Among the tribal leaders who opposed Aurangzeb was the famous Pushtu poet
Khushal Khan Khattak. He was the chief of the Khattak tribe, which since the days of
his great grandfather had guarded the road from Attock to Peshawar against the
hostile Yusufzais, and had the right to levy tolls on this highway. Khushal had fought
with distinction in Mughal armies, and had sided with Aurangzeb against Dara
Shukoh. But differences arose between him and Aurangzeb, mainly because of the
abolition of all tolls within the empire. Khushal's family had collected tolls on the
Indus since Akbar's time, and he resented the loss of income. Apparently to prevent
him making trouble, he had been imprisoned for two years. This made him a bitter
enemy of Aurangzeb, and on his release he incited the Pathan tribesmen to rebel.
He had only a small measure of success. Some Afridi chiefs joined him, but the more
numerous Yusufzais refused to side with him. An era of Mughal-Afghan cooperation
was openingowing to the success of Mughal diplomacy and the failure of the
Raushaniya movementand even some of his sons, notably Bahram, opposed him.
Khushal died broken-hearted in 1689, but he had left one enduring legacya body
of forceful poetry in which he had expressed his hatred of the Mughals.
Despite the trouble with Khushal, Aurangzeb's reign finally saw a complete
transformation in Mughal-Afghan relations. Amir Khan, the Mughal governor of Kabul

and Peshawar established such order on the frontier between 1678 and 1698 that
his wife maintained control of the area for some time after his death.
The Sikhs
The Sikhs, who ultimately were to play an important part in the weakening of
the empire, caused Aurangzeb some difficulties, but he dealt with them in an
effective, though harsh, manner. The Sikh religion as founded by Guru Nanak (1469
1539) was a part of a general religious movement to bring Hinduism and Islam
closer together. In the early years, the relations of the Sikhs with the Muslims had
been friendly, especially since, as the Brahmans resented the growth [[194]] of the
new movement, the Sikhs had looked to the Muslims for support. Akbar himself had
visited the third guru and made him a present of the land in Amritsar on which the
Golden Temple was built.
Soon, however, there was conflict between the Sikhs and the Mughal
authorities. Probably the basic reason was that the peasants of central Punjab had a
militant tradition, and when new religious doctrines that emphasized the individual's
relationship with God and society were adopted, a clash with established authority
was inevitable. The first trouble came during Jahangir's reign when Guru Arjun had
given assistance to the revolt led by Prince Khusrau. The guru died under torture,
but one of his last instructions to his son, Guru Har Govind, was to maintain an
army. This was the turning point in Sikh history. They now began to organize
themselves on semi-military lines, and there were further conflicts with the Mughal
government. Guru Har Govind had "so completely sunk the character of a religious
reformer into that of a conquering general, that he had no scruple in enlisting large
bands of Afghan mercenaries."/3/ In 1628 the Sikhs defeated a Mughal force which
had been sent against them, but they were ultimately defeated, and Har Govind had
to flee to the hills. The succession of gurus was maintained, however, through an
agreement with the Mughals.
The ninth guru, Tegh Bahadur, who came to the gaddi in 1664, served in the
Mughal army on the Assam frontier for some years, but later returned to eastern
Punjab and settled down at Anandpur. He called himself Sacha Badshah (True King),
and started levying tribute from the local population. The imperial forces defeated
him, and he was taken to Delhi and put to death by Aurangzeb in 1675. His
successor was Guru Govind Singh, who concentrated his energies on establishing a
Sikh kingdom in the hilly areas of east Punjab.
It was Govind Singh who gave the Sikhs their very distinctive symbolsthe
uncut hair, the steel bangle, the swordthat established their identity as a separate
people. The real sufferers from the growing military strength of the Sikhs, who had
enrolled a large number [[195]] of Pathans in their ranks, were the Hindu rajas of
the Punjab hills. Many bloody battles were fought between them and the guru. At
last they complained to the Mughal governor, who passed on the complaint to

Aurangzeb. On the rajas' undertaking to bear the cost of an expedition, Aurangzeb

agreed to send forces to assist them in besieging Govind Singh in his stronghold at
Anandpur. The guru himself escaped, but his children were executed.
During his flight from the Mughal forces, Guru Govind Singh addressed
Aurangzeb in a long Persian poem, known as Zafar Nama. This poem contained
bitter complaints against the Mughal emperor, but as its appeal was in the name of
humanity and of Islam, it provided a basis for mutual understanding. According to
certain Sikh accounts, Aurangzeb invited the guru to visit him in the Deccan.
Evidence on this point is not conclusive, but it is certain that after this Guru Govind
Singh was allowed to live in peace. After Aurangzeb's death his son Bahadur Shah,
who was the viceroy of the Punjab before ascending the throne, was on excellent
terms with the guru. Later the relations of the Mughals with the Sikhs sharply
deteriorated owing to the emergence of Banda, a Hindu religious mendicant, as the
leader
of
the
Sikhs.
The Marathas
Far more serious opposition to Aurangzeb came from the Deccan, where the
Marathas were beginning their long struggle with the Mughal empire. A people of
whose earliest history little is known, the Marathas as a dynamic force in Indian
history owe much to the Bhakti movement. By giving birth to a new literature,
enriching the local language, and popularizing a religious cult which made a
powerful emotional appeal to all sections of the people, the movement had infused
a new life in this society. The growing self-awareness of the Marathas was also
helped by the fact that the Muslim conquest of the Deccan was far less complete
than that of northern India. Hindus held many offices in the revenue and finance
departments of the Muslim rulers of Golkunda and Bijapur, and at times even the
highest [[196]] ministerial appointments were filled by Deccani Brahmans. Life in
the hill forts of the Western Ghats, never easily accessible and practically cut off
from the world during the monsoon, did not appeal to the Muslim officers, and
Maratha chiefs and soldiers were employed in large numbers in garrisoning these
forts.
Since Maratha statesmen and warriors controlled various departments of the
Muslim states of Ahmadnagar, Golkunda, and Bijapur, the conflicts of the Mughals
with these states provided them with an opportunity to advance their sectional
interests. Amongst Maratha statesmen who rose to prominence during the days of
Shah Jahan was Shahji, who served under the sultans of Ahmadnagar and Bijapur
and had large estates at Poona. His importance may be judged by the fact that in
1635 he set up a Nizam Shahi boy as the nominal sultan of the kingdom of
Ahmadnagar, and reoccupied in his name the whole of the western portion of the
old dominion as far as the sea. Shah Jahan was able to deal with him, and Shahji,
after making his submission to the Mughals, sought service with the ruler of Bijapur.
Shahji's son, Shivaji, more than fulfilled the dreams of his father. Shivaji's mother

lived at Poona, and he spent his early days in the spurs and valleys of the Ghats,
which were to be his battlefield. He attached to himself a number of young men,
and in the disturbed conditions of the Deccan started taking control of hill
fortresses. For a long time these aggressive proceedings were ignored at Bijapur,
but in 1659 a strong contingent of ten thousand cavalry was sent against him under
Afzal Khan. Shivaji lured Afzal to a private conference and then killed him with his
dagger. The leaderless troops of Bijapur were routed by Shivaji's soldiers, who lay in
ambush.
The following year Shivaji came in conflict with the Mughal rulers. In 1660
Aurangzeb appointed Shayista Khan, his maternal uncle and a veteran general,
viceroy of the Deccan, with instructions to suppress the activities of Shivaji. He
gained a few victories and recaptured several forts, but on April 5, 1663, the
Marathas made a night attack on his encampment at Poona, and although the
viceroy escaped, his son was killed. Shayista Khan was recalled by Aurangzeb, who
then sent Dilir Khan and Raja Jai Singh, with his son, Prince Muazzam, [[197]] to the
Deccan. The imperial generals forced Shivaji to sue for peace. In 1666 he attended
the court at Agra, but insulted at being given the rank of mansabdar of only five
thousand horsemen, he made his displeasure public. He was kept under
surveillance, but he escaped and reached the Deccan. On his return Shivaji formally
assumed the title of maharaja in June, 1674, and as Aurangzeb was busy in the
northwest, he was not disturbed. After his death in 1680, the mad cruelty of his
unworthy son Shambhuji forcibly attracted the attention of the Mughal ruler. In 1682
Shambhuji raided Burhanpur and perpetrated such cruelties on the Muslim
population that the qazis there sent a manifesto to Aurangzeb upbraiding him. The
Mughal emperor, who was concerned about the developments in the Deccan since
his rebel son, Prince Akbar, had taken refuge at Shambhuji's court, decided to go
south. He reached Aurangabad in the third week of March, 1682, and the last
twenty-five years of his life were to be spent in that part of the subcontinent.
Bijapur and Golkunda, which often gave shelter to the Maratha raiders, were
annexed in 1686 and 1687, and Shambhuji was captured and executed in early
1689, but this did not mean the end of Aurangzeb's troubles in the Deccan.
Aurangzeb brought up Shambhuji's son, Shahu, at the court and treated him with
great consideration, but his younger brother, Rajaram, took over the Maratha
leadership. On his death in April, 1700, his widow, Tara Bai, carried on the struggle.
The Mughals achieved many successes against the Marathas, but these proved
temporary. Often the forts won at great cost and after prolonged effort, would be
lost through the treachery or the incompetence of the Muslim commanders. But
even though Aurangzeb had conquered most of the Maratha forts, he was unable to
suppress the powerful roving Maratha bands which challenged Mughal authority
whenever they got an opportunity. In 1699, they carried their first raid in Malwa.
Four years later they disrupted the communications between northern and southern
India, and in 1706 they sacked Baroda. After Aurangzeb's death, the Marathas

became

major

factor

in

the

downfall

of

the

Mughal

empire.

Religious Policy
[[198]] While Aurangzeb was extending the empire in the east and south, and
consolidating his position on the northwest marches, he was also concerned with
the strengthening of Islam throughout the kingdom. His attempt to conduct the
affairs of state according to traditional Islamic policy brought to the fore the
problem that had confronted every ruler who had attempted to make Islam the
guiding force: the position of the Hindu majority in relation to the government. In
1688, when he forbade music at the royal court and took other puritanical steps in
conformity with strict injunctions of Muslim law, he affected both Hindus and
Muslims. When jizya, abolished for nearly a century, was reimposed in 1679, it was
the Hindus alone who suffered.
By now Aurangzeb had accepted the policy of regulating his government in
accordance with strict Islamic law, and many orders implementing this policy were
issued. A large number of taxes were abolished which had been levied in India for
centuries but which were not authorized by Islamic law. Possibly it was the
unfavorable effect of these remissions on the state exchequer which led to the
exploration of other lawful sources of revenue. The fact that, according to the most
responsible account, the reimposition of jizya was suggested by an officer of the
finance department would seem to show that it was primarily a fiscal
measure./4/ The theologians, who were becoming dominant at the court, naturally
endorsed the proposal, and Aurangzeb carried it out with his customary
thoroughness.
Another measure which has caused adverse comment is the issue of orders at
various stages regarding the destruction of Hindu temples. Originally these orders
applied to a few specific casessuch as the temple at Mathura built by Abul Fazl's
murderer, to which a railing had been added by Aurangzeb's rival, Dara Shukoh.
More far-reaching is the claim that when it was reported to him that Hindus were
teaching Muslims their "wicked science," Aurangzeb issued orders to all governors
"ordering the destruction of temples and schools and totally [[199]] prohibiting the
teaching and infidel practices of the unbelievers."/5/ That such an order was
actually given is doubtful; certainly it was never carried out with any thoroughness.
However, it is incontestable that at a certain stage Aurangzeb tried to enforce strict
Islamic law by ordering the destruction of newly built Hindu temples. Later, the
procedure was adopted of closing down rather than destroying the newly built
temples in Hindu localities. It is also true that very often the orders of destruction
remained a dead letter, but Aurangzeb was too deeply committed to the ordering of
his government according to Islamic law to omit its implementation in so significant
a matter. The fact that a total ban on the construction of new temples was adopted
only by later jurists, and was a departure from the earlier Muslim practice as laid

down by Muhammad ibn Qasim in Sind, was no concern of the correct,

conscientious, and legal-minded Aurangzeb.
As a part of general policy of ordering the affairs of the state in accordance
with the views of the ulama, certain discriminatory orders against the Hindus were
issued: for example, imposition of higher customs duties, 5 percent on the goods of
the Hindus as against 2 percent on those of Muslims. These were generally in
accordance with the practice of the times, but they marked a departure not only
from the political philosophy governing Mughal government, but also from the policy
followed hitherto by most Muslim rulers in India.
Aurangzeb has often been accused of closing the doors of official employment
on the Hindus, but a study of the list of his officers shows this is not so. Actually
there were more Hindu officers under him than under any other Mughal emperor.
Though this was primarily due to a general increase in the number of officers, it
shows that there was no ban on the employment of the Hindus.
That Aurangzeb's religious policy was unpopular at the time is true, but that it
was an important factor, as usually charged, in the downfall of the empire, is
doubtful. The Hindu uprisings of his reign seem to have had no wide religious
appeal, and they were supressed with the help of Hindu leaders. Their significance
comes in the following reigns, when the rulers were no longer able to meet
opposition as effectivelyand as ruthlesslyas had Aurangzeb. His religious
policy [[200]] aimed at strengthening an empire already overextended in Shah
Jahan's time; that it failed in its objective is probably true, but the mistake should
not be made of assuming that the attempt was a major element in the later political
decay. It should be seen, rather, as part of an unsuccessful attempt to stave off
disaster. Seen in this light, his religious policy is one element, but not a causal one,
save in its failure to achieve its intended goal, among the many that have to be
considered
in
seeking
an
understanding
of
Aurangzeb's
difficulties.
The East India Company
The behavior of the English East India Company was another element that has
to be added to the complex situation created by internal rebellion, the activities of
the Sikhs, and the long-drawn-out war with the Marathas. The East India Company
opened its first factory, or trading post, at Surat on the west coast in 1612, and in
the next half century established a chain along the coast. Trouble first arose in
Bengal, where Shayista Khan was trying to introduce some order and regard for the
Mughal government in place of the lax administration of his predecessor, Shah
Shuja. The foreign settlements of the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British,
emboldened by their superiority on the sea, had become truculent, and in distant
regions considered themselves subject to no checks from the Mughal government.
Shah Shuja, partly out of his general indifference to financial considerations and
partly to gain support in the coming struggle for the throne, was particularly

generous to the foreign traders. To the English factory which was opened at Hugli in
1651, he gave an order in 1652 permitting open trade in Bengal on a payment of
three thousand rupees annually in lieu of customs dues. In the succeeding years the
Company's trade multiplied many times, but, insisting on the authority of Shuja's
order, it refused to increase its contribution or pay any of the normal taxes. When
Shayista Khan objected, difficulties arose between him and the English. The attitude
of the Company's officers may be judged from a letter addressed to London in 1665:
Your Worship must consider that these people are grown more powerful than
formerly, and will not be so subject to us as they have [[201]] been, unless they be
a little beaten by us, that they may understand, if they impede us by land, it lieth in
our power to requite them by sea. In fine your affairs will be quite ruined if this
Nabob [Shayista Khan] lives and reigneth long."/6/
The first attempt by the English to wage war against the Mughals was made in
1686 when Sir Josiah Child, the powerful governor of the East India Company,
persuaded the government to send a small fleet to India to seize and fortify
Chittagong. The expedition was an utter failure; and far from gaining any territory,
English traders were expelled from all their factories in Bengal. Meanwhile on the
west coast, the English had also angered Aurangzeb. English pirates operating out
of Bombay were seizing ships taking pilgrims to Mecca; among them was the Ganj-iSawai owned by the emperor himself. They were also minting coins in Bombay with
a superscription containing their own king's name. Aurangzeb ordered the seizure of
the Surat factory and the expulsion of all Englishmen from his dominions. He
relented because of the English control of the pilgrim trade in the Arabian Sea, and
also, it appears, because they had a powerful advocate at court in the wazir, Asad
Khan. After levying a fine of one and a half lakhs of rupees Aurangzeb allowed them
to return to their factories; and for the next fifty years, the English merchants
refrained from any further attempts to establish themselves as a territorial power.
The Enigma of Aurangzeb's Purposes
In the background of all these eventsthe struggle for the throne, the
annexations of great territories in the South, the wasting struggle with the
Marathas, the pacification of the northwest frontier, the consolidation of Mughal
power in Bengal, the contemptuous treatment of the East India Companystands
the enigmatic figure of Aurangzeb, surely the most controversial personality in the
history of Islamic rule in India. Held responsible by some for the downfall of the
Mughal empire, by others he is praised for maintaining as long as he did the unity of
his vast realm.
[[202]] So far as Aurangzeb's personal qualities are concerned, however,
there is general admiration. R. C. Majumdar writes: "Undaunted bravery, grim
tenacity of purpose, and ceaseless activity were some of his prominent qualities. His

military campaigns gave sufficient proof of his unusual courage, and the manner in
which he baffled the intrigues of his enemies shows him to have been a past master
of diplomacy and statecraft. His memory was wonderful, and his industry
indefatigable."/7/ "He never forgot a face he had once seen or a word that he had
once heard." Apart from his devotion to duty, his life was remarkable for its
simplicity and purity. His dress, food, and recreations were all extremely simple. He
died at the age of ninety, but all his faculties (except his hearing) remained
unimpaired.
A well-read man, he kept up his love of books till the end. He wrote beautiful
Persian prose. A selection of his letters (Ruq'at-i-Alamgiri) has long been a standard
model of simple but elegant prose. According to Bakhtawar Khan, he had acquired
proficiency in versification, but agreeable to the word of God that "Poets deal in
falsehoods," he abstained from practicing the art. He understood music well but he
gave up this amusement in accordance with Islamic injunctions.
It is his general attitude to culture that explains why the Mughal court, which
under Shah Jahan had been the great center of patronage for the arts, ceased to be
so in Aurangzeb's reign. He disbanded the court musicians, abolished the office of
the poet-laureate, discontinued the work of the court chronicler, and offered little
encouragement to painters. On grounds of both economy and fidelity to the Islamic
law he criticized the Taj Mahal, the tomb of his mother, remarking: "The lawfulness
of a solid construction over a grave is doubtful, and there can be no doubt about the
extravagance involved."/8/
Although Aurangzeb's attitude toward the arts was one of disapproval, his
reign was not culturally barren. Large-scale building activity ceased, but this was as
much a reflection of a treasury depleted by war as deliberate policy. Other forms of
artistic life flourished, [[203]]
*THE MUGHAL EMPIRE IN 1700*
[[204]] partly because they had taken firm foot in Indian soil, and partly because
the great nobles made up to some extent for the lack of royal patronage. In the case
of poetry, where self-expression yields better results without compliance with a
patron's wishes or moods, the abolition of the court patronage and the weakening of
the court tradition led to some welcome new developments. The greatest Persian
poet of the period, Bedil, turned away from the polished love lyrics of the old court
poets and concentrated on metaphysical poetry. Often his fancy ran riot. Many of his
metaphors are quaint and far-fetched, and his meaning is frequently obscure, but he
is unmatched for profundity of thought and originality of ideas and similes. He is
highly popular in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, where his poetry appeals to the serious
readers in the same way as does the great Masnavi of Rumi. He paved the way for
Ghalib, who followed him in aiming at originality and depth of thought, but adopted
the polished diction of Mughal court poets.

Perhaps even more important was Wali (d.1707), originally a writer of Deccani,
who became the first major poet of modern Urdu. This replacement of Deccani by
Urdu was a direct result of Aurangzeb's conquest of the Muslim kingdoms of the
south. So long as the kingdoms of Golkunda and Bijapur existed and patronized the
poets and writers of Deccani, "it was fully in vogue and its peculiarities immune
from criticism and sneers." When this source of patronage dried up and the
Hindustani-speaking officers became dominant in the south, the writers of Deccani
had to adjust to a new situation. They were forced to shed their peculiarities of
dialect, themes, and treatment, while the speakers from the north saw the literary
possibilities of the spoken language. The two streams of literary tradition mingled,
and gave birth to modern Urdu.
These developments owed little to Aurangzeb's deliberate efforts. The cultural
activities for which he was directly responsible were the spread of Islamic learning
and general diffusion of education. His reign was marked by the extensive grant of
patronage and stipends to scholars and students. There were no religious leaders of
the caliber of Shah Waliullah or Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, but there is no doubt that
the foundation of the Islamic religious revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries were laid at this time. The Islamic academic [[205]] curriculum, known
as Dars-i-Nizamiya, was begun in his reign, and the emperor was personally
responsible for the grant of extensive buildings, known as Farangi Mahal of
Lucknow, to the family of Mulla Nizam-ud-din, after whom Dars-i-Nizamiya is named.
Most of the books included in the Dars-i-Nizamiya, other than those of foreign origin,
were written during Aurangzeb's reign. They were mainly the work of two scholars
patronized by the emperorMir Zahid, the qazi of Kabul, and Muhibullah Bihari, the
qazi of Allahabad. Compilation of the comprehensive legal digest, known as Fatawai-Alamgiri, was also initiated by the emperor.
In turning from Aurangzeb's influence on culture to his work as a statesman,
we find that his achievements are obvious, but his final years were clouded by
difficulties. The strong kingdoms of Golkunda and Bijapur, for long centers of Muslim
power in the south, were conquered in less than a year, but the entire might of the
Mughul empire was pitted against the Marathas for twenty years, without resulting
in decisive gains. And in the struggle the Marathas gained a new confidence and
soon moved from the defensive in the Deccan to an offensive in the north.
In the financial field, Aurangzeb's achievements were even less distinguished.
When he died, the imperial treasury was almost empty. He left barely 12 crores of
rupeesnot very much more than the inheritance of a great Mughal noble like Asaf
Khan. Towards the end of his reign, the imperial finances were in such straits that
the diwan anxiously waited for the receipt of the Bengal revenue, so that the
expenses of the Deccan campaign could be met.
It is a tribute to Aurangzeb's control over the affairs of the empire that no
major upheaval occurred in the north during his prolonged absence in the Deccan,

but there are clear indications of many minor disturbances and a general slackening
of administration. In Bengal, for example, Sobha Singh, a petty chief of Midnapur
district, joined an Afghan chief to defeat the Hindu zamindar of Burdwan. They also
seized the fort and city of Hugli and plundered the cities of Nadia, Murshidabad,
Malda, and Rajmahal. The emperor removed Ibrahim Khan, the governor (though, it
appears, soon to appoint him to Allahabad), and the rebellion was effectively put
down, but it exposed the insecure state of the administration. As this
disturbance [[206]] enabled the English and other foreigners to fortify their
settlements at Calcutta and elsewhere, its effects were far-reaching.
The basic cause of Aurangzeb's failures did not lie in his own weakness, but in
the quality of men at his disposal. Aurangzeb's misfortune was that he began to rule
when two generations of unparalleled prosperity had sapped the moral fiber of the
Mughal aristocracy. The Mughals were no longer the hardy soldiers and resourceful
improvisers of the days of Babur and Akbar. Aurangzeb constantly bemoaned the
scarcity of good officers. In one of his letters he says, "My great grandfather [Akbar]
had many faithful servants. He entrusted them with the work of gaining successful
victories and of performing many affairs, and in the time of my father [Shah Jahan]
there came forward many brave and faithful servants, well-behaved officers and
able secretaries. Now I want one competent person, adorned with the ornament of
honesty, for the Diwani of Bengal; but I find none. Alas! alas! for the rarity of useful
men."
A growing weakness of the Mughal officials was that they shirked arduous and
difficult assignments. For them the continuous stay in the Deccan, away from the
attractions of the capital, was such a calamity that they would probably have
preferred the Maratha victory to such an exile. One of Aurangzeb's leading nobles
used to say that he would distribute a lakh of rupees in charity if he could see the
capital once again. Such ease-loving generals fared badly against the hardy
Marathas. They took years to conquer small hill-forts, and many of these forts
conquered after long sieges would be quickly lost owing to the sloth and negligence
of the officers in charge.
Treachery was rampant in the Mughal army, and the royal princes were
sometimes the cause. During the seven-year siege of Ginji, Prince Kam Bakhsh, who
was in charge of the operations along with Zulfiqar Khan, was placed under arrest
as he was about to join the Marathas with his troops. During the siege of Satara the
Marathas bribed Prince Azam to ensure that the provisioning of their garrison would
not be interfered with, and the fort, which at the commencement of the siege had
provisions to last only for two months, was not conquered for six months. With such
instruments at his disposal, it is little wonder that Aurangzeb's policies were not
successful.
The causes of some of Aurangzeb's difficulties were beyond his control.
Others, [[207]] especially the financial and the administrative ones, arose out of his

personal character and its reflection in his basic policies. In making his decision to
run his government according to Islamic law, he did more than reverse Akbar's
religious policy: he gave up the age-old policy, followed since the inception of the
Muslim rule in India, and which had been openly proclaimed by Balban, Ala-ud-din
Khalji, and Sher Shah, of subordinating legal and ecclesiastical considerations to
practical requirements of administration. Aurangzeb was inspired by high motives,
but the policy created many problems.
His financial difficulties were partly due to the wholesome remission of some
eighty taxes, and partly to his refusal to levy any tax not specifically authorized by
shariat. He failed to see, as even Firuz Tughluq had, that such a policy was
inconsistent with military expansion and large-scale warfare. In the administrative
field, also, he was opposed to taking any action or imposing any penalty, except in
strict accordance with the Islamic law. This resulted in precedence being given to
the qazis, which was not liked by many of Aurangzeb's officers. Some of
Aurangzeb's ablest generals found the attention given by the emperor to rigid legal
procedure irksome. Firuz Jang, the conqueror of Golkunda (whom the emperor held
so dear that once when he fell ill and was forbidden melons, Aurangzeb himself
gave up this fruit), put to death one Muhammad Aqil on a charge of highway
robbery, without formal trial by a qazi. Aurangzeb sternly rebuked him, and asked
his wazir to write to the noble that if the heirs of the slain refused to accept the
blood-money permitted by law he would have to pass an order of retaliation against
him./9/
There is something truly noble in a ruler reminding his ablest general that he
would have to face the full rigors of the law for an unlawful action, and there can be
nothing but admiration for Aurangzeb's endeavors to uphold the law and proper
judicial procedure. But in the seventeenth century the administrators found this
meticulous emphasis on legal procedure and the prominent position of the qazis a
hindrance. The contemporary historian Khafi Khan has attributed the imperfect
success of Aurangzeb, in spite of his great ability and immense industry, to his
reluctance to go beyond Islamic law. "From reverence [[208]] for the injunctions of
the Law, he did not make use of punishment and without punishment the
administration of a country cannot be maintained. Dissensions rose among his
nobles through rivalry. So every plan and project that he formed came to little good;
and every enterprise which he undertook was long in execution and failed in its
objective."/10/
Perhaps the time to make a final assessment of Aurangzeb has not yet arrived.
More than five thousand of his letters are extant, but only a handful have been
published, and until this rich material is studied, a proper appraisal of his
personality is not possible. At present, evidence about him is fragmentary and
contradictory, and his personality was more complex than either his admirers or
critics are willing to acknowledge. In the context of conflicting evidence, the
tendency for each group is to emphasize the elements supporting its point of view.

These verdicts are liable to be modified in the light of the vast material which
remains to be utilized, and all judgment of Aurangzeb, at this stage, can only be
provisional.
Whatever view is taken should not obscure, however, Aurangzeb's solid and
abiding achievements. He greatly enlarged the Mughal empire and much of what he
accomplished has endured. A large part of what is East Pakistan today was either
conquered or consolidated during his reign. In the Deccan he annexed vast areas
which were to remain centers of Mughal culture and administration for more than
two centuries. He selected and promoted administrators whose work constitutes a
landmark in the history of the regions entrusted to themShayista Khan and
Murshid Quli Khan in Bengal, and Nizam-ul-Mulk in the Deccan. He tried to reduce
the Irani preponderance in administration and attracted some gifted Turani families
to the service of the Mughals. He also trained a body of men who were to sustain
the empire through a period of foreign invasions and repeated internal struggles for
the succession. Viewed in this light, Aurangzeb can be seen not as the instigator of
policies that led to ruin, but as the guardian of the Islamic state in India.
VI. Mughal Administration
*The Central Government* == *Provincial Administration* == *Finances* ==
*Military
Organization*
==
*The
Judiciary*
[[209]] BEFORE following the fate of the Mughal empire under Aurangzeb's
successors in the eighteenth century, it will be useful to outline the main features of
administration under the four great emperors. The most prominent features of the
administrations of the different rulers have already been noted, but a general view
is
necessary
in
order
to
understand
the
Mughal
contribution.
The Central Government
First of all, it should be recognized that the Mughals drew heavily on the past,
for the organization of their government was on essentially the same lines as that of
the sultanate. The principal officers of the central government were four: 1) diwan;
2) mir bakhshi; 3) mir saman; and 4) sadr. The first of these dignitaries, the diwan,
often called the wazir (the chief minister), was mainly concerned with revenue and
finance, but as he had a say in all matters where any expenditure was involved, the
work of other departments also came under his control. All the imperial orders were
first recorded in his office before being issued, and the provincial governors,
district faujdars, and leaders of expeditions came to him for instructions before
assuming their duties. All the earning departments were under his direct control,
and could spend only what was allotted to them by the diwan.

The mir bakhshi performed those duties which had been the responsibility of
the ariz-i-mamalik during the earlier period. Owing to the organization of the civil
services on military lines, his power extended far beyond the war office, and some
foreign travelers called him the lieutenant-general or the captain-general of the
realm. The main departure from the sultanate was in respect to work relating to
state karkhanas, stores, ordinance, and communications, now so important that the
dignitary dealing with it, called the mir saman, ranked [[210]] as an important
minister often senior in rank to the sadr. The sadr (or, more fully, sadr-i-jahan) was,
as in the earlier period, director of the religious matters, charities, and endowments.
Occasionally a higher dignitary, superior to the wazir and other ministers was
also appointed. He was called the vakil, and functioned like the naib (deputy) of the
sultanate period. This appointment, as under the sultanate, was sporadic,
depending on the wish of the monarch and the requirements of the situation. During
the reigns of Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, a period of ninety-seven years (1560
1657), there were ten vakils whose terms of service totaled about thirty-nine years.
Ibn Hasan, the author of the Central Structure of the Mughal Empire, argues that the
post was primarily for show and honor, with the vakil as the head of the nobility but
not of the administration./1/ To a large extent this is true, and normally the vakil
was less effective than the wazir, who controlled the purse, but theoretically the
vakil was the king's deputy and even the wazir referred to him whatever was
"beyond his own ability." Abul Fazl calls him "the emperor's lieutenant in all matters
connected with the realm and the household," adding that "although the financial
offices are not under his immediate superintendence, yet he receives the returns
from heads of all financial offices and wisely keeps abstracts of their return."/2/
The splendor and stability of the Mughal rule was due to a succession of very
capable rulers who attempted to build up an efficient administrative system,
choosing their principal officers on the basis of merit. The most famous diwan under
Akbar was Raja Todar Mal, who for a time acted as the chief minister of the realm,
but the contribution of Khwaja Mansur and Mir Fathulla Shirazi to the building up of
Akbar's revenue administration was perhaps equally great. Under Jahangir, Itimadud-Daula, the father of Nur Jahan, who was a diwan even before his daughter
married the emperor, remained the chief wazir and diwan until his death. He was
succeeded by his son, Asaf Khan, who became the vakil just before the death of
Jahangir. [[211]] Itimad-ud-Daula and Asaf Khan were able, efficient officers. Asaf
Khan maintained his position until his death, but his successors were selected on
the basis of their scholarship and technical efficiency. Allami Afzal Khan remained
Shah Jahan's diwan for ten years, and the office was held from the nineteenth to the
thirtieth years of Shah Jahan's reign by the celebrated Saadulla Khan who, like his
predecessor, had won his post because of his learning, wisdom, and
resourcefulness.
The diwan, who can perhaps be called the finance minister, had under him two
principal officers, called diwan-i-tan and diwan-i-khalsa, who were in charge of

salaries and state lands respectively. It is interesting that all the assistants of the
diwan-i-khalsa under Shah Jahan's reign were Hindus, and five out of the seven
under the diwan-i-tan belonged to the same community. Raja Raghunath Rai, who
had been diwan-i-khalsa for some years, became sole diwan in the thirty-first year
of Shah Jahan's reign, and maintained this position until his death, during the reign
of Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb's principal wazir, who held office for thirty-one years, was
Asad Khan, originally his mir bakhshi. Next to him, the most famous mir bakhshi of
the Mughal period was Shaikh Farid, who played a decisive role in the enthronement
of Jahangir.
The organization of public services was perfected during Akbar's reign, and
was based on the mansabdari system, borrowed originally from Persia. Every
important officer of state held a mansab or an official appointment of rank and
emoluments, and, as members of an imperial cadre, were liable for service
anywhere in the empire. In 157374 Akbar classified the office holders in thirtythree grades, ranging from commanders of ten to commanders of ten
thousand./3/ The principal categories of Mughal mansabdars, however, were three:
those
in
command
of
ten
to
four
hundred
were
commonly
styled mansabdars (officers); those in command of five hundred to twenty-five
hundred were amirs (nobles); and those in higher ranks belonged to the category
of umara-i-kabir or umara-i-azim (grandees). The highest amir in the third category
was honored with the title of amir-ul-umara. In [[212]] the eighteenth century this
title was usually given to the mir bakhshi. Until the middle of Akbar's reign, the
highest rank which any ordinary officer could hold was that of a commander of five
thousand; the more exalted grades between commanders of seven thousand and
ten thousand were reserved for princes of royal blood. Toward the end of his reign
and under his successors these limits were relaxed.
Originally each grade carried a definite rate of pay, out of which the holders
were required to maintain a quota of horses, elephants, beasts of burden, and carts.
But even in Akbar's days and in spite of safeguards introduced by him, the number
of men actually supplied by the mansabdars rarely corresponded to the number
indicated by his rank, and under Akbar's successors greater latitude was allowed.
The mansabdars were paid either in cash or by temporary grant of jagirs.
Theoretically, the mansabdars received enormous salaries, which appear all the
more excessive when it is realized that they did not normally maintain all the troops
expected of them. It was probably an awareness of this that led Shah Jahan to
introduce the practice of paying salaries to the mansabdars for only four months of
the year instead of twelve, the implication being that the actual income for part of
the year was equivalent to what the emperor had originally intended for the whole
year./4/ Even with this reduction, the mansabdars lived extravagantly. The tendency
to luxurious expenditure was undoubtedly heightened by the mansabdar's
knowledge that on his death, his whole property would be taken over by the state,
pending satisfaction of any outstanding claims by the treasury. But while there may

have been little incentive to save within the system, the high scale of salaries
enabled the state to attract the ablest and most ambitious individuals from almost
the whole of southern and western Asia.
Appointment to the ranks of mansabdars was made by the emperor, usually on
the recommendation of military leaders, provincial governors, or court officials. In
addition to the mansabdars, there was a class known as ahadis, who though holding
no official rank, were employed in posts in the palace. They were usually young men
of good families, who were not fortunate enough to secure a mansab
on [[213]] their first application. Given an opportunity to show their worth, they
could then be promoted to the ranks of mansabdars. These mansabdars have been
compared to the Civil Service during British rule in that they formed an all-India
cadre of officials, liable to transfer anywhere in the empire and providing the
personnel for all major offices. The existence of a single imperial cadre undoubtedly
gave a cohesion and unity to the Mughal empire that was lacking during the
sultanate.
Provincial Administration
Provincial administration was greatly improved under Akbar, and in this respect
the Mughal period differs substantially from the sultanate. The boundaries of the
provincial units were more definitely fixed; and a uniform administrative pattern,
with minor modifications to suit local conditions, was developed for all parts of the
empire. Further, drawing upon the experiments introduced by Sher Shah, the
provincial administration was strengthened, and each province was provided with a
set of officials representing all branches of state activity. By the introduction of a
cadre of mansabdars, liable to be transferred anywhere at the behest of the central
government and by the introduction of other checks, the control over the provinces
was made more effective.
The principal officer was the governor, called sipah salar under Akbar
and nazim under his successors, but popularly known as subahdar and later only as
subah./5/ Next to him in official rank, but not in any way under his control, was the
provincial diwan, who was in independent charge of the revenues of the province.
He was usually a mansabdar of much lower status than the governor, but he was
independent of the governor's control and was directly under the imperial diwan.
The next provincial functionary was the bakhshi, or the paymaster. He
performed a number of duties, including, occasionally, the functions of the
provincial newswriter. Thediwan-i-buyutat was the provincial representative of the
khan-i-saman, and looked after roads [[214]] and government buildings, supervised
imperial stores, and ran state workshops. The sadr and the qazi were entrusted with
religious, educational, and judicial duties.

The faujdar and the kotwal were the two other important provincial officials.
The faujdar, who was the administrative head of the sarkar (district), was appointed
by the emperor but was under the supervision and guidance of the governor. The
kotwals were not provincial officers, but were appointed by the central government
in the provincial capitals and other important cities, and performed a number of
executive and ministerial duties similar to the Police Commissioners during British
rule in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. The ports were in charge of the mir bahr,
corresponding to the modern Port Commissioner, but with powers over customs
also.
The Mughals interfered very little with the local life of the village communities,
for they had no resident functionary of their own in the villages. The muqaddam was
normally the sarpanch (head of the village panchayat, or council) and these
panchayats continued to deal with local disputes, arrange for watch and ward, and
perform
many
functions
now
entrusted
to
the
local
bodies.
Finances
The tax structure of the Mughal empire was relatively simple in its theoretical
formulation, however much it was complicated by changing needs and local
circumstances. Both revenue and expenditure were divided between the central and
the provincial government. The central government reserved for itself land revenue,
customs, profits from the mints, inheritance rights, and monopolies. Land revenue
was the most important source of income, as it has been throughout Indian history,
and more than doubled in value between the reigns of Akbar and Shah Jahan. The
principal items of expenditure for the central government were defense, the general
civil administration of the empire (including the religious organizations),
maintenance of the court and the royal palace, and the cost of buildings and other
public works. The provincial sources of income were the assignments of land
revenue granted to the provincial governor and his officials as a
remuneration [[215]] for their services, a variety of local taxes and cesses, transit
dues and duties, and fines and presents./6/
The Mughal revenue system was based on the division of the empire into
subas or governorships, sarkars or districts, and parganas, consisting of number of
villages which were sometimes styled mahals. (These were replaced during British
rule by the somewhat large tehsils or talukas.) The revenue staff had also to
perform miscellaneous administrative duties, including the keeping of the public
peace, and recruitment of the military forces. The suba was modeled after the
central imperial structure. The sarkar was in the charge of the faujdar, or military
commander, who combined the functions of the modern district magistrate and
superintendent of police. The revenue work in the sarkar was looked after by the
amalguzar, who would correspond to the modern afsar-i-mal (revenue officer).

The levy of land revenue was based on survey settlements calculated after a
detailed measurement and classification of the cultivated areas. The nature of the
crops grown and the mean prevailing market prices were also taken into
consideration in fixing the final assessment. This assessment system, evolved after
many experiments, became the basis of the survey settlement of the British period.
Akbar's revenue system in most areas was raiyatwari, the revenue being collected
directly as far as possible from the individual cultivator, and was payable in cash.
Akbar introduced the system in the greater part of northern India, and during the
viceroyalty of Aurangzeb, it was extended to the Deccan. The revenue system as
evolved under Akbar was thoroughly sound, but the government demand was heavy
and amounted to one-third of the produce. Abul Fazl tried to justify it by referring to
the abolition of many miscellaneous cesses and taxes, but it is not certain whether
all the cesses abolished by royal order were given up by subordinate officials. In the
settlement of the Deccan during Aurangzeb's viceroyalty, the state share was
reduced to one-fourth./7/
Mughal emperors, particularly Akbar and Aurangzeb, continued [[216]] to
make cautious experiments and improvements in the land-revenue system. The
basic data was collected by detailed measurement of land and assessment of the
yield and estimates of productivity of each pargana or assessment area. When
sufficient data had been collected the system of group assessment was introduced,
with the alternatives of measurement and sharing being held in reserve.
That the Mughal rulers wanted the revenue system to operate fairly is evident
from the guidance to collectors of revenue given in the Ain-i-Akbari. "The Collector
was directed to be the friend of the agriculturist; to give remissions in order to
stimulate cultivation to grant every facility to the raiyat, and never to charge him
on more than the actual area under tillage; to receive the assessment direct from
the cultivator and so avoid intermediaries; to recover arrears without undue force;
and to submit a monthly statement describing the condition of the people, the state
of public security, the range of market prices and rents, the conditions of the poor
and all other contingencies."/8/
The specifications were highat least on paper, but anyone who studies the
procedure for giving relief to the raiyats in case of hardships, the general
instructions to the collectors, and the details of the assessment system and mode of
recovery is bound to be struck by the professional competence of men like Todar
Mal, Shah Mansur, and Amir Fathullah Shirazi, as well as the statesmanlike
benevolence motivating the state's basic policy. The British paid special attention to
revenue administration, and introduced many significant improvements, but it can
be said without injustice that on certain points the Mughal system compared
favorably with the one that evolved over a long period in British India. As an
example, one may take the assessment of lands newly brought under cultivation or
reclaimed after having fallen out of cultivation. A variety of scales of assessment
was applied to such lands, such as a low initial rate, rising to the full amount after

five years. The collector was also able to vary the revenue demands to encourage
wasteland being cultivated. Regulations under the British were neither so liberal nor
so flexible for this particular kind of cultivation.
[[217]] Another important difference between the British and the Mughal
systems was the position of the village accountant, or patwari. Throughout the
Mughal period the patwari, who was responsible for the maintenance of the financial
records, was an employee of the village, not of the revenue administration. Under
the British system, however, he became an employee of the government. This
altered his relationship to the people, because previously he had been an agent for
the people, but now he became an instrument of government. This was one factor
that led to the weakening of village autonomy.
The Mughal theory and practice of revenue administration must be seen as the
essential elements underlying the later administrative structure of India. The great
memorial to Mughal rule is not so much the great architectural monuments that fill
the subcontinent, but the governments of the great successor states, India and
Pakistan, which following the model of the period of British rule, have maintained an
administrative pattern that derives from the Mughals. "The District system with the
district officer as head of the public services and general factotum or Poo Bah, the
erection of an administrative hierarchy upon the basis of land revenue collection,
and the development of an involute maze of office procedure, these features of
Mughal rule were all accepted as the foundation of British rule; and, indeed, to an
astonishing degree, in India and Pakistan today local administration is Mughal in
spirit."/9/
Military Organization
The weakest part of Mughal administration was the military organization,
precisely the area where one might have expected the most efficient centralized
control. But instead of a large standing army, the emperors depended upon four
different classes of troops for the maintenance of order and the defense of the
empire's borders. There were, first of all, the soldiers supplied by the mansabdars;
the number a mansabdar was expected to provide upon the demand of the emperor
were specified in his warrant of appointment or were indicated by his rank. Another
class of troops under the command of a mansabdar [[218]] was known as dakhili,
whose services were paid for by the state. A third class were the ahadis, or
"gentlemen troopers," drawing higher pay than those in the ordinary service;
according to the Ain-i-Akbari, they might get as much as five hundred rupees a
month, in contrast to the seven or eight rupees of the regular troopers. Finally, the
chiefs who had been permitted to retain a degree of autonomy were required to
provide contingents under their own command.
The artillery was paid wholly out of the imperial treasury. Recognizing its
importance, Akbar had given it his special attention, but his efforts to secure from

the Portuguese some of their better pieces were unsuccessful. European gunners
were employed later on in appreciable numbers, but no permanent improvement
was effected. During the eighteenth century the Mughal army shared in the decline
of the other imperial institutions, and little advantage was taken of technical
improvements in weaponry. When Nadir Shah invaded India in 1739 the jazair or
swivel guns employed by his troops were superior to anything the Mughals could
bring against them.
There are no existing statistical records of the strength of the Mughal army.
The best estimate is probably that of Sir Jadunath Sarkar, who concluded from
evidence from the reign of Shah Jahan that in 1648 the army consisted of 440,000
infantry, musketeers, and artillery men, and 185,000 cavalry commanded by
princes and nobles. The army could still count on the personal valor of the
commander of an individual contingent, but pitted against disciplined European
soldiers, or hardy, resourceful Maratha horsemen, it did not prove effective. The
loose organization of the army, the paucity of officers, the failure to build up a wellknit and active pyramidical organization, reduced the efficiency of the army. There
were no uniforms, and discipline was poor, particularly in lower ranks. The cavalry
was the only branch which was considered respectable and fit for a gentleman to
join, while the ordinary "Indian foot soldier was little more than a night watchman
and guardian over baggage."/10/ The Mughal practice of taking along a great
number of camp followers, including occasionally [[219]] the families of the
soldiers and the royal harem, made the army a very cumbersome, slow-moving
organization.
Descendants of a people who knew nothing of the sea, the Mughals had little
success in creating a navy. They had no large fighting vessels, and the ships that
they maintained were primarily for the furtherance of the commercial operations of
the state. After the conquest of Gujarat, the Mughal army reached the shores of the
Indian Ocean, but Akbar failed to build a navy. He tacitly acquiesced in the
Portuguese supremacy by making no effort to challenge their authority, and by
taking out licenses from them for the ships which he sent to the Red Sea. To deal
with the pirates in the Bay of Bengal, and also for the purpose of communication
over the vast river system of Bengal, a river flotilla was maintained at Dacca. Under
Akbar it consisted of 768 small armed vessels and boats, estimated to cost about
29,000 rupees a month. It was not effective against the Magh and Portuguese
pirates, but it was reorganized under the efficient administration of Mir Jumla and
Shayista Khan, and in 1664 the latter was able to inflict a decisive blow against the
pirates./11/
A few years later Aurangzeb had an opportunity to make at least tentative
arrangements for the defense of the seas along the west coast of India. A coastal
chieftain known as the Sidi of Janjira had provided protection for the ships and ports
of the sultan of Bijapur. When the Sidi's territories were attacked by Shivaji,
however, the sultan did not come to his assistance, and in 1670 the Sidi offered his

services to Aurangzeb. Since Aurangzeb needed all the help he could get in the
Deccan, he took the Sidi into his service, placing him under the Mughal governor of
Surat, and subsidizing his fleet. The Sidi was assisted by another fleet based on
Surat, and in every way treated as an official of the empire, but the Mughal
command of the sea was too slight to make supervision of so independent a force
possible. In course of time his descendants established themselves as the rulers of
the
state
of
Janjira
south
of
Bombay.
The Judiciary
[[220]] The judicial system of the Mughals was very similar to that of the
sultanate. It became more systematic, particularly under Aurangzeb, but as
compared with the judicial structure of British India, it was very simple, being based
on a different approach to many categories of disputes. Normally no lawyers were
allowed to appear. The disputes were speedily settled, often on the basis of equity
and natural justice, though of course in the case of Muslims the injunctions and
precedents of Islamic law applied where they existed. Many crimesincluding
murderwere treated as individual grievances rather than crimes against society.
The complaints in such cases were initiated by the individuals aggrieved, rather
than by the police, and could be compounded on payment of compensation. The
aim of the judicial system was primarily to settle individual complaints and disputes
rather than to enforce a legal code, as is indicated by the fact that the criminal
court was normally known as the diwan-i-mazalim, the court of complaints.
All foreign travelers have commented on the speedy justice of the Mughal
courts and the comparatively few cases coming before them. The latter was partly
due to the general prejudice against litigation, but even more to the fact that a
large number of disputes, particularly those affecting the Hindus, were settled by
the village and caste panchayats, and did not come before the official courts. The
Hindus were not debarred from taking cases before the qazi or the governorand
frequently did so where other arrangements did not prove effectivebut normally
they had their own arrangements for settling their disputes. Badauni has recorded
that according to Akbar's orders the cases of Hindus were to be decided by the
Hindu judges and not by the qazis. The Jesuit Father Monserrate says that
"Brachmane (Brahmans) governed liberally through a senate and a council of the
common people" referring presumably to the administration of justice by these
agencies. Local usage and custom ruled in most rural areas, and, according to one
estimate, perhaps not one person out of a hundred in the Punjab, for example, was
governed by the provisions of either the classic Hindu or Muslim law./12/
[[221]] The judicial courts provided by the Mughals were principally of two
typessecular and ecclesiastical. Except during the reign of Aurangzeb, the
principal courts for settlement of disputes were presided over by the emperor, the
governors, and other executive officers. Akbar used to spend several hours of the
day disposing of judicial cases, and governors followed the same procedure in the

provinces. In the Ain-i-Akbari we find the instructions issued to a governor detailing

the judicial procedure he should follow.
Apart from the secular courts and the panchayats, the principal agency for the
settlement of disputes was the qazis' court. The qazi, being the repository of Muslim
law, attended the hearing of cases by the executive authority, whether governor,
faujdar or kotwal, and assisted the latter in arriving at a decision consonant with
Quaranic precepts. Presumably the civil disputes of Muslims were, as a rule, left to
the qazis to be settled according to the canon law. When both parties in a dispute
were Hindus, the point at issue was referred to Hindu pandits for an opinion. This
principle was supported by the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri, the authoritative digest of Islamic
law, where it is held that "Dhimmis do not subject themselves to the laws of Islam
either with respect to things which are merely of religious nature, such as fasting or
prayer, or with respect to such temporal acts, as though contrary to [Islam], may be
legal by their own, such as sale of wine or of swine's flesh, because we [Muslim
jurists] have been commanded to leave them at liberty in all things, which may be
deemed by them to be proper according to the precepts of their own
religion."/13/ These provisions presumably related to religious matters. In the case
of Muslims, the secular types of criminal suits went to the kotwal, while the religious
and civil cases, such as concerning inheritance, marriage, divorce, and civil disputes
went to the qazis' courts.
The death penalty normally had to be confirmed by the emperor, but there
seem to have been departures from the rule. A Dutch resident of India states that
fines represented the normal mode of settling all disputes in Mughal India. Capital
punishments and mutilations were frequent, and there are records of impaling,
dismemberment, [[222]] and other cruel punishments. They were, however, limited
in their incidence and were inflicted only under the royal orders. Furthermore, they
were confined to those cases where an example was to be made of the individual
concerned. Imprisonment was not a method of punishment that appealed to the
Mughals. It was seldom used as a sentence in private cases, though it was
sometimes resorted to for preventive purposes. Whipping was commonly used. The
Muslim punishment of parading the offender in an ignominious condition seems to
have been frequently used, as it coincided with the Hindu tradition as well.
The assessments made by two acute British observers on Mughal government
as they saw it in a period of decline may serve as summary of the Mughal
achievement as administrators. Luke Scrafton, who was resident for the East India
Company at the capital of Bengal in 1758, declared that until the invasion of Nadir
Shah in 1739 "there was scarce a better administered government in the world. The
manufactures, commerce, and agriculture flourished exceedingly; and none felt the
hand of the oppression but those who were dangerous by their wealth or
power."/14/ Mughal government was despotic, and official corruption increased from
the reign of Jahangir, but on the whole, the judgment of the English historian,
Sidney Owen seems just: "Whatever its defects, it was a grandly conceived, well-

adjusted, and beneficent structure of government. Taxation was light; and its
most productive source, the land revenue, was moderately assessed, and equitably
adjusted. Foreign commerce was protected and favoured; and the English East India
Company throve, and multiplied its factories, under the shadow of the Imperial
authority. The judicial system, though what we should consider crude and
capricious, as well as too often corruptly exercised, was not liable like our own to
the tedious delays which have been its reproach, and which have so much tended
to obstruct, and even defeat, the course of justice. And the right of appealing to the
Emperor from inferior tribunals, though too generally a futile privilege, was
sometimes really remedial, and probably was a standing check to judicial iniquity.
Much the same may be said as to the provincial Governors."/15/
XVII. Economic and Social Developments under the Mughals
*Trade and Industry* == *Urban Life* == *Rural Conditions* == *Health and
Medical Facilities* == *Social Customs* == *The Position of the Hindus*
[[223]] IT WAS the normal policy of the Timurid rulers, both in their original
Central Asian homelands and in India, to encourage trade. As in much else, Sher
Shah Suri during his brief reign (15381545) set a pattern that was followed by the
later Mughals, especially Akbar, when he encouraged trade by linking together
various parts of the country through an efficient system of roads and abolishing
many inland tolls and duties. The Mughals maintained this general policy, but their
rule was distinguished by the importance which foreign trade attained by the end of
the sixteenth century. This was partly the result of the discovery of the new searoute to India; but even so, progress would have been limited if conditions within
the
country
had
not
been
favorable.
Trade and Industry
Both Akbar and Jahangir interested themselves in the foreign seaborne trade,
and Akbar himself took part in commercial activities for a time. The Mughals
welcomed the foreign trader, provided ample protection and security for his
transactions, and levied a very low custom duty (usually no more than 2 percent
ad valorem). Furthermore, the expansion of local handicrafts and industry resulted
in a reservoir of exportable goods. Indian exports consisted mainly of manufactured
articles, with cotton cloth in great demand in Europe and elsewhere. Indigo,
saltpeter, spices, opium, sugar, woolen and silk cloth of various kinds, yarn,
asafoetida, salt, beads, borax, turmeric, lac, sealing wax, and drugs of various
kinds, were also exported. The principal imports were bullion, horses, and a certain
quantity of luxury goods for the upper classes, like raw silk, coral, [[224]] amber,
precious stones, superior textiles (silk, velvet, brocade, broadcloth), perfumes,
drugs, china goods, and European wines. By and large, however, in return for their
goods Indian merchants insisted on payment in gold or silver. Naturally this was not

popular in England and the rest of Europe, and writers on economic affairs in the
seventeenth century frequently complained, as did Sir Thomas Roe, that "Europe
bleedeth to enrich Asia." The demand for articles supplied by India was so great,
however, and her requirements of European goods so limited, that Europe was
obliged to trade on India's own terms until the eighteenth century, when special
measures were taken in England and elsewhere to discourage the demand for
Indian goods.
The manufacture of cotton goods had assumed such extensive proportions that
in addition to satisfying her own needs, India sent cloth to almost half the world: the
east coast of Africa, Arabia, Egypt, Southeast Asia, as well as Europe. The textile
industry, well established in Akbar's day, continued to flourish under his successors,
and soon the operations of Dutch and English traders brought India into direct touch
with Western markets. This resulted in great demand for Indian cotton goods from
Europe, which naturally increased production at home. Even the silk industry
especially in Bengalwas in flourishing condition. Bernier wrote: "There is in Bengal
such a quantity of cotton and silk, that the kingdom may be called the common
storehouse for these two kinds of merchandise, not of Hindoustan or the Empire of
the Great Mogol only, but of all the neighbouring kingdoms, and even of Europe."/1/
Apart from silk and cotton textiles, other industries were shawl and carpet
weaving, woolen goods, pottery, leather goods, and articles made of wood. Owing
to its proximity to sources of suitable timbers, Chittagong specialized in
shipbuilding, and at one time supplied ships to distant Istanbul. The commercial
side of the industry was in the hands of middlemen, but the Mughal government,
like the earlier sultans, made its own contribution. The emperor controlled a large
number of royal workshops, busily turning out articles for his own [[225]] use, for
his household, for the court, and for the imperial army. Akbar took a special interest
in the development of indigenous industry. He was directly responsible for the
expansion of silk weaving at Lahore, Agra, Fathpur-Sikri, and in Gujarat. He opened
a large number of factories at important centers, importing master weavers from
Persia, Kashmir, and Turkistan. Akbar frequently visited the workshops near the
palace to watch the artisans at work, which encouraged the craftsmen and raised
their status. It is said that he took such an interest in the industry that to foster
demand he "ordered people of certain ranks to wear particular kinds of locally
woven coverings an order which resulted in the establishment of a large number
of shawl manufactories in Lahore; and inducements were offered to foreign carpetweavers to settle in Agra, Fathepur Sikri, and Lahore, and manufacture carpets to
compete with those imported from Persia."/2/ In the course of time, the foreign
traders established close contracts with important markets in India, and new articles
which were more in demand in Western Europe began to be produced in increasing
quantities. Among the foreign inventions that excited Akbar's interest was an organ,
"one of the wonders of creation," that had been brought from Europe./3/

Urban Life
All foreign travelers speak of the wealth and prosperity of Mughal cities and
large towns. Monserrate stated that Lahore in 1581 was "not second to any city in
Europe or Asia." Finch, who traveled in the early days of Jahangir, found both Agra
and Lahore to be much larger than London, and his testimony is supported by
others. Other cities like Surat ("A city of good quantity, with many fair merchants
and houses therein"), Ahmadabad, Allahabad, Benares, and Patna similarly excited
the admiration of visitors./4/ The new port towns of [[226]] Bombay, Calcutta,
Madras, and Karachi developed under British rule, but they had their predecessors
in Satgaon, Surat, Cambay, Lari Bunder, and other ports.
The efficient system of city government under the Mughals encouraged trade.
The pivot of urban administration was the kotwal, the city governor. In addition to
his executive and judicial powers, it was his duty to prevent and detect crime, to
perform many of the functions now assigned to the municipal boards, to regulate
prices, and in general, to be responsible for the peace and prosperity of the city. The
efficient discharge of these duties depended on the personality of the individual city
governor, but the Mughals tried to ensure high standards by making the kotwal
personally responsible for the property and the security of the citizens. Akbar had
decreed (probably following Sher Shah Suri's example of fixing the responsibility on
village chiefs for highway robberies in their territory) that the kotwal was to either
recover stolen goods or be held responsible for their loss. That this was not only a
pious hope is borne out by the testimony of several foreign travelers who state that
the kotwal was personally liable to make good the value of any stolen property
which he was unable to recover. The kotwals often found pretexts to evade the
ultimate responsibility, but in general they took elaborate measures to prevent
thefts.
Most of this flourishing commerce was in the hands of the traditional Hindu
merchant classes, whose business acumen was proverbial. Their caste guilds added
to the skills in trade and commerce that they had learned through the centuries. Not
only were their disputes settled by their panchayats, but they would frequently
impose pressure on the government by organized action. Foreign visitors record that
the governors and kotwals were very sensitive to this, and in spite of hardships
inseparable from a despotic system of administration, the business communities
had their own means of obtaining redress. Bernier, writing during Aurangzeb's time,
declared that the Hindus possessed "almost exclusively the trade and wealth of the
country."/5/ If Muslims enjoyed advantages in higher administrative posts and in the
army, Hindu merchants maintained the monopoly in trade and [[227]] finance that
they had had during the sultanate. A Dutch traveler in the early seventeenth
century was struck by the fact that few Muslims engaged in handicraft industries,
and that even when a Muslim merchant did have a large business, he employed
Hindu bookkeepers and agents./6/ Banking was almost exclusively in Hindu hands.

In the years of the decline of the Mughals, a rich Hindu banker would finance his
favorite rival claimant for the throne. The role of Jagat Seth of Murshidabad in the
history of Bengal is well known. Even the "war of succession" out of which
Aurangzeb emerged victorious was financed by a loan of five and a half lakhs of
rupees from the Jain bankers of Ahmadabad./7/ Here one sees a contrast with
British rule, when the British not only monopolized the higher civil service posts but
also controlled most of the major industries as well as the great banks and trading
agencies.
Rural Conditions
Conditions in the rural areas during the Mughal period were much the same as
at present, with one important differencethe Muslim rulers had scarcely disturbed
the old organization of the villages. The panchayats continued to settle most
disputes, with the state impinging very little on village life, except for the collection
of land revenue, and even this was very often done on a village basis rather than
through individuals, with the age-old arrangements being preserved. The incidence
of land revenue was substantially higher under the Mughals and in Hindu states like
Vijayanagar than in British India, but the administration was more flexible, both in
theory and in practice, in its assessment and collection. Apart from the remission of
land revenue when crops failed, there was reduction in government demand even
when bumper crops caused prices to fall. For example, between 1585 and 1590
very large sums had to be written off because a series of exceptionally good
harvests had resulted in a surplus, and peasants could not sell their crops. The state
also advanced loans to the cultivators, [[228]] and occasionally provided seed as
well as implements for digging wells. Loans advanced to the cultivators for seeds,
implements, bullocks, or digging of wells were called taqavian expression which
has
continued
in
modern
land
revenue
administration.
Health and Medical Facilities
A feature noticed by many foreign travelers was the good health of the local
inhabitants. Fryer, writing of the mortality among the English at Bombay and the
adjacent parts, says that "the country people lived to a good old age, supposed to
be the reward of their temperance." Bernier also speaks of "general habits of
sobriety among the people," though this did not apply to a few cases among the
upper classes or the royal family. The European travelers found "less vigour among
the people than in the colder climates, but greater enjoyment of health." From their
accounts, even the climate would appear to have been healthy. "Gout, stone
complaints in the kidneys, catarrh are nearly unknown; and persons who arrive in
the country afflicted with any of these disorders soon experience a complete cure."
The Mughal emphasis on physical fitness and encouragement of out-of-door manly
games also raised the general standard of health. The ideal was that everyone was
to be trained to be a soldier, a good rider, a keen shikari, and able to distinguish

himself in games. Ovington found that the English at Surat were "much less
vigorous and athletic in their bodies than Indians." It is possible that the drinking
habits of the Europeans made them an easy prey to ill-health in the tropics./8/
Public hospitals had been provided in Muslim India, at least since the days of
Firuz Tughluq (13511388), and though it would be ridiculous to compare them with
the arrangements introduced by the British, the system seems to have been
extended during the Mughal period. Jahangir states in his autobiography that on his
accession to the throne he ordered the establishment, at government expense, of
hospitals in large cities. That this order was actually made effective [[229]] is
shown by the records of salaries paid by the government and of grants for the
distribution of medicine./9/
The supply of local physicians was not plentiful; and judged by the demand for
European doctors, particularly surgeons, they were apparently not equal to all
demands. The general health of the inhabitants suggests, however, that the medical
services were not completely inadequate, and the local physicians were able to deal
with normal problems. As early as 1616 they knew the important characteristics of
the bubonic plague and suggested suitable preventive measures. According to an
account in Iqbal Nama, which was written in Jahangir's reign: "When the disease
was about to break out, a mouse would rush out of its hole, as if mad, and striking
itself against the door and the walls of the house, would expire. If immediately after
this signal the occupants left the house and went away to the jungle, their lives
were safe. If otherwise, the inhabitants of the village would be spirited away by the
hands of death."/10/ As modern scholars have pointed out, this observation
includes two facts about the plague whose significance has been corroborated by
modern science: the association of the death of rodents with the disease, and the
necessity of evacuating the infected quarter./11/
A crude form of vaccination against smallpox seems to have been employed by
Eastern doctors, for it was vaguely realized that the introduction of a mild form of
cowpox prevented the virulent form of smallpox. An article in the Asiatic Register of
London for 1804 contained a translation of a memorandum by Nawab Mirza Mehdi
Ali Khan describing from personal observations the method adopted by a Hindu
medical practitioner of Benares. A thread drenched in "the matter of a pustule on
the cow" was placed on the arms of a child to cause an easy irruption, thus avoiding
a virulent attack of smallpox.
In ancient times, the use of medicines had been well developed among the
Hindus, but dissection was considered to be irreligious. The Muslims, who did not
have this restriction, performed a number of operations. As Elphinstone pointed out:
"Their surgery is as remarkable [[230]] as their medicine especially when we
recollect their ignorance of anatomy. They cut for the stone, couched for the
cataract, and extracted the feotus from the womb, and in their early works
enunciate
no
less
than
one
hundred
and
twenty-seven
surgical

works."/12/ According to Manucci, Muslim surgeons could provide artificial limbs.

Social Customs
The marriage customs of Hindus and Muslims had many similarities. Early
marriages were much in vogue amongst the Hindus, with seven considered the
proper age for a girl to be married. To leave a daughter unmarried beyond twelve
years of age was to risk the displeasure of one's caste. The Muslims also betrothed
their children between the ages of six and eight, but the marriage was generally not
solemnized before they had attained the age of puberty.
Among the wealthier classes polygamy and divorce are said to have been very
common. The custom of secluding women, known as purdah, was very strictly
observed. Marriage negotiations were undertaken by the professional broker or the
friends of either party. The marriage ceremonies were more or less the same as
they are at present, and the character of the average Indian or Pakistani home and
the socio-ethical ideas which influence it have not undergone any fundamental
change. The son's duty to his parents and the wife's duty to her husband were
viewed almost as religious obligations. "Superstitions played a prominent part in the
daily life of the people. Charms were used not merely to ensnare a restive husband
but also to secure such other ends as the birth of a son or cure of a disease. The
fear of the evil eye was ever present and the young child was considered
particularly susceptible. People believed in all sorts of omens."/13/ Astrologers
were very much in demand, even at the Mughal court.
The Muslim aristocrats lived in great houses decorated with
rich [[231]] hangings and carpets. Their clothing was made of finest cotton or silk,
decorated with gold; and they carried beautiful scimitars. There was a considerable
element of ostentatious display involved in this, however, for their domestic
arrangements did not match the outward splendor of their dress and equipment.
Manucci, a keen observer, refers to Pathans who came to court "well-clad and wellarmed, caracolling on fine horses richly caparisoned and followed by several
servants," but when they reached home, divested themselves of "all this finery, and
tying a scanty cloth around their loins and wrapping a rag around their head, they
take their seat on a mat, and live on rice and lentils or badly cooked cow's flesh
of low quality, which is very abundant in the Mogul country and very cheap."/14/
The courtly manners and the elaborate etiquette of the Muslim upper classes
impressed foreign visitors. In social gatherings they spoke "in a very low voice with
much order, moderation, gravity, and sweetness. Betel and betelnut were
presented to the visitors and they were escorted with much civility at the time of
departure. Rigid forms were observed at meals. Dice was their favourite indoor
game. Polo or chauganfor which there was a special playground at Dacca
elephant-fights, hunting, excursions and picnics, were also very popular."/15/ The
grandees rode in palkis, preceded by uniformed mounted servants. Many "drove in

fine two-wheeled carts, carved with gilt and gold, covered in silk, and drawn by two
little
bulls
which
could
race
with
the
fastest
horses."
The Position of the Hindus
The Hindu upper classes undoubtedly shared in the material culture of the
Mughals, for, as already noted, they had a virtual monopoly of trade and finance.
Furthermore, they had long held many high posts in the government. The contrast
between the position of Hindus under the Mughals and of Indians in general under
the British was often made by Indian historians during the period of the nationalist
movement. Thus a Hindu historian writing in 1940 could argue that [[232]] "under
Shah Jahan Hindus occupied a higher status in the government than that occupied
by the Indians today."/16/
The vitality of the Hindus was shown in more than their ability to maintain
footholds within administrative and commercial life. Widespread religious
movements, having, as we have seen, their roots partly in the vivifying contacts of
Hinduism with Islam, had produced a religious enthusiasm among the masses that
was transforming the older Brahmanical religion.
Although Muslim historians ignore this religious revival among the Hindus,
there is enough evidence to indicate its importance during Mughal rule. The new
regional literature of Bengal and Maharashtra, which owed much to the new
movement, is a clear mirror of what was taking place in Hindu society. In Bengal,
there was not only the rise of a new literature, but numerous temples were built
during the late seventeenth century./17/ The significance of this phenomenon
becomes clear if it is remembered that practically throughout the second half of the
seventeenth century, Aurangzeb was on the throne. His alleged ceaseless campaign
of temple destruction obviously could have been neither thoroughgoing nor
universal.
The developments in intellectual life were even more marked. The rise of
Navadipa as a great center of Sanskritic learning, and the vogue of navyanyaya
(new logic) belong to this period.
In relation to Islam, Hinduism exhibited a new vigor, greater self-confidence,
and even a spirit of defiance. Hinduism is not generally thought of as a missionary
religion, and it is often assumed that during Muslim rule conversions were only from
Hinduism to Islam. This is, however, not true. Hinduism by now was very much on
the offensive and was absorbing a number of Muslims./18/ When Shah Jahan
returned from Kashmir, in the sixth year of his reign, he discovered that Hindus of
Bhadauri and Bhimbar were forcibly marrying Muslim girls and converting them to
the Hindu faith. At death these women were cremated according to the Hindu rites.
Jahangir had tried to stop this practice but with no success, and Shah Jahan also
issued orders declaring [[233]] such marriages unlawful. Four thousand such

conversions are said to have been discovered. Many cases were also found in
Gujarat and in parts of the Punjab. Partly to deal with such cases, and partly to
conform to his early notions of an orthodox Muslim king, Shah Jahan established a
special department to deal with conversions. After the tenth year of his reign, he
seems to have ceased trying to prevent the proselytizing activities of the Hindus.
There are several later cases of the conversion of Muslims, not recorded by the
court historians. A number of Muslimsincluding at least two Muslim nobles, Mirza
Salih and Mirza Haiderwere converted to Hinduism by the vairagis, the wandering
ascetics of the Chaitanya movement, which had become a powerful religious force
in Bengal. There were also cases of conversions from Islam to Sikhism. When Guru
Hargovind took up his residence at Kiratpur in the Punjab some time before 1645,
he is said to have succeeded in converting a large number of Muslims. It was
reported that not a Muslim was left between the hills near Kiratpur and the frontiers
of Tibet and Khotan. His predecessor, Guru Arjan, had proselytized so actively that
he incurred Jahangir's anger, and, as Jahangir mentions in his autobiography, the
Hindu shrines of Kangra and Mathura attracted a number of Muslim pilgrims.
The Hindu position was so strong that in some places Aurangzeb's order for the
collection of jizya was defied. On January 29, 1693, the officials in Malwa sent a
soldier to collect jizya from a zamindar called Devi Singh. When he reached the
place, Devi Singh's men fell upon him, pulled his beard and hair, and sent him back
empty-handed. The emperor thereupon ordered a reduction in the jagir of Devi
Singh. Earlier, another official had fared much worse. He himself proceeded to the
jagir to collect the tax, but was killed by the Hindu mansabdar. Orders to destroy
newly built temples met with similar opposition. A Muslim officer who was sent in
1671 to destroy temples at the ancient pilgrimage city of Ujjain was killed in a riot
that broke out as he tried to carry out his orders.
Muslim historians, in order to show the extreme orthodoxy of Aurangzeb, have
recorded many reports of temple destruction. On a closer scrutiny, however, there
seem to be good grounds for believing [[234]] that all the reports were not correct,
and that quite often no action was taken on imperial orders. We read, for example,
about the destruction of a certain temple at Somnath during the reign of Shah Jahan
and again under Aurangzeb. It is likely that in this and in many similar cases, the
temple was not destroyed on the first order. According to accounts by English
merchants, Aurangzeb's officers would leave the temples standing on payment of
large sums of money by the priests./19/ However, new temples whose construction
had not been authorized were often closed.
If the situation is closely examined, it appears that the complaint of Shaikh
Ahmad that under Muslim rule as it existed in India, Islam was in need of greater
protection than other religions does not appear to have been completely unfounded.
Aurangzeb tried, of course, to reverse this trend, and some other rulers also had
occasional spells of Islamic zeal, either from political or religious causes. But by and
large, it is perhaps fair to say that during Muslim rule, Islam suffered from handicaps

which almost outweighed the advantages it enjoyed as the religion of the ruling
dynasty. This paradox becomes understandable if the basic Muslim political theory
is kept in mind, under which the non-Muslim communities, so long as they paid
certain taxes, were left to manage their own affairs. This local and communal
autonomy severely circumscribed the sovereignty of the Muslim state, and in most
matters the caste guilds and the village panchayats exercised real sovereignty,
which they naturally utilized to safeguard their creed and way of life. It was this
power which enabled them to evade, or even defy, unwelcome orders from the
capital. A curious light on the situation is thrown by the penalties and economic
losses which a Hindu had to suffer on the adoption of Islam. Practically until the end
of Muslim rule, a Hindu who became a Muslim automatically lost all claim to
ancestral property./20/
This extraordinary position was a natural result of the application of Hindu law,
which, according to the Muslim legal system, governed Hindu society even under
Muslim government, and under which apostacy resulted in disinheritance. Shah
Jahan, who began as an [[235]] orthodox Muslim, tried to redress the balance by
issuing orders that "family pressure should not prevent a Hindu from being admitted
to Islam," and laid down that a convert should not be disinherited. Whether these
orders could overcome the subtle but solid pressure of the joint family system and
the power of the caste panchayats must remain a matter of speculation. The
question, however, of handicaps or advantages of one community against another
is not of fundamental significance. The important fact is that during normal times
conditions of tolerance prevailed. This was of special interest to European visitors,
almost all of whom commented on the concessions enjoyed by non-Muslims under
Muslim rule. The Jesuits were critical of this policy of tolerance, declaring the
destruction of Hindu temples by Muslims "a praiseworthy action," but noting their
"carelessness in allowing public performance of Hindu sacrifices and religious
practices. When Akbar granted the followers of the Raushaniya sect the freedom to
follow their religion, Monserrate sadly commented that "He cared little that in
allowing everyone to follow his own religion he was in reality violating all
religions."/21/
Even in Aurangzeb's reign a cow could not be slaughtered in important places
like Surat, and attempts made by some English merchants to obtain beef led to
riots. According to one account: "In Surat the Hindus paid a fixed sum to the
Mohammadans in return for sparing the cows. In 1608 a riot was caused at Surat by
a drunken sailor Tom Tucker who killed a calf. Similar occurrences at Karwar and
Honavar led to outbreaks, in one of which the whole factory was murdered."/22/ But
nothing brings out the Mughal administration's respect for the susceptibilities of the
Hindus as well as the experience of the Portuguese missionary traveler, Manrique.
"In a village where he stopped for the night, one of his followers, a Musalman, killed
two peacocks, birds sacred in the eyes of Hindus, and did his best to conceal the
traces of his deed by burying their feathers. The sacrilege was, however, detected,

the whole party arrested, and the offender sentenced to have a hand amputated,
though this punishment was eventually commuted to a whipping by the local
official, [[236]] who explained that the emperor had taken an oath that he and his
successors would let the Hindus live under their own laws and customs and tolerate
no breach of them."/23/
Although the Mughals interfered little with Hindu customs, there was one
ancient practice which they sought to stop. This was sati, or the custom of widows,
particularly those of the higher classes, burning themselves on their husbands'
funeral pyres. Akbar had issued general orders prohibiting sati, and in one
noteworthy case, personally intervened to save a Rajput princess from immolating
herself on the bier of her husband. Similar efforts continued to be made in the
succeeding reigns. According to the European traveler Pelsaert, governors did their
best to dissuade widows from immolating themselves, but by Jahangir's orders were
not allowed to withhold their sanction if the woman persisted./24/ Tavernier, writing
in the reign of Shah Jahan, observed that widows with children were not allowed in
any circumstances to burn, and that in other cases governors did not readily give
permission, but could be bribed to do so./25/ Aurangzeb was most forthright in his
efforts to stop sati. According to Manucci, on his return from Kashmir in December,
1663, he "issued an order that in all lands under Mughal control, never again should
the officials allow a woman to be burnt." Manucci adds that "This order endures to
this day."/26/ This order, though not mentioned in the formal histories, is recorded
in the official guidebooks of the reign./27/ Although the possibility of an evasion of
government orders through payment of bribes existed, later European travelers
record that sati was not much practiced by the end of Aurangzeb's reign. As
Ovington says in his Voyage to Surat: "Since the Mahometans became Masters of
the Indies, this execrable custom is much abated, and almost laid aside, by the
orders which nabobs receive for suppressing and extinguishing it in all their
provinces. And now it is [[237]] very rare, except it be some Rajah's wives, that the
Indian women burn at all."/28/
Any generalization about Indian history is dangerous, but the impression one
gains from looking at social conditions during the Mughal period is of a society
moving towards an integration of its manifold political regions, social systems, and
cultural inheritances. The greatness of the Mughals consisted in part at least in the
fact that the influence of their court and government permeated society, giving it a
new measure of harmony. The common people suffered from poverty, disease, and
the oppression of the powerful; court life was marked by intrigue and cruelty as well
as by refinement of taste and elegant manners. Yet the rulers and their officials had
moral standards which gave coherence to the administration and which they shared
to some extent with most of their subjects. Undeniably, there were ugly scars on the
face of Mughal society, but the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a quality of
life that lent them a peculiar charm. The clearest reflection of this is seen in the

creative

arts

of

the

period.

XVIII. The Mughals and the Arts

*Education* == *Literature* == *Architecture* == *Painting* == *Music*
[[238]] THE GREATNESS of the Mughal achievement in the political unification
of India was matched by the splendor and beauty of the work of the architects,
poets, historians, painters, and musicians who flourished in the period. The
resemblances of the Mughal empire to the Bourbon monarchy in France during the
same period have often been noted, and in India, as in France, a literate and refined
court gave a recognizable style and manner to a wide variety of arts.
Education
Before turning to the arts themselves, something must be said of the vigorous
educational activity at the capitalsboth Delhi and Agraand in such great
provincial cities as Sialkot, Lahore, Ahmadabad, and Burhanpur. Without these
centers, the cultural achievements of the Mughal period would scarcely have been
possible. During Akbar's reign the "mental sciences"logic, philosophy, and
scholastic theologyhad taken on new importance. About the same time, we notice
a very considerable improvement in the teaching of the religious sciences. Akbar's
conquest of Gujarat opened up ports like Cambay and Surat to those scholars from
northern India who wished to go to the great religious center of Hejaz for further
study. That the standard of learning in these subjects rose as a consequence is
evidenced by the career of scholars like Shaikh Abdul Haq Muhaddis (15511642).
The extensive study of hadith, in which Indian scholars were to distinguish
themselves in the eighteenth century, began because of this contact with Arabia.
Bernier, the French traveler who was in India during Aurangzeb's reign,
deplored the deficiencies of the educational system. To prove his point, he quoted
Aurangzeb's reproaches against his tutor for having [[239]] wasted time on
grammar and metaphysics, while ignoring geography, history, and politics./1/ No
attempt was made to control education, even though the state gave large grants of
rent-free lands to ulama for setting up madrasas. There were no regular
examinations, and no organization for maintaining standards. Yet Mughal education
had its special values, for Muslim education did not decay in the eighteenth century
with the decline of Muslim political authority. The reduced calls made by the state
employment on Muslim manpower left more men free to devote themselves to
academic and literary work. A number of educational institutions and foundations,
including the colleges established by Ghazi-ud-din Khan Firuz Jang, Sharaf-uddaulah, and Raushan-ud-daulah in Delhi belong to this period.

The standardization of the educational curriculum was accomplished in the

eighteenth century. The Dars-i-Nizamiya, named after Mulla Nizam-ud-din (d.1748)
provided
instruction
in
grammar,
rhetoric,
philosophy,
logic,
scholasticism, tafsir (commentary
on
the
Quran), fiqh (Islamic
jurisprudence), hadith, and mathematics. This curriculum has been criticized for
containing too many books on grammar and logic and in general for devoting too
much attention to formal subjects, and too little to useful secular subjects like
history and natural sciences or even religious subjects like tafsir and hadith. But it
provided good mental discipline, and its general adoption was responsible for the
widespread interest in intellectual and philosophical matters. In the period in which
it was systematized it was perhaps reasonably adequate for the average student.
Those wishing to specialize or pursue a particular branch of knowledge went to the
experts in that subject. The needs of the students specially interested in religious
subjects were better served at institutions like Madrasa-i-Rahimiya, the forerunner
of the modern seminary of Deoband, where tafsir and hadith were the principal
subjects of study, but for those needing a general education to qualify for the posts
of munshis, qazis, or religious preachers, Dars-i-Nizamiya provided a satisfactory
basis until modern times.
Bernier, despite his criticism of the educational system, has
left [[240]] evidence that at least two intellectuals of the Mughal court tried to
learn about Western philosophy. One of them was Fazil Khan, the prime minister,
whom Bernier taught "the principal languages of Europe, after he had translated for
him the whole philosophy of Gassendi in Latin, and whose leave [to depart] he could
not obtain, until he had copied for him a select number of best European books,
thereby to supply the loss he should suffer of his person." The other was
Danishmand Khan, who supported Bernier for a number of years. "My Nawab, Agha
Danishmand Khan, expects my arrival with much impatience," Bernier wrote. "He
can no more dispense with his philosophical studies in the afternoon than avoid
devoting the morning to his weighty duties as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
and Grand Master of the Horse. Astronomy, geography, and anatomy are his
favorite pursuits, and he reads with avidity the works of Gassendy and
Descartes."/2/ Colonel Sleeman, who knew India in the first half of the nineteenth
century better than almost any other Englishman, paid high tribute to the quality of
Muslim education in India. He wrote:
Perhaps there are few communities in the world among whom education is more
generally diffused than among Mohammadans in India. He who holds an office
worth twenty rupees a month commonly gives his sons an education equal to that
of a Prime Minister. They learn, through the medium of Arabic and Persian
languages, what young men in our colleges learn through those of Greek and Latin
that is, grammar, rhetoric, and logic. After his seven years of study, the young
Mohammadan binds his turban upon a head almost as well filled with the things
which appertain to these branches of knowledge as the young man raw from Oxford

he will talk as fluently about Socrates and Aristotle, Plato and Hippocrates, Galen,
and Avicenna (alias Sokrat, Aristotalis, Aflatun, Bukrat, Jalinus, and Sina)./3/
Nor was education confined only to men. Many Muslim women were patrons of
literature and themselves writers. The memoirs of Gulbadan Begum, Akbar's aunt,
are well known, and his foster-mother, Maham Anga, endowed a college at Delhi.
Akbar's wife [[241]] Salima Sultana, the famous Empress Mumtaz Mahal, and
Aurangzeb's sister, the Princess Jahan Ara Begum, were poetesses of note, as was
his daughter, Zeb-un-Nissa.
The spread of knowledge and intellectual development is linked up with the
growth of libraries. Printing was not introduced in northern India till after the end of
the Muslim rule, but hundreds of katibs (calligraphists) were available in every big
city, and no Muslim noble would be considered cultured, unless he possessed a
good library. The royal palaces contained immense libraries. According to Father
Manrique, the library of Agra in 1641 contained 24,000 volumes, valued at six and a
half
million
rupees.
Literature
Persian was the language of Mughal intellectual life. Since the Ghaznavid
occupation of Lahore in the beginning of the eleventh century, Persian had been the
official language of the Muslim government and the literary language of the higher
classes, but with the advent of the Mughals it entered a new era. Hitherto Persian
had reached India mainly from Afghanistan, Turkistan, and Khorasan, and had many
common features with Tajik. With the establishment of closer relations between
India and Iran after Humayun's visit to that country, and the arrival of a large
number of distinguished Iranis in the reign of Jahangir and later Mughal rulers, the
linguistic and literary currents began to flow from Iran itself. Shiraz and Isfahan now
replaced Ghazni and Bukhara in literary inspiration, with considerable refining of the
language as a result.
A large number of prominent Irani poets, including Urfi, Naziri, Talib, and Kalim,
migrated to India, and at times the level of Persian literature was higher in Mughal
India than in Iran. Unluckily the style of poetry, which was popular in both countries
at this time, was the subtle and involved type made popular by Fighani of Shiraz.
This school of poetry culminated in Bedil, the best known poet of Aurangzeb's reign.
His similes and metaphors are often obscure, but his poetry is marked by great
originality and profundity of thought. From love, the traditional preoccupation of
Persian poets, he turned to the [[242]] problems of life and human behavior, and in
certain circles (particularly in Afghanistan and Tajikistan) he ranks high as a
philosophical poet. But the two poets who outshone all others in a distinguished
group were Faizi and Ghalib. Faizi (15471595), whose genius matured before the
large-scale immigration of poets from Iran and the introduction of the "new" school

of poetry, was the brother of Abul Fazl. As Akbar's poet-laureate, his poetry mirrors
a triumphant age. Ghalib (17961869), who was attached to the court of the last
Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah, began in the style of Bedil, but soon outgrew it and
came under the spell of the immigrant Irani poetsUrfi, Naziri, Zahuri, and Hazin.
His maturer work epitomizes all that is best in the different schools of Mughal poetry
the profundity and originality of Bedil's thought, combined with the polished
diction of Urfi and Naziri. He wrote largely of love and life, but the deep, melancholy
note in his poetry reflects the sad end to which the Mughal empire was drawing in
his day.
Next to poetry, history and biography were most extensively cultivated during
the Mughal period. Historians include Abul Fazl (15511602), whose
comprehensive Akbar Nama is one of the most important historical works produced
in India; Badauni (15401615), who wrote with bias and even venom, yet who was a
consummate artist, a master of the telling phrase, and capable of evoking a living
picture with a few deft strokes; the intelligent and orderly Firishta; Khafi Khan; and
the author of Siyar-ul-Mutakhkhirin, the last of the great Mughal historical
works./4/ Among biographical works, Babur's autobiography, originally written in
Turkish, but soon translated into elegant Persian by Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, is
the best. There were, however, other biographical works, including the
comprehensive Ma'asir'ul-umara dealing with the Mughal nobility, and numerous
biographies of saints, poets, and statesmen. A very interesting historical work
written during Aurangzeb's reign is Dabistan-i-Mazahib, which has been translated
into English under the misleading title "School of Manners," but which is really a
"History of Religions." [[243]] The author, who belonged to the band of the writers
and thinkers around Dara Shukoh, gives considerable first-hand information about
non-Muslim sects./5/
The Persian literature produced in India is of interest not only for its intrinsic
worth, but also for the influence it exercised on the formation and shaping of
regional literatures, especially those cultivated by the Muslims. In addition to
vocabulary and general influence on thought, it contributed a number of literary
genres to the regional languages, provided models for the writers, and supplied
themes for many major literary works. Indeed, apart from Islam itself, the Persian
literary heritage has been the most important basis of the cultural unity of Muslim
India.
It is characteristic of the Mughals that, next to Persian, the language which
received the greatest patronage at court was Hindi. The practice started in Akbar's
day of having a Hindi kavi rai (poet-laureate) along with the Persian malik-ul-shuara.
Already Muslim poets such as Jaisi and Kabir had enriched the Hindi language.
Among Hindus, the greatest Hindi poet of Akbar's days was the famous Tulasidas,
whose career was spent far from the worldly courts. There were, however, wellknown Hindi poets amongst Akbar's courtiers. Raja Birbal (15281583) was the kavi
rai, but the works of Akbar's famous general Abdul Rahim have been better

preserved. A skillful writer in Hindi, Abdul Rahim furthered the development of the
language by extending his patronage to a number of other poets who used it. The
title of kavi rai continued to be conferred even in Aurangzeb's time, and two of his
sons, Azam and Muazzam, who ascended the throne as Bahadur Shah, were known
to be patrons of Hindi literature. It is interesting to observe that during the later
Mughal period Hindi poets like Bihari followed the same ornate style which was
popular with the contemporary Persian poets.
Until the decline of the empire Urdu literature received scarcely any
encouragement at the Mughal courts, but it was systematically nourished in the
south by the Sufi saints and the Deccani kings. [[244]] Nusrati, a poet attached to
the court of Bijapur, wrote masnavis (or narrative poems) in a language remote
from modern Urdu but within its tradition. The first collection of Urdu lyrics was
written by Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutab Shah (r.15811611), the king of Golkunda
and founder of the city of Hyderabad. Modern Urdu poetry really began, however,
with Wali (16671741), who came in contact with the spoken Urdu of the Mughal
camp during the long campaigns of Aurangzeb in the Deccan. He blended the
Deccani and Gujarati idioms with the polite and more sophisticated language of the
north, and following the traditions of standard Persian literature, he produced poetry
which set a literary fashion in Delhi. He transferred to Urdu poetry ideas and images
with which readers of Persian poetry were familiar; and thus enriched, Urdu could
replace Persian poetry. Although a proportion of Wali's verse is in Deccani idiom, a
good proportion is in polished Urdu.
Once Urdu was adopted as the medium of literary expression by the writers of
the metropolis, its development was rapid, and it soon replaced Persian as the court
language and principal literary language of Muslim India. The process of changeover to the new literary language was facilitated by certain other factors. The
invasion of Delhi by the Persian monarch Nadir Shah in 1739 and the massacres
perpetrated by his army must have led to a revulsion of feeling against everything
Persianincluding the language. An acute literary controversy of the period further
hastened the process. Hazin, a major Persian poet who came to India to escape
Nadir Shah, was subjected to great hardship in the unsettled conditions prevailing at
that time, and in a controversy with Arzu, the foremost local writer of Persian
verses, expressed his contempt for the Persian poetry written in India. Some local
writers sided with him, but the general effect of the controversy must have been to
set people thinking about the advisability of writing in Persian.
Thus the ground was prepared for literary change-over. What was needed was
the appearance of talented writers in the new language to give it a literary status.
This was provided by Mazhar (16991781), Sauda (17171780), the Sufi poet Dard
(17191785), and above all Mir (17241808)popularly known as the four pillars of
classical [[245]]Urdu poetry. Both Sauda and Mir had been trained by Arzu to write
in Urdu rather than in Persian.

The encouragement which the growth of regional languages and literatures

received in the regional Muslim kingdoms has already been outlined. Muslim rulers,
unhampered by any religious devotion to Sanskrit, freely patronized Bengali,
Kashmiri, Hindi, Deccani, and other languages of the people. This trend was most
powerful in the regional kingdoms which grew up after the weakening of the Delhi
Sultanate. Persian continued as the court language in these kingdoms; but local
languages were freely patronized, and became respectable vehicles of literary
expression.
The literary trend under Mughal rule was not exactly in the same direction. The
establishment of a well-organized central government at Delhi, with cohesive
control over the outlying regions, resulted in greater linguistic unification, and the
influence of Persian became far more dominant. Mughal rule, however, indirectly
assisted the regional literatures. Apart from the direct patronage of Hindi at the
Delhi court, the conditions in the country helped the regional literatures. The
general peace and tranquillity; greater prosperity, particularly in urban areas; the
more general diffusion of education; and the patronage of literature by the Mughal
emperors and the nobility, led to extensive literary activity, from which the regional
literatures benefited. By now they had developed so much that they could not
wither away by want of direct court patronage, and the general prosperity in the
country was enough to sustain them. The result was that a marked literary activity
in the regional languages continued along with the cultivation of Persian, and
particularly in the later part of Mughal rule there was a great outburst of literary
activity in Bengali, Deccani, Hindi, Sindhi, Pushto, Kashmiri, and other regional
languages.
Architecture
Architecture, which had already achieved a high level of development under
the sultanate, reached the pinnacle of its glory under the Mughals. Although Babur's
stay in India was brief, and he was preoccupied with the conquest of the country, he
found time to summon [[246]] from Constantinople pupils of the great Ottoman
architect Sinan, to whom he entrusted the construction of mosques and other
buildings. Time has dealt harshly with buildings constructed in his reign and that of
Humayun, and only four minor ones have survived. These buildings exhibit no trace
of local influence and are distinctly foreign.
Akbar's most ambitious project was his new capital and the numerous
buildings at Fathpur Sikri, the seat of the imperial court from 1569 to 1584. Some of
the buildings there are dominated by the Hindu style of architecture, reflecting the
emperor's regard for the Hindu tradition. But Persian influences were equally strong
in his day, as can be seen in the magnificent tomb for Humayun built early in 1569
at Delhi. Akbar's efforts were not confined to tombs, mosques, and palaces, but
included fortresses, villas, towers, sarais, schools, and reservoirs or tanks. He built
two major fortresses at Agra and Lahore. The Lahore fort, which was built on the

banks of the Ravi, at about the same time as that at Agra, was planned and
constructed on practically the same grand scale. The buildings within the Lahore
fort were greatly altered by Shah Jahan and later by the Sikhs, but much remains in
the original form. A striking feature of the fort is the carved decoration, representing
living things. This may indicate merely the predominance of Hindu craftsmen, and a
lax overseer, but more likely it can be ascribed to Akbar's own predilections.
Akbar's death in 1605 was followed by a pause in building activities of the
Mughals. His successor, Jahangir, was interested less in architecture than in painting
and gardens. Akbar's tomb at Sikandar and some other buildings were constructed
during his reign, but Jahangir's greatest contribution was in laying out the large
formal gardens which adorn many cities of Kashmir and the Punjab. The Mughal
garden is a regular arrangement of squares, usually in the form of terraces placed
on a slope (for easy distribution of water), with pavilions at the center. Artificial
pools with numerous fountains form an important part of the plan, and the flagged
causeways are shadowed by avenues of trees. Babur and Akbar had made a
beginning in this direction, but during Jahangir's reign a number of lovely gardens
came into existence, such as the Shalamar Bagh and the Nishat in Kashmir.
Jahangir's
beautiful
mausoleum
at
Shahdara
near
Lahore
was
probably [[247]] planned by the emperor himself, but it was completed in the next
reign, by his widow Nur Jahan. It suffered serious damage in the reign of Ranjit
Singh, when the marble pavilion in front of the building, which offered a central
point of interest, was removed. It cannot be fairly judged after the spoliation by the
Sikhs, and in any case it lacks many noble features of the Taj Mahal, but even now it
is a beautiful building, decorated by inlaid marbles, glazed tiles, and painted
patterns. Not far from Jahangir's resting place Nur Jahan lies buried in a very
unpretentious tomb.
Shah Jahan was the greatest builder amongst the Mughals. One secret of his
success was the liberal use of marble. He replaced many sandstone structures of his
predecessors in the forts of Agra and Lahore and other places with marble palaces.
This change in the material itself facilitated a corresponding change in architectural
treatment. Rectangular forms gave way to curved lines, and the art of the marble
cutter gave a new grace and lightness to the decoration. The style of Shah Jahan's
principal edifices is basically Persian, but is distinguished by the lavish use of white
marble, minute and tasteful decorationparticularly the open-work tracery which
ornaments the finest buildings, giving them their distinctive elegance. Among the
more famous of his buildings are the Pearl Mosque and the Taj Mahal at Agra, the
Red Fort and Jama Masjid at Delhi, palaces and gardens at Lahore, a beautiful
mosque at Thatta in Sind, a fort, palace, and mosque at Kabul, royal buildings in
Kashmir, and many edifices at Ajmer and Ahmadabad.
Aurangzeb was not a great builder, but among buildings of merit erected in his
reign is the great Badshahi Mosque of Lahore, completed in 1674. Its construction
was supervised by Fidai Khan Kuka, Master of Ordnance, whose engineering skill

and experience enabled him to design and erect a building of great size and
stability. It is one of the largest mosques in the subcontinent, if not in the world.
There is a great dignity in its broad quadrangle leading up to the facade of the
sanctuary. Its ornamentation is boldly conceived, but perhaps representing
Aurangzeb's puritanical taste, this is sparingly introduced. For this reason the
building suffers in comparison with the Great Mosque at Delhi.
[[248]] After Shah Jahan Mughal architecture declined even at the capital,
although some interesting buildings were erected from time to time. The tomb of
Safdar Jang at Delhi, built in 1783, is indicative of the decline in the architectual
standards, which was to become more manifest in the hybrid structures exhibiting
European
and
Mughal
influences
at
Lucknow.
Painting
As patrons of painting the Mughals gave the world a legacy of enduring beauty.
The particular styles of painting which developed in India had their origin in the
courts of the relatives of the Mughals at Herat and elsewhere. Babur himself,
although he had some painters in his service, made no efforts to foster the art in his
newly won empire.
To Humayun must go the credit for the founding of the Mughal school of
painting. During his wanderings in Persia and what is now Afghanistan he came
across painters who had studied under Behzad, and persuaded Khwaja Abdul
Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali, the pupil of Behzad, to join his court at Kabul in 1550.
They accompanied him to Delhi, forming the nucleus of the Mughal school.
This school was properly developed under Akbar, who organized it with his
usual zeal. It was under his direct supervision, and the more prominent of the
hundred or so painters were granted ranks in the governmental structure as
mansabdars or ahadis. The painters worked in a large building at Fathpur Sikri, and,
according to Abul Fazl, "the works of all painters are weekly laid before His Majesty
by the daroghas (supervisors) and the clerks; he then confers rewards according to
the excellence of workmanship or increases the monthly salaries."
Khwaja Abdul Samad was the head of the establishment and was known by the
title of shirin qalam (or "sweet pen"), referring to his skill in calligraphy. Later he
became master of the mint (1577) and subsequently was appointed diwan at
Multan.
There was a small number of Persian artists, and, in course of time, a
preponderance of Hindus. They had had previous training in wallpainting, [[249]] and joined with the Persian painters between 1570 and 1585 in
decorating the walls of Akbar's new capital. They were quick to learn the principles
and techniques of Persian art, and the joint efforts of Persian and Indian artists soon
led to the rise of the distinct style of Mughal painting. The foreign artists included

Khwaja Abdul Samad, Farrukh Beg, and Khusrau Quli. Among the Hindus Basawan
Lal and Daswant were preeminent. Occasionally many artists collaborated in the
painting of a single picture, the leading artists sketching the composition and other
painters putting in the parts at which they were expert.
Akbar's artists specialized in portraiture and book illustration. The emperor's
album containing likenesses not only of Akbar and the royal family but of all the
grandees of the realm has been lost, but many examples of book illustrations of the
period have survived: Razm Nama at Jaipur, Babur Nama in the British Museum, and
the Akbar Nama in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Akbar's traditions were maintained by Jahangir, who was proud both of his
artists and his own critical judgment. "As regards myself," he wrote in his Memoirs,
"my liking for painting and my practice in judging it have arrived at such a point
that when any work is brought before me, either of deceased artists or those of the
present day, without the names being told me, I say on the spur of the moment that
it is the work of such and such a man. And if there be a picture containing many
portraits, and each face be the work of a different master, I can discover which face
is the work of each of them. If any other person has put in the eye and eyebrow of a
face, I can perceive whose work the original face is, and who has painted the eye
and eyebrows."/6/ The main remnants of Jahangir's principal picture albums are in
the State Library of Berlin, while another album, which was taken away by Nadir
Shah during his sack of Delhi, is in the Imperial Library at Tehran.
A special skill developed by Indian painters in Jahangir's time was the
production of extremely faithful copies of paintings. The emperor appreciated gifts
of paintings from foreign visitors, and Sir Thomas [[250]] Roe records that once
when he presented a painting in the morning, by the evening several copies had
been prepared by the native artists. They were such accurate copies that Roe had
some difficulty in spotting the original. Jahangir's best known painters were Agha
Raza of Herat and his son Abul Hasan; the Kalmuck artist, Farrukh Beg; Muhammad
Nadir and Muhammad Murad, both of Samarqand; Ustad Mansur, the leading animal
painter; Bishan Das; Manohar; and Govardhan. These and many others were
constantly in attendance on the emperor at the capital and during his travels. They
were commissioned to paint any incident or scene that struck the emperor's fancy.
When a Mughal embassy visited Persia it was accompanied by the painter Bishan
Das, who painted for Jahangir the likenesses of the Safavid king and his courtiers.
The court painters have left a record of the public men of note that is probably
unequalled for fidelity and artistry. It is regrettable that these portraits have not yet
been utilized as a source material for social history.
Under Shah Jahan painting, like all the other arts, continued to flourish. He
reduced the number of court painters, keeping only the very best and forcing others
to seek the patronage of the princes and the nobles; but the art did not suffer by
this. Dara Shukoh was a patron of painting, and nobles like Zafar Khan, the governor

of Kashmir, who had a beautiful anthology of the works of the living poets prepared,
illustrated with their paintings, employed many artists. Other painters set up studios
in the bazaars. An interesting feature of the period, typical of the general
predominance of the indigenous elements in various spheresin the secretariat,
literature, and musicwas that only one Persian artist was employed by Shah
Jahan. The preponderance of the Hindus among court painters is indicative of the
emancipation of the local school from dependence on Iran, as well as the
importance of Hindus in all spheres of life. The excellence of Mughal painting
depended not only on the taste of individual ruler but on his prosperity, and with the
disintegration of the empire, the artists migrated from the capital to other centers
like Oudh and Hyderabad, where artistic standards quickly declined.
Music
[[251]] Mughals patronized music lavishly, and in this Akbar led the way. Abul
Fazl gives the names of nearly forty prominent musicians and instrumentalists who
flourished at Akbar's court. The principal artists came from Gwalior, Malwa, Tabriz
(in Iran), and Kashmir.
The most famous musician of the period was Tansen. According to some
Muslim chroniclers, he was brought up in the hospice of Shaikh Mohammad Ghaus
of Gwalior, but Hindu tradition describes him as a disciple of Swami Haridas. It is not
certain whether he formally adopted Islam, but his son, Bilas Khan, was certainly a
Muslim. "A singer like him," wrote Abul Fazl, "has not been in India for the last two
thousand years." He was not very popular with conservative Hindu musicians, who
held him responsible for the deterioration of Hindu music. He is said to have falsified
the ragas./7/
Although Tansen made some changes, the variety of music most extensively
cultivated at Akbar's court was the ancient dhrupad. The same tradition was
continued by Bilas Khan, the inventor of bilas todi. Music received great
encouragement under Shah Jahan. He had thirty prominent musicians and
instrumentalists at his court, who were generously rewarded for good performances.
The stately dhrupad continued its sway, though there was a marked tendency
towards beautification and ornamentation. The khiyal, or ornate, school of music
was beginning to assert itself.
Aurangzeb had himself studied music, but his deepening puritanism led him to
abandon it on religious grounds. In 1688, he disbanded the large band of musicians
attached to the royal court. A famous story is told of how the court musicians,
seeking to draw the emperor's attention to their distressing condition, filed past his
balcony carrying a gaily dressed corpse upon a bier and chanting mournful funeral
songs. When the emperor asked what it was, they told him that music had died from
neglect and that they were taking its corpse to the burial ground. He replied at

once: "Very well, make the grave deep, so that neither voice nor echo may issue
from it."/8/
[[252]] While during Aurangzeb's reign music ceased to enjoy royal
patronage, its popularity with the upper classes was firmly established, and a
number of books on the history and theory of Indo-Muslim music were written
during this period. One of the most famous was the Rag-darpan (The Mirror of
Music), written by Fakirullah (Saif Khan), who was at one time governor of Kashmir.
It purports to be a translation of Man-Kauthal, written at the court of Raja Man Singh
of Gwalior, but contains much additional information derived from other sources.
With the reaction against Aurangzeb's puritanism under his grandson Jahandar Shah
and his great-grandson Muhammad Shah Rangila, music had an unprecedented
vogue. In conformity with court tastes, the khiyal came into its own. The khiyal
developed slowly, and drew from many sources. Literally the term means, "thought,
imagination, phantasy," and technically it stands for imaginative or romantic music.
As the Arabic origin of the word signifies, this music developed after the advent of
the Muslims, but traditionally its themes echo the Hindu legends of Krishna and his
Gopis. Probably the court musicians, catering to the interest of their patrons, found
it expedient to adapt the legends and treatment which had been developed by
musicians and Bhagats of the Krishna cult. This variety of music did not gain a firm
footing at the Delhi court until the decline of the Mughal empire, and is closely
associated with the court of Muhammad Shah Rangila (r.17191748).
With the weakening of the Mughal empire and the setting up of provincial
governments, music was encouraged in provincial capitals, and just as Lucknow
became the refuge of Urdu poets, musicians in northern India flocked to the court of
the nawab-wazirs of Oudh. At Lucknow, music underwent some important changes.
With the breakup of the empire and the loss of the patronage of a formal court, the
musicians had to cater to popular tastes. As a result, the quality and the variety of
music underwent a subtle change, with two forms of popular music originating in
Lucknow. One of these was thumri, love music that makes a sensuous appeal
through repetition of words and musical phrases. The theme is human love, not a
symbolic representation of divine longing as in the older music. The other form,
tappa, found inspiration in folk music, a source that had previously[[253]] been
ignored by court musicians.9 Through such developments as these, the music of the
courts became part of the life of the ordinary people of North India.
XIX. A Century of Political Decline: 1707-1803
*The Struggle for Succession* == *External Threats* == *Disintegration of the
Empire* == *Cultural Life* == *Shah Muhammad's Successors* == *Rise of British
Power*
==
*Causes
of
the
Mughal
Decline*

[[254]] CULTURAL and artistic achievements did not come to an end with
Aurangzeb's death in 1707, and for a century and more, the Mughals dominated the
cultural life of North India. In political life, one visible sign of the enduring power of
the empire was the eagerness of every usurper of territory to gain recognition from
Delhi. Another was that until 1835, the East India Company, which had become the
effective successor to Mughal power, still minted coins in the emperor's name. In
general, however, the eighteenth century saw a progressive decline in Mughal
political
control.
The Struggle for Succession
After Aurangzeb's death, the usual war of succession followed, with his eldest
surviving son, Muazzam, the subedar of Kabul, who was the first to reach Agra,
being successful. He ascended the throne as Bahadur Shah. A mild and forbearing
man, he tackled the problems confronting him with tolerable competence.
Rebellious chieftains in Rajputana troubled him but were overcome without much
difficulty. His longest campaign was against Banda, a leader of the Sikhs. Govind
Singh, the last Sikh guru, after years of bitter fighting against Aurangzeb, had
entered into friendly relations with Bahadur Shah, accepting the position of
mansabdar in the Mughal army. His assassination in 1708 ended this period of
amity. Govind Singh's successor as temporal leader of the Sikhs was Banda, who
returned to the Punjab declaring he was Guru Govind Singh miraculously brought
back to life. In response to his call for disciples, many zealous Sikhs assembled and
marched in arms to Sonepat, some twenty-five miles north of Delhi. There the
faujdar, who was utterly unprepared, was routed. This success emboldened Banda.
Accompanied by forty thousand [[255]] men he set out to establish his power in
the north. The town of Sadhaura, near Ambala, was captured, and the Muslim
inhabitants were cruelly treated. He then moved against Sirhind, whose governor,
Wazir Khan, was held responsible for the execution of Govind Singh's children.
Banda's army pillaged the city for four days, and the whole Muslim population was
slaughtered.
The situation became so serious that Bahadur Shah himself moved against
Banda, and on December 4, 1710, he forced the evacuation of Sadhaura. The Sikhs
then moved to the strong fort of Lohgarh, where Banda had issued coins in his own
name. Bahadur Shah captured Lohgarh, but Banda escaped. Sirhind was reoccupied
in January, 1711, and Banda took shelter in the hills.
After a halt at Sirhind, Bahadur Shah moved to Lahore. His stay here was
marked by the one major controversy of his reign. Soon after his accession to the
throne, he had given orders that the title wasi should be used after the name of
Hazrat Ali in the Friday prayers. This usage, indicating that Ali was the testamentary
successor to the Prophet, and considered by the Sunnis to be a Shia innovation, was
bitterly resented. During his stay in Lahore Bahadur Shah tried to persuade the local
ulama to accept the change, but without success. He then ordered his chief of

artillery to have the new form of prayer recited from the pulpit of the Badshahi
Masjid on April 22, 1711. When he found that a vast crowd, ready for violent
resistance, had gathered in the streets of Lahore, he gave way and in the end the
old form in use in the days of Aurangzeb was recited. Seven leading ulama of
Lahore were sent, however, to the state prison in the Gwalior fort. The episode
indicates the limitations imposed on the emperor by the ulama, but the punishment
given the leaders shows that resistance, even if successful, could be dangerous.
Bahadur Shah died on February 27, 1712. His favorite son, Azim-ush-Shan,
expected to succeed him, but a powerful general, Zulfiqar Khan, the son of
Aurangzeb's wazir, Azad Khan, formed an alliance with Azim's three brothers
against him. They agreed to partition the empire among them, with Zulfiqar Khan as
their common minister. In the battle that followed Azim was drowned in the Ravi,
and Zulfiqar threw aside the two youngest princes in favor of the worthless
Jahandar [[256]] Shah. Zulfiqar became the all-powerful minister, and the emperor,
infatuated with his concubine Lal Kunwar and relieved by Zulfiqar from all
responsibilities of the state, spent his time in frivolous amusements.
Disaster was not long in coming. Muhammad Farrukhsiyar, the second son of
Azim-ush-Shan, and deputy governor of Bengal, had not reconciled himself to
Jahandar Shah's enthronement; and when he heard of his father's death, he
proclaimed himself emperor at Patna in April, 1712. He interested the two powerful
Sayyid brothers, Husain Ali and Hasan Ali, in his fortunes; and having collected an
army, the allies moved towards the capital. They defeated Jahandar Shah at
Samugarh on January 6, 1713. Jahandar Shah fled from the battlefield, hidden in the
howda of Lal Kunwar. Entering Delhi surreptitiously at night, he sought help from
Zulfiqar and Asad Khan. Realizing that Jahandar was of no more use, Zulfiqar and
Asad Khan tried to gain favor with the new power by imprisoning him. Jahandar was
murdered in prison, but Zulfiqar also was put to death two days later.
Farrukhsiyar's reign (17131719) saw a general deterioration in the power of
the central government, but in one area its authority was strongly asserted.
Bahadur Shah had not succeeded in overcoming the menace of the resurgent power
of the Sikhs. Early in his reign, Farrukhsiyar appointed Abdus Samad Khan as
governor of Lahore with instructions to destroy Banda, who had taken refuge in the
hills and used them as a base for raids on the countryside. Abdus Samad finally
penned him up in the fort of Gurdaspur. Banda's followers offered fanatical
resistance, but all their attempts to escape failed, and the garrison was forced to
surrender unconditionally on December 17, 1715, after an eight-month siege. Banda
was taken to Delhi and put to death. Stern vengeance was wreaked on his followers,
but the peace of the area was ensured for a generation or more.
Farrukhsiyar owed his throne to the Sayyid brothers, and he rewarded them
with the highest offices in the realm. He soon found their power galling, but a
number of ineffectual attempts to get rid of them only worsened his position. Husain

Ali left Delhi in 1715, as viceroy of the Deccan, but before leaving he warned the
emperor that [[257]] if ever his brother was harassed at Delhi he would promptly
return to the capital. Matters came to a head in 1718 when Hasan Ali, believing he
was in danger, asked his brother to come to Delhi. A peculiarly sinister feature of
Husain Ali's return was that he was accompanied by eleven thousand Maratha
troops as well as by his own army. Maratha support had been bought for a heavy
priceamong other concessions, they were promised one-fourth of the revenue
from the Deccan. The emperor was imprisoned and blinded in February, 1719; two
months later he was strangled to death. Two of the puppets placed on the throne by
the king-making Sayyids died within a year, but a third, Raushan Akhtar, a grandson
of Bahadur Shah, who became emperor in 1719 as Muhammad Shah, reigned for
thirty years. In its duration, his reign recalls that of his great predecessors, but
possibly even they could not have prevented the decline that was now obvious in
the imperial power.
The power of the Sayyids was broken early in the reign of the new emperor
when two of the opposing factions at the court, the Irani nobles and the Turani,
formed an alliance against them. Both brothers were killed in 1720, one by an
assassin and the other in battle. For a short time the wizarat was held by
Muhammad Amin Khan, one of the Turani nobles who had helped overthrow the
Sayyids, but after his death in 1721, an important new figure appeared on the Delhi
scene.
This was Chin Qilich Khan, another of the Turani nobles who had been an
enemy of the Sayyids. He is best known in history by his title, Nizam-ul-Mulk. An
able administrator and soldier who had been governor of the Deccan provinces,
Nizam-ul-Mulk was made wazir of the empire in 1722. His experience in the office
illustrates the increasing weakness of the administration and the reason it could not
meet the challenges of the time. His advice to the gay young sovereign to reform
the court was not followed, and his attempts to bring about changes in the
administration were met by obstruction and indifference. He was especially anxious
to stop the farming of imperial revenues, a practice that was diverting much of the
resources that should have come into the central treasury; to reimpose the jizya;
and to eradicate bribery. This call to return to the austerity of the [[258]] court of
Aurangzeb had little chance of being heeded in Delhi in the eighteenth century, and
Nizam-ul-Mulk left Delhi late in 1723 for Hyderabad. There he established the power
which he was able to transmit to his descendants as the largest of the Indian states.
After Nizam-ul-Mulk's departure from Delhi the Marathas became an
increasingly grave menace to the empire. By 1732 they had partially occupied
Gujarat, had partitioned Bundelkhand, and had temporarily overrun Mewar in
Rajputana. Muhammad Shah moved against them in 1733, but the imperial army
never went beyond Faridabad, sixteen miles south of Delhi. The Marathas continued
to advance; and although they suffered defeats, in 1737 under one of their greatest
leaders, Baji Rao I (r. 17201740), they reached Delhi itself. They looted the suburbs

but when they heard that the whole Mughal army was approaching the capital, they
retired southwards./1/
It was the Maratha danger that led to the recall of Nizam-ul-Mulk to Delhi in
1737. He was received by the wazir outside the capital with great honor, and during
the winter months was engaged in a series of negotiations and skirmishes with Baji
Rao and his troops. In return for concessions in Central India, the Marathas withdrew
from the north, but Nizam-ul-Mulk had scarcely returned to Delhi when a new
danger, invasion from the northwest by Nadir Shah, was threatening the empire.
External Threats
In Persia, the ruling Safavid king had been driven out by an Afghan soldier,
whose father had freed Qandaharlong an object of dispute between the Mughals
and the Safavidsfrom the Persians. He conquered Herat and Khurasan, and in
1722 occupied Isfahan, the capital. It seemed likely that Persia would disappear as a
state, since the Russians were also interested in expanding into the area, but a
remarkable soldier named Nadir Quli, acting in the name of the Safavid dynasty,
drove out both the Afghans and the Russians. In 1736 he ascended the throne as
Nadir Shah, and wishing to regain Qandahar from the Afghans, appealed to the
Mughal emperor, Muhammad [[259]] Shah, for assistance. He was particularly
anxious to have the emperor close the border of the Mughal province of Kabul so
that fugitives from Qandahar could not escape him.
Delhi sent favorable replies, but nothing tangible was done to prevent the
Afghans crossing into Kabul, and Nadir Shah sent another envoy to Muhammad
Shah for an explanation. When the envoy could not get an audience with
Muhammad Shah, Nadir Shah began to make preparations to enter Mughal territory.
After defeating the Afghans at Qandahar, he moved toward Ghazni and Kabul, which
he captured in June, 1738. From there he continued to Peshawar and Lahore, which
he occupied in 1739 after minor local resistance. From Lahore he addressed a letter
to Muhammad Shah complaining of gross discourtesy, adding that he was coming to
Delhi to punish the royal counsellors who were responsible for the insult.
Muhammad Shah with a large force marched to stop the invader at Karnal, but the
Indian army (to which Rajput chiefs had refused to send any contingents) was
outmaneuvered. In a skirmish between the Irani scouts and the fresh troops which
were being brought to join the main Indian army, Burhan-ul-Mulk, the subedar of
Oudh, was captured, and Khan-i-Dauran, the commander-in-chief, was fatally
wounded. Although the main body of the Indian army had not been involved in
action, the battle of Karnal was over, with disastrous results for the Mughal empire.
The catastrophe begun on the battlefield was completed by treachery and poor
statesmanship. Burhan-ul-Mulk, who had been taken to the Persian camp,
persuaded Nadir to leave Muhammad Shah on the throne of Delhi and to retire from
India on payment of an indemnity of twenty million rupees. Burhan-ul-Mulk hoped,

however, to be made commander-in-chief in place of Khan-i-Dauran, but

Muhammad Shah conferred the office on Nizam-ul-Mulk. Burhan-ul-Mulk was so
furious that he now advised Nadir Shah not to be contented with twenty millions,
but to move on Delhi. The Persian king decided to leave the question of indemnity
open until he reached the capital.
Further suffering was brought about by the rashness of the citizens of Delhi.
Nadir Shah's troops were quartered in different parts of the [[260]] city, when a
rumor spread that the Persian king had been assassinated. This led to a massacre of
nearly nine hundred Persian soldiers, who were moving about unarmed. Nadir took
vengeance by ordering a general massacre of the citizens of Delhi. This continued
for a whole day, resulting in the slaughter of nearly thirty thousand persons. The
massacre stopped by evening, but the looting continued. In addition to the seizure
of Shah Jahan's wonderful Peacock Throne and a large stock of jewelry from the
imperial treasury, levies were imposed on nobles, and the wealthy citizens were
plundered.
On May 16 Nadir Shah retired from Delhi, laden with a greater booty than any
previous conqueror had ever taken. He left Muhammad Shah on the throne of Delhi,
but annexed all territory west of the Indus, including the province of Kabul. He later
stipulated that a sum of twenty lakhs out of the revenue of four districts of Gujarat,
Sialkot, Pasrur, and Aurangabad (in the Punjab) which had hitherto been reserved
for meeting the administrative cost of the province of Kabul should be paid into the
Persian treasury.
Nadir's defeat of the Indian army and massacre and plunder of the capital
destroyed the prestige of the Mughal government and ruined it financially. This
emboldened the Sikhs and the Marathas, and even the provincial governors became
defiant. Addressing Muhammad Shah in a letter from Kabul, Nadir Shah had stated
that he had occupied his northwestern territory "purely out of zeal for Islam," so
that in case "the wretches of the Deccan" again moved towards Hindustan, he
might "send an army of victorious Qizilbashes to drive them to the abyss of
Hell."/2/ He had, in fact, given a death wound to the Mughal empire.
Nadir's invasion of India was a stunning blow, but after a period of helpless
stupor, Muhammad Shah tried to reorganize his government. According to
contemporary accounts, "the emperor and the nobles turned to the management of
state affairs and gave up all sorts of uncanonical practices," but this phase was
short-lived. Nadir Shah, by his attempts to influence Muhammad Shah against
Nizam-ul-Mulk and to buttress the influence of the Irani faction, had
further [[261]] aggravated the internal conflicts at the court which had contributed
to Mughal weakness. Muhammad Shah's reign did not, however, close without at
least one victory. In March, 1748, the Mughal army defeated Ahmad Shah Abdali,
who had succeeded to the eastern territories of Nadir Shah's empire, near Sirhind.
This was the last victory the Mughals were to win against a foreign invader.

Disintegration of the Empire

Muhammad Shah died in 1748, a few weeks after this last victory. His long
reign had seen a growing paralysis in imperial power, of which the most visible
symptom was the establishment of hereditary viceroyalties in the major provinces
of the empire. The pattern was one that had been seen before in India history: as
the central power weakened, either as a cause or a result the outlying provinces
assumed independent status. These states were the administrative units of the
Mughal empire, but they were also the traditional "nuclear" regions of Indian
history, defined by geography, language, and past traditions.
The provincial governors long continued to demonstrate the symbolic function
of the Mughal emperor by their desire to gain his recognition for their rule, but from
the time of Muhammad Shah they sought such recognition after, not before, their
seizure of power. In the Punjab, largely because of the intervention of external
forces from the northwest, independent kingdoms were not formed in the middle of
the eighteenth century, but elsewhere the process of the disintegration of central
authority was complete. In the Deccan, Oudh, Bengal, and to some extent
Rohilkhand, large principalities over which the central government of Delhi had only
nominal authority came into existence. By depriving the empire of financial
resources, even though they continued to send an annual tribute to Delhi, and by
reducing the possibility of united action, these kingdoms lessened the chances of
the empire's survival when attacks came from without.
The most important of the new principalities was Hyderabad, made up of six
subas of the Deccan, which at this time had a revenue of sixteen crores of rupees,
compared with seventeen crores from the other twelve provinces of the Mughal
empire. As already noted, the [[262]] founder of the state was Nizam-ul-Mulk, who
had been made viceroy of the Deccan by Farrukhsiyar in 1714, and wazir of the
empire by Muhammad Shah in 1722. On his return to the Deccan in 1724, he began
to build up a strong state, although still offering assistance to the emperor. At his
death in 1748, he passed on a well-administered state that continued to be a center
of Muslim culture in the Deccan for two centuries.
In Bengal, power passed into the hands of two remarkable men, Murshid Quli
Khan and Alivardi Khan. Under these able administrators Bengal was among the
most peaceful and prosperous areas of India, and paid an annual tribute of ten
million rupees to the Delhi court.
In the Punjab, the Sikhs used Nadir Shah's invasion in 1739 as an opportunity
to attack Mughal authority; but the able governor, Zakariya Khan, crushed them.
After his death in 1745 the province passed out of effective Mughal control.
Sind does not figure greatly in Mughal history, and authority had always
tended to reside in the hands of local chiefs. The most important of these belonged

to the Kalhara family, descendants of the disciples of a sixteenth-century spiritual

leader. Through the course of the next hundred years they built up great land
holdings, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century were recognized as
governors of a large area of Upper Sind. Muhammad Shah completed the process in
1736 by conferring on the chief of the Kalharas a title that acknowledged his control
of
the
whole
province
of
Sind.
Cultural Life
Against this picture of a disintegrating empire must be set the undoubted fact
that Muhammad Shah's reign was a time of very considerable cultural activity. Urdu,
which had gained admission in the literary and cultural circles of the metropolis only
a few years before the beginning of Muhammad Shah's reign, was a fully developed
literary language at its end. A new school of music grew up around the Mughal
court, and the names of Sadarang and his brother occupy a high place in the
evolution of khiyal, which was to supersede all [[263]] other varieties of Hindustani
music. Indian dancing, freed from the atmosphere of the temple, became an art
ministering to human pleasure. A new style of painting, closely related to the rise of
Urdu literature, brought fresh vigor to the tradition of pictorial art./3/ Indian
astronomy also reached a new level of excellence in this period, as indicated by the
magnificent astronomical instruments at Delhi and Ujjain. The creator of these
works, Maharaja Jai Singh of Jaipur, was Muhammad Shah's governor in Malwa from
1728 to 1734.
Most significant of all the cultural activities of Muhammad Shah's reign was the
beginning of the work of Shah Waliullah (17031762), the greatest Islamic scholar
India ever produced. That the political disintegration of Islamic power in the
eighteenth century was not accompanied by a religious collapse was largely due to
his work; and more than anyone else, he is responsible for the religious
regeneration of Indian Islam.
Shah Waliullah received his training from his father, who as a theologian, Sufi,
and philosopher combined in his own person these three main strands of Indian
Islam. He was in his teens when he started teaching in his father's madrasah. He
continued this for twelve years, after which he left for Arabia for higher studies and
for performing the Hajj. He was in Arabia for nearly fourteen months, pursuing his
studies under famous teachers at Mecca and Medina.
During his stay at Mecca, Shah Waliullah saw a vision in which the Holy Prophet
informed him that he would be instrumental in the organization of a section of the
Muslim community. Friends urged him to stay in Hijaz, and not to return to the
unsettled conditions of India, but he was convinced that his mission was to work
there. He returned to Delhi in 1732, and began what was to be his life's work. He
had been a teacher before he went to Arabia, and while he resumed his occupation,
he no longer followed the traditional methods of instruction. He trained pupils in

different branches of Islamic knowledge, then entrusted them with the teaching of
the students, while he devoted himself to writing. Before his death in 1762, he had
completed practically a library of standard works in all branches of [[264]] "Islamic
sciences" of the type particularly suited to the Indian conditions.
Shah Waliullah's most important single work was his translation of the Quran
into simple Persian, the literary language of Muslim India. Translations had been
attempted earlier, but they either were incidental to a voluminous commentary, or
did not gain wide acceptance. After some opposition Shah Waliullah's translation
became popular, either because of the translator's eminence in religious circles, or
because his translation was connected with a broad-based movement aimed at
bringing the knowledge of the Quran within the reach of the average, literate Indian
Muslim. Shah Waliullah's action, which involved not only scholarship, but also
imagination and great moral courage, smoothed the way for others. Within sixty
years his two sons prepared their Urdu translationsone completely literal and
following the Arabic sentence-structure, and the other idiomatic and in accordance
with Urdu usage. Not only did his sons follow his example, but in course of time, so
did scores of others; and it is because of his initiative that, outside the Arabicspeaking countries, Muslims in India and Pakistan have taken the lead in the study
and propagation of the Quran.
Not less important was his balanced understanding and fair-minded approach
to different religious questions. In his day Indian Islam was rent by controversies
and conflicts between the Shia and the Sunni, the Sufi and the Mullah, the Hanafi
and the Wahhabi, the Mujaddidi and the Wahdat-al-Wajudi, and the Mu'tazali and
the Asha'ari. To Shah Waliullah, adl (justice, equity) was the prime virtue and the
basis of civilized existence, and he studied the writings of all schools of thought,
trying to understand the attitudes of each of them. He then wrote authoritative
volumes expounding what was just and acceptable to different points of view. In this
way, by working out a system of thought on which all but the extremists could
agree, he helped to provide a spiritual basis for national cohesion and harmony./4/
Shah
Waliullah's
success
was
also
due
to
his
able
and
devoted [[265]] successors. One of his grandsons was the great reformer Shah
Ismail Shahid. Three of his sons were leading scholars and writers, including Shah
Abdul Aziz, who dominated Delhi religious life for nearly fifty years. The brothers
taught and trained a large body of men who carried the message of Shah Waliullah
to all parts of India. Their students and successors organized jihad against
persecution of Islam by the Sikhs in the northwest, brought about a revival of Islam
in Bengal, and were held in equal veneration by Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, the leader
of the Aligarh movement, and Maulana Muhammad Qasim, the founder of the
Deoband seminary.
While Islam is not organized along national lines, owing to historic, racial,
linguistic, and geographic factors, a variety of schools and viewpoints have gained

prominence in different Muslim countries. In Iran, for example, the Shia form of
Islam is the national religion, while in the desert of Najd, Wahhabi puritanism is
dominant. Similarly, different countries have adopted, according to their peculiar
developments, different schools of lawthe Shafii, the Hanbali, the Maliki, and the
Hanafi. If the beliefs, the legal traditions, and the religious tendencies of modern
Muslim India and Pakistan were to be examined from this point of view, it would be
seen that the foundation of the religious structure which is dominant there was laid
by
Shah
Waliullah.
Shah Muhammad's Successors
Looking at Shah Muhammad's reign, the author of the late eighteenth-century
history, Siyar-ul-Mutakhkhirin, declared: "In his reign the people passed their lives in
ease, and the empire outwardly retained its dignity and prestige. The foundations of
the Delhi monarchy were really rotten, but Muhammad Shah by his cleverness kept
them standing. He may be called the last of the rulers of Babur's line, as after him
the kingship had nothing but the name left to it."/5/ The records of the last fifty
years of the century suggest no reason for challenging this melancholy verdict. After
Muhammad Shah's death, [[266]] Prince Ahmad Shah (r.17481754), the hero of
the battle of Sirhind, ascended the throne, and although he was a well-meaning and
active young man, he could effect no improvement in government affairs. His
appointment of Safdar Jang as wazir was especially unfortunate. An opportunist
whose measures helped to destroy the Mughal empire, Safdar Jang seems to have
been motivated by two aims. One was to humiliate any relatives of his predecessors
in the wizarat; the other was to drive out all Afghans from positions of authority.
Safdar's policy brought him in conflict with the principal Turani families, but his
initial difficulties came from the royal favorites headed by the chief eunuch, Javed
Khan, and the emperor's mother. Safdar Jang had Javed Khan assassinated in
August, 1752, but then the emperor started favoring Ghazi-ud-din, a grandson of
Nizam-ul-Mulk, and a clever but completely unscrupulous youth of eighteen. Safdar
Jang lost the support of the emperor, and in May, 1753, though still the wazir of the
realm, rebelled against his master. Ghazi-ud-din organized the opposition to Safdar
Jang, and with his usual lack of scruples, whipped up Shia-Sunni and Afghan-Irani
differences to gain supporters. Safdar was defeated and forgiven; but realizing that
the best field for the satisfaction of his ambitions was away from the capital,
withdrew to Oudh. Ghazi-ud-din was now all-powerful at the capital. This was
dramatically attested when the emperor, who had soon become estranged from
him, sought to have him removed from the court. With the help of the Maratha
chiefs, Ghazi-ud-din made himself wazir and in June, 1754, deposed the emperor.
The man placed on the throne in 1754 as Alamgir II was a son of Jahandar
Shah. A man of good intentions, his adoption of Aurangzeb's title was an indication
of his desire to follow in his great predecessor's footsteps, but the situation in the
empire was beyond his control. The Marathas, who had grown more powerful

because of their collaboration with Ghazi-ud-din, now dominated the whole of

northern India. In 1758 they occupied Lahore and drove out Taimur Shah, the son
and viceroy of the Afghan ruler, Ahmad Shah Abdali. This was the high-water mark
of the Maratha expansion. "Their frontier extended on the north to the Indus and the
Himalaya, and in [[267]] the south nearly to the extremity of the peninsula; all the
territory within those limits which was not their own, paid tribute." The whole of this
great power was wielded by one hand, that of the Peshwa, who talked of placing
Bishvas Rao on the Mughal throne./6/
Maratha dreams, however, received a shattering blow. The expulsion of Taimur
Shah provoked the wrath of Ahmad Shah Abdali, who was joined in the war against
the Marathas by the principal Muslim nobles of North India. The main battle was
fought at Panipat on June 14, 1761. This was the most desperate of the three
historic battles of Panipat (the first fought by Babur in 1526, and the second by
Humayun in 1556), and its results were of great significance for Indian history. The
Marathas were completely defeated, and while their chiefs retained power in Central
India, the centralizing power of the Peshwa was destroyed. Panipat meant that
whoever succeeded the Mughals on the throne of Delhi, it would not be the
Marathas. Ahmad Shah Abdali's own design of building up an Afghan empire in India
was frustrated by the impetuosity of his soldiers, who hated the heat of the plains
and clamored for an immediate return to Kabul with their plunder. Since they had
been away from their homes for a long time and were on the verge of mutiny,
Ahmad Shah had to abandon his dreams and return to his own country.
Ghazi-ud-din had put Alamgir II to death in 1759, replacing him with a puppet,
but after the battle of Panipat, Ahmad Shah nominated a son of Alamgir II as
emperor, with the title of Shah Alam (17611803). In the struggles that followed,
Ghazi-ud-din lost power and fled from the capital. The administration of the
shrunken empireby now reduced to little more than the area around Delhiwas in
the hands of Najib-ud-daula. It was he who had organized the Muslim confederacy
that defeated the Marathas at Panipat, and he remained loyal throughout his life to
the Mughal emperor. This was all the more remarkable since Shah Alam was absent
from Delhi almost continuously until 1772. Najib's main task was to maintain order
in the Mughal domain around Delhi. After the battle of Panipat the Marathas were
quiescent for some time, but the Jats and the [[268]] Sikhs began to threaten the
integrity of the remaining imperial territories. Najib defeated the Jats and killed their
leader, Suraj Mal, but he was less successful with the Sikhs. They were kept from
creating too much trouble, however, by an internal split between two groups.
Rise of British Power
Meanwhile, far-reaching developments had taken place outside the capital.
Alivardi Khan, the able governor of Bengal, died on April 10, 1756, and was
succeeded by his grandson, Mirza Muhammad, better known as Siraj-ud-daula. The
disruptive forces which had been kept under check by Alivardi got out of hand and

overwhelmed the government. Alivardi's commander-in-chief, Mir Jafar, to whom his

half-sister was married, started plotting against Siraj-ud-daula, and for a short time
was removed from the command. Another reason for weakness was the existence of
the East India Company, which had established at Calcutta not only a commercial,
but a political center. A third was the attitude of the Hindu zamindars, bankers, and
officials who, always influential in Bengal, had grown very powerful since the days
of Murshid Quli Khan.
Alivardi Khan made no distinction between the Hindus and the Muslims. He had
gained his position with the support of the Hindu notables, and they shared the
government with him. This had not reconciled them to a Muslim ruler; or perhaps
they recognized that a new power might soon overthrow his rule, and they wanted
to be on the winning side. In any case, as an official of the East India Company had
written two years before Alivardi's death: "[Hindu] rajas and inhabitants were
disaffected to the Moor government and secretly wished for a change and
opportunity of throwing off their tyrannical yoke."/7/ These three forces sealed the
fate of Siraj-ud-daula. The familiar story of British activities need not be told here,
but the role of the treacherous Mir Jafar, generally held responsible for the fate of
Siraj, was comparatively a minor one. More significant was the alliance of the Hindu
merchants with the East India Company. This [[269]] new alignment, as much as
any single factor, must be taken into account in explaining the end of Muslim rule in
Bengal.
The battle fought at Plassey, a few miles outside Murshidabad, has been called
by a modern British writer "the most miserable skirmish ever to be called a decisive
battle."/8/An army of which the commander-in-chief had been won over and took no
part in the battle, can hardly offer spirited contests. Siraj-ud-daula's Hindu
paymaster, Mir Madan, however, was loyal to the nawab, and fell in action. Clive's
spirited leadership and British organization, coupled with the help they received
from the powerful local elements, resulted in the rout and flight of Siraj-ud-daula.
On June 28, 1757, Clive installed Mir Jafar on the masnad of Murshidabad and four
days later Siraj-ud-daula was executed.
The legal position in Bengal had not changed with the British victory at
Plassey, for the nawab was still in charge of the administration. But the officials of
the East India Company expected him to do their bidding, and a clash was
inevitable if a nawab sought to impose policies counter to British interests. The
clash came when Nawab Mir Qasim, who had succeeded the incompetent Mir Jafar,
tried to collect internal revenue from the English traders. According to an
agreement, only the East India Company itself was to be free from the tax; in
practice, every company servant traded on his own account and refused to pay any
duty. In desperation, since his revenues were disappearing, Mir Qasim abolished all
internal duties, thus removing the English advantage over the Indian traders. The
British refused to accept this, and Mir Qasim left Bengal to organize an attack on the
British.

Support of a half-hearted kind came from Emperor Shah Alam and Shuja-uddaula, the wazir of Oudh, who had followed the general pattern of the time by
establishing himself as a semi-independent ruler. The Mughal and the British forces
met at Buxar in October, 1764, and while the British suffered fairly heavy losses,
they won a clear victory. The results of the battle of Buxar were more far-reaching
than those of Plassey. Even before the battle the British had attempted to facilitate
the military task by diplomatic means, and the newly [[270]] crowned Shah Alam
was only a fugitive from Delhi, but the East India Company had gained a victory
against what appeared to be the combined army of the emperor and the rulers of
Bengal and Oudh. It gave greater prestige to British arms than had the earlier
victory over a provincial government. It also altered Shuja-ud-daula's course of
action. Henceforth dependence on the British became a cardinal point of his policy,
and Oudh was, for all practical purposes, drawn into the orbit of the British
influence. Most important of all, Emperor Shah Alam was forced to give the East
India Company the diwani, or civil government, of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa in
return for the districts of Allahabad and Kora and an annual payment of two and a
half million rupees. This provided the legal basis for British rule in Bengal.
Emperor Shah Alam remained in Allahabad for some years after the battle of
Buxar, but he returned to Delhi in 1772, after the death of his wazir, Najib-ud-daula,
who had been the actual ruler of the city for a decade. Motivated either by his own
greed for money, or under the influence of the Marathas, who were supporting him
for their own ends, Shah Alam attacked Zabita Khan, the powerful son of Najib-uddaula, who was the leader of the Rohilla Afghans who had established themselves to
the east of Delhi. In one punitive expedition against the family stronghold of
Ghausgarh, Zabita Khan's relatives were treated with great cruelty. According to
tradition, his son, Ghulam Qadir, was castrated and made to serve as page in the
palace at Delhi, but a few years later, Ghulam Qadir was able to exact a terrible
revenge.
Affairs in the capital were following a tortuous course, with the nobles
intriguing against each other for the spoils of the decaying empire. One able
administrator, Najaf Khan, succeeded for a time in organizing a small effective army
to maintain order, but he eventually succumbed to the debilitating atmosphere.
Without any able or loyal followers, the emperor took a momentous step. In
1785 he invited the great Maratha chieftain Mahadaji Sindhia of Gwalior to take
charge of the Delhi administration. Appointed commander-in-chief and supreme
regent (wakil-i-mutliq) of the empire, Sindhia tried to get the cooperation of Ghulam
Qadir in [[271]]
*INDIA IN 1780*

[[272]] dealing with the Sikhs, but Ghulam Qadir, waiting for a chance to repay the
humiliation he and his family had suffered at the hands of Shah Alam, had no desire
to strengthen the emperor's rule.
His opportunity came in 1787, when Sindhia was defeated by the Rajputs.
Ghulam Qadir entered Delhi in September, 1787, and forced the emperor to appoint
him mir bakhshi or paymaster, and regent. He was driven out of Delhi by the
emperor's supporters, but entered the city again the following year, deposed Shah
Alam, and blinded him.
A drunken ruffian, Ghulam Qadir behaved with gross brutality to the emperor
and his family. Three servants and two water-carriers who tried to help the bleeding
emperor were killed. According to one account, Ghulam would pull the beard of the
old monarch, and say: "Serves you right. This is the return for your action at
Ghausgarh." Servants were tortured and made to reveal the hidden treasures, and
the entire palace was ransacked to find the buried wealth.
After ten horrible weeks during which the honor of the royal family and
prestige of the Mughal empire reached its lowest ebb, Ghulam Qadir left with the
booty for his stronghold. Sindhia's officers hunted him down and captured him in
December, 1788. He was put to death with tortures which equalled his own fiendish
cruelties.
When Delhi was retaken by the Marathas, the blind Shah Alam was enthroned
again. While his action reconciled the people to Sindhia's rule, it meant that Delhi
was being drawn into the great struggle then taking place between the Marathas
and the British.
An account of that struggle and of British expansion is outside the scope of this
chapter, for the British did not defeat Mughal India, but its successor states, both
Muslim and Hindu. Conquest was cautiously achieved. Periods of rapid expansion
alternated with long periods of consolidation. Military action was effectively aided
by diplomatic activity. Local differences and jealousies were most skilfully exploited.
The Company's forces were normally able to depend on the direct or indirect
cooperation of the commander, or at least some of the major leaders, of the troops
confronting them. At Plassey it was Mir Jafar; at Buxar, the differences between
Shuja-ud-daula and Mir Qasim were fully exploited. In fact, British success owed
as [[273]] much to diplomatic skill and the demoralized state of Indian society as to
valor and military organization.
The great period of expansion initiated during the governor-generalship (1798
1805) of Lord Wellesley saw Delhi and the Mughal emperor pass under British sway.
But even as late as 1798 this absorption did not seem inevitable, for an attempt
was made to create a confederacy of the Afghan king, the wazir of Oudh, and a
number of Maratha chiefs, to strengthen the position of the emperor. Wellesley took

the plan seriously enough to stir up trouble between the Persian and the Afghan
courts, so that the Afghan ruler would not be able to give any attention to India./9/
More important for the fate of the Mughals was Wellesley's war with the
Marathas in 1803. In a two-pronged attack, they were defeated in the Deccan and
North India. Sindhia's defeat meant the capture of Delhi, and with this the Mughal
empire, long a dependent of the Marathas, passed into British control. Yet after a
century of decline, the Mughal emperor still remained a symbol of greatness that
was not easily defaced. To many British, his continuance seemed absurd, at best an
empty pageant. Yet as events were to show in 1857, even the last flickering shadow
of Mughal greatness still appeared to be a possible center of power.
Causes of the Mughal Decline
Before turning to these last years of the Mughal empire, it may be useful to
summarize what appear to have been certain general causes of Mughal decline,
leaving aside such specific causes as external invasions and internal rebellions. One
feature of Islamic power in India, as elsewhere, was the failure to make progress in
certain vital fields. For example, even Akbar failed to see the possibilities in the
introduction of printing. The scarcity of books resulted in comparative ignorance,
low standards of education, and limitation of the subjects of study. Because of this,
the governing classes were ignorant of the affairs of the outside world. The position
becomes clear if we [[274]] compare the books on India printed in Europe during
the eighteenth century with the knowledge of the West current in India. The interest
on the part of Europeans that led travelers like Bernier to make reports on their
travels finds no parallel in Mughal India. So far from being concerned with Europe,
the Mughals, after Ain-i-Akbari, made no real addition to their knowledge even of
their own dominions.
The stagnation visible in the intellectual field was visible also in the military
sphere. Babur had introduced gunpowder in India, but after him there was no
advance in military equipment, although the organization and discipline of forces
had been completely revolutionized in the West. The Portuguese had brought ships
on which cannons were mounted, and had thus introduced a new element which
made them masters of the Indian Ocean. What was a fortified wall round the
country became a highway, and opened up the empire to those countries which had
not remained stagnant. Mughal helplessness on the sea was obvious from the days
of Akbar. Their ships could not sail to Mecca without a safe-conduct permit from the
Portuguese. Sir Thomas Roe had warned Jahangir that if Prince Shah Jahan as
governor of Gujarat turned the English out, "then he must expect we would do our
justice upon the seas." The failure of the Mughals to develop a powerful navy and
control the seas surrounding their dominions was a direct cause of their
replacement by an European power having these advantages.

On land no real progress or large-scale training of local personnel in the use of

artillery was made in Mughal India, and the best they could do was to hire
foreigners for manning the artillery. The military weakness resulting from this was
obvious, and was clearly visible to foreign observers. Bernier wrote in the early
years of Aurangzeb's reign:" I could never see these soldiers, destitute of order, and
marching with the irregularity of a herd of animals, without reflecting upon the ease
with which five-and-twenty thousand of our veterans from the army in Flanders,
commanded by Prince Cond or Marshal Turenne would overcome these armies,
however numerous."/10/ With this condition of the Mughal army, the downfall of the
empire was only a question of time.
[[275]] Another factor which contributed to the fall of the Mughal empire was
the moral decay of the ruling classes. This was partly due to the affluent standard of
living maintained by monarchs like Shah Jahan and queens like Nur Jahan.
Ostentatious luxury became the ambition of everyone who could afford it, and the
puritanical Aurangzeb's attempts to arrest the tide were without success. The evil
had gone too far and was only driven underground, to reappear within ten years of
the emperor's death, in the uncontrolled orgies of his grandson Jahandar Shah.
Perhaps Aurangzeb's extreme asceticism and self-denial only intensified the
reaction of the nobility. Many a Maratha hill fortress captured after long and dreary
siege was lost because the Mughal commander, unwilling to spend the monsoon
months in his lonely perch, came down to the plains, while the hardy Marathas,
awaiting the opportunity, moved in.
The moral decline of the nobility showed itself in lack of discipline, laziness,
evasion of duties, and even treacherous conduct. It also made them rapacious and
heartless in dealing with the public. The extravagant standards that the Mughal
bureaucrats tried to maintain were not possible without corruption, extortion, and
the enrichment of the officers at the expense of the state and the people. These
evils increased as Mughal authority weakened, but their seeds had been sown in
earlier days and were a natural result of the efforts of the officers to maintain
standards beyond their means.
These were the basic factors responsible for the downfall of the Mughal
empire, but others were contributory. The fact that after the death of Aurangzeb no
ruler of real vigor and resourcefulness came to the throne made recovery of the lost
position almost impossible. Even Aurangzeb's long life was an asset of doubtful
value in its last stages. He drove himself hard and resolutely, conscientiously
performing his duties, but at the age of ninety he was subject to the laws governing
all human machines. When he died, his son and successor Bahadur Shah was
already an old man of sixty. He began well but was on the throne for barely six
years, and with his death a disastrous chapter opened in Mughal annals.
Directly related to the troubles of this period was the absence of a well-defined
law of succession to ensure the continuity of government. The result was that each

son of a deceased king felt that he had [[276]] an equal claim to the crown, and
succession to the throne was invariably accompanied by bloody warfare. The
disaster was compounded when the imperial princes, who were often viceroys
governing vast territories, started making secret pacts with soldiers to ensure their
support for the time when the fateful struggle would begin. Soon not only the
imperial army but forces external to the empirethe East India Company, the
Marathas, the Sikhswere being used by claimants to the throne of Delhi, as well as
to
control
of
the
provincial
kingdoms.
The
results
were
fatal.
XX. The Beginning of a New Era: 1803-1857
*Cultural and Religious Vitality* == *The Islamic Revival in Bengal* == *The Indian
Revolt,
18571858*
==
*Seeds
of
Separatism*
[[277]] WE CONCLUDE our account of Muslim civilization in India with the exile
of the last Mughal emperor from Delhi in 1858, and not with the British assumption
of overlordship of Delhi in 1803, partly because even in 1803 large areas of the
subcontinent were outside the control of the East India Company, and partly
because the Company retained the legal fiction of Mughal sovereignty until 1857. At
Delhi the Mughal ruler received all the courtesies of a king, and the Company paid
him large sums of money, which were claimed on his behalf as the tribute paid by
the Company by virtue of past arrangements and treaties. It was argued that "the
Company was administering territories for him, as the Marathas had in
constitutional theory done before the Company; that the Company's authority was
derived from his farmans in so far as it was covered by the farmans, and was mere
illegal usurpation in so far as it was not so covered."/1/ Against the background of
actual military and political power these claims were mere pretensions, but legally
and constitutionally the Delhi house had not been set aside from the position they
had occupied when they granted the diwani to the Company in 1765. The Mughal
ruler was designated shahinshah, and later padshah, in official correspondence. He
continued to bestow titles of honor until 1828; coins continued to be issued in his
name until 1835. It seemed in 1803 that the British representative was stepping
into the shoes of Sindhia. Special arrangements were made for the administration of
Delhi, where Muslim law was used in criminal cases. "Within the walls of the Red
Fort the king retained his ruling powers. The inhabitants of the Fort bazar were his
direct subjects, and the members of the imperial family who lived within enjoyed
diplomatic immunity. The etiquette of the court was maintained, the sonorous titles
and the language of the great Mughals [[278]] continued, and the Resident
attended the durbar in the Diwan-i-Khas regularly as a suitor. He dismounted like
any other courtier and was conducted on foot to the imperial presence where
he stood respectfully like the rest."/2/

Shah Alam died in 1806. His successor was Akbar II. With the consolidation of
British power, a tendency grew to treat the Mughal emperor more and more as a
pensioner of the East India Company, while he insisted on the privileges accorded at
the time of the conquest of Delhi. The differences between Akbar Shah and the
Company came to a head when a meeting between Lord Hastings the governorgeneral, and the emperor, could not be held because Akbar insisted that Hastings
should appear as a subject and present the usual nazr or gift. He also refused to
allow the governor-general a chair on the same level as his own at the time of the
interview. Hastings refused a meeting on these terms; and soon after, the emperor's
privileges were curtailed. The ruler of Oudh (hitherto called wazir) and the nizam of
Hyderabad were encouraged to adopt royal titles. While the nizam declined to do so
out of regard for the Mughal emperor, the ruler of Oudh accepted the suggestion. To
present his case in London, Akbar Shah appointed the celebrated Bengali reformer
Ram Mohan Roy, who was planning a visit to England, as the Mughal envoy to the
Court of St. James, conferring on him the title of raja. Ram Mohan Roy submitted an
ably drafted memorial on behalf of the Mughal ruler, but nothing came of his
mission.
When Akbar II died in 1837, his successor, Bahadur Shah (r.18371858)
refused to give up the claims put forward by his father. The East India Company
gradually limited his powers and privileges, however, and when his heir-apparent
died in 1856, the claims of the next surviving son were recognized on the condition
that his title would only be prince or shahzada and not shah or king.
Whatever may have been the disputes between the emperor and the
Company, there is no doubt that in some ways the position of the Mughal ruler
improved with the British occupation of Delhi. There was peace and order, and the
royal family was not exposed to those vicissitudes and uncertainties which it had
suffered prior to the [[279]] reoccupation of Delhi by Sindhia in 1788. Their
financial position also improved, for income from the emperor's lands increased
because of the greater general security. Even so, the emperor's income did not
exceed 600,000 rupees a year, out of which he had to feed a horde of dependents.
But the respect and the position which he enjoyed was out of all proportion to his
material
resources.
Cultural and Religious Vitality
The Mughals had learned the art of maintaining dignity in the most
unpropitious circumstances, and the tawdry Mughal court became the cultural
center of Muslim India. The court once again began to attract the most
distinguished Muslim noblemen, ulama, and men of letters.
In particular the great Ghalib, who epitomised in his personality and works the
splendor and humanity of Mughal culture, adorned his court, sang verses on the
age-old themes of love and life, and recited eulogies which easily surpassed

anything written by the court poets of Akbar and Jahangir. The influence of the court
in the early years of the nineteenth century was felt throughout India, for Mughal
manners and etiquette became the standard almost everywhere. As Percival Spear
has pointed out, such an influence was of great importance in giving cohesion to
Indian life. "The fall of the dynasty was a serious cultural loss, and inaugurated that
period of nondescript manners and indefinite conduct from which India suffers
today."/3/
Second only to Delhi as a center of Islamic culture, and in many ways more
cosmopolitan, was Lucknow, the capital of the rulers of Oudh. To some extent it was
the heir of the older centers of Islamic culture in the Gangetic plain, Budaun and
Jaunpur, but it also drew upon the great Hindu tradition that lived on in Benares and
the surrounding region. It was also an asylum in the eighteenth century for refugees
fleeing Delhi before the invasion of Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah, and the Marathas.
Furthermore, it was open to Western influences, and one of the interesting
developments was the introduction of opera, a form of music quite unknown in
India.
[[280]] One important difference between Delhi and Lucknow was that the
former was a religious as well as cultural center. This was not the case with
Lucknow, for while it had learned ulama, their influence was scholastic and
intellectual, not spiritual, with more attention paid to form than to content. This
tendency reflected itself in all the arts of Lucknow. Lucknow poetry, for example,
was rich in ornament and followed elaborate rules of prosody, but had little depth of
thought or feeling. "Delhi was less careful about words and gave more attention to
thought and subject."/4/ The emphasis at Lucknow on the formalities of court
etiquette, purity of language, and appropriate enunciation added a distinct strand to
Indo-Muslim civilization.
An interesting development of the period was the foundation of Delhi College
in 1825. It was housed in the magnificent building of the madrassa founded in the
eighteenth century by Nazim-ul-Mulk's son Ghazi-ud-din Khan I, and its
development was greatly facilitated by the donation of 170,000 rupees in 1829 by a
native of Delhi. It had European principals from the beginning, and marked a new
experiment in education, with English as well as Oriental sections. The first head of
the Arabic Department was a favorite pupil of Shah Abdul Aziz. An even more
remarkable person was the second head, Maulana Mamluk Ali, who also had studied
under members of Shah Waliullah's family. He headed the Arabic Department from
about 1833 until his death in 1851. He found very little time for literary work, and
devoted himself exclusively to teaching both at Delhi College and at his own
residence. Among his private pupils were Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of
Aligarh College. His nephew, Maulana Muhammad Qasim, who is generally regarded
as the founder of the seminary at Deoband, studied with him for several years at
Delhi, and for a brief period was enrolled as a student at Delhi College. This link
between Delhi College and the two most important institutions of modern Muslim

India led to the observation that, "After the Mutiny, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan took the
English section of the Delhi College to Aligarh, and Maulana Muhammad Qasim took
the Arabic section to Deoband." Of course this statement is correct only in a
figurative and limited sense, but it may well explain many modern features of the
seminary [[281]] at Deoband, of which the founder was a nephew of Maulana
Mamluk Ali, and his son was the first principal.
Of even more significance than the artistic and cultural life of the great Islamic
cities were the vigorous spiritual movements of the time. The spiritual leader of
Delhi, and indeed of all Islamic India, during the first half of the nineteenth century
was Shah Abdul Aziz (17461823), the son and successor of Shah Waliullah. Shah
Abdul Aziz was the most learned Islamic theologian in India, and his views on
Muslim law were accepted by all parties among the Sunnis. Unlike most Muslims
during this period, he recognized the value of learning English, and displayed no
bitterness toward the conquerors. But he was a teacher and thinker rather than a
leader, and the most vital Islamic movement of the period was headed by his
disciple, Sayyid Ahmed Brelvi. While the spiritual basis of the new movement was
found in Shah Waliullah's works, it was Sayyid Ahmed's organizing ability and
knowledge of military affairs that gave it the impetus to overcome the apathy of
many Muslims.
Sayyid Ahmed Brelvi had begun life as a soldier in the army of Nawab Amir
Khan, the founder of Tonk state, but when the nawab came to terms with the British
in 1806 he gave up military service and went to Delhi to study under Shah Abdul
Aziz. His spiritual powers and organizing ability greatly impressed his teachers, and
his reputation increased when Shah Abdul's nephew, Shah Ismail, and his son-inlaw, Maulvi Abdul Hai, became Sayyid's disciples. Both of them were distinguished
scholars and their example was followed by many others. In 1818, with the help of
his two disciples, Sayyid Ahmed wrote Sirat-i-Mustaqim, which, apart from a
mystical portion, is largely a summary of the reforms which Shah Waliullah had
urged. About this time Sayyid Ahmed started to preach in public, and although he
used simple words and images, soon made a great reputation for himself.
His activities were not confined to Delhi, and during a visit to Rampur some
Afghan travelers complained to him about the Sikh persecution of Muslims in the
Punjab. He expressed a desire to conduct a holy war against them, but he knew that
war required elaborate preparations and, in any case, he wished to perform the Hajj
before [[282]]undertaking jihad. His journey to Calcutta on the way to Mecca was
marked by enthusiastic demonstrations. At Patna so many people became his
disciples that he appointed four caliphs, or spiritual viceregents, to look after them.
At Calcutta the crowds flocked to him in such numbers that he could not follow the
usual custom in making disciples by the laying on of hands, but had to stretch out
his turban for people to touch.

At Mecca, Sayyid Ahmed must have gained fuller knowledge of the Wahhabis,
the puritan sect that had been in control of the Holy Places some years earlier, and
their teaching undoubtedly strengthened his resolve to carry on jihad against the
Sikhs. He arrived in the Pathan area in December, 1826, just when the tribesmen
had suffered grievously from raids by Sikh armies. Gathering the tribesmen, Sayyid
Ahmed attacked the Sikh stronghold of Akora with such success that the Sikhs
withdrew. He carried the war into the plains, occupying Peshawar for two months,
and won support from many of the tribal chieftains. But difficulties arose between
his companions and the tribal chiefs. After the conquest of Peshawar Sayyid Ahmed
wanted to introduce an Islamic system of government, but the tribal chiefs realized
that this would work against their authority. His hold was further weakened by
opposition to social reforms that he had introduced, and the hostility of the Sikhs
and their allies, the Barakzais. In November, 1830, he was forced to relinquish
Peshawar in favor of Sultan Muhammad, the old governor, on the promised payment
of a fixed tribute. The biggest blow came when his deputies in Yusufzai villages were
killed by the tribesmen themselves. Accompanied by a few faithful companions he
left for Hazara, where after a few months of desultory warfare he was killed at
Balakot
by
a
Sikh
contingent
in
May,
1831.
The Islamic Revival in Bengal
Although Sayyid Ahmed's military efforts ended in a disaster and many of his
companions died on the battlefield, his meteoric career left a lasting impression in
distant corners of the subcontinent. The scene of his activities on the Afghan
frontier continued to attract [[283]] mujahids (militant spiritual leaders), who gave
considerable trouble to the Sikhs and later to the British. The effect of Sayyid
Ahmed's activities in the eastern part of the country was even more far-reaching.
During his leisurely trip to Calcutta and his long sojourn in that city, he had enrolled
a number of disciplesmany of them from distant areas in what is now East
Pakistanwho continued his work. Some of them joined him in the jihad on the
frontier, and many continued to send men and money to the mujahids, who kept up
the struggle until the second half of the nineteenth century. But perhaps even more
important was the extension of Shah Waliullah's reform movement in areas which
had been cut off from Delhi for generations, and which, through these disciples,
were now brought closer with the spiritual centers of Muslim India.
Islam had been spread in Bengal by the Sufi missionaries in the thirteenth and
the fourteenth centuries, but a vigorous Hindu revival under the Vaishanavite
leaders had infused new religious life into the Hindus. Assam and the neighboring
hill areas were converted to Hinduism. Through its literary expression it also
influenced Muslim society. The stream of Muslim missionaries to the area had dried
up, and there was a general ignorance of Islam amongst the masses. A local popular
religion grew up, thinly veiling Hindu beliefs and practices. Bengal Muslims who
were schooled in their religion were steadfast in their observance of Islamic

injunctions, but in distant villages, isolated by rivers and streams, there were
serious obstacles to the spread of Islamic knowledge.
The nineteenth century saw a new movement of Islamic revival in
Bengal./5/ This was largely the work of local reformers and scholars, who took
advantage of new conditions and the facilities of steamship travel to Arabia. The
first of these was Haji Shariat Ullah, who was born of poor parents in the village of
Daulatpur and received his early education at a religious seminary at Dacca or
Faridpur. He went on pilgrimage to Mecca sometime around 1802, when he was
about eighteen years old, and did not return until about 1820. While he was in
Arabia he was influenced by Wahhabi doctrines, which he [[284]] preached to the
people of his native district on his return. He denounced the superstitions and
corrupt beliefs which had been developed by long contact with the Hindus. He also
opposed the prevalent procedure of the Sufi initiation, and replaced the
expression piri-muridi, which suggested a complete submission, by the relationship
between ustad (teacher) and shagird (pupil). Because of his insistence on tauba, or
repentance for past sins, his followers called themselves tawbar Muslims. They were
also known as "Faraizis" because of their insistence on the performance of faraiz,
the obligations imposed by God and the Prophet. Haji Shariat Ullah was persecuted
by zamindars who feared his emphasis on a common Islamic brotherhood, but he
managed to continue his ministry until his death.
Even more influential was his son, Haji Muhammad Mohsin (more properly
known as Dudhu Miyan), whose name became a household word in the districts of
Faridpur, Pabna, Baqarganj, Dacca, and Noakhali. He was born about 1820, and
visited Arabia at an early age. On his return he took up the leadership of the
movement started by his father. He divided East Bengal into circles, and appointed
a caliph, as spiritual leader, to look after his followers in each circle. Under him the
movement became the spearhead of the resistance of the Muslim peasantry of East
Bengal against Hindu landlords and European indigo planters. He especially
denounced the custom of forcing Muslim peasants to contribute to the maintenance
of Hindu shrines. He was harassed by lawsuits all his life and was repeatedly jailed.
He died in 1860.
The doctrines preached by Haji Shariat Ullah and Dudhu Miyan for some forty
years brought permanent changes in the spiritual life of Bengal, but the influence of
their group gradually declined. Apart from the conflict with landlords, Dudhu Miyan's
policy brought his group in conflict with other Muslims, especially as he used
violence to get people to join his sect. The main religious dispute, however,
centered around the observance of Friday prayers. To the ordinary believer, the
ceremonial performance of the customary prayers was of great importance, but the
Faraizis taught that the continuance of Friday prayers in India was unlawful. This
was because the country was no longer dar-ul-Islam, or land of the faithful, but,
because of conquest [[285]] by the Christians, had become dar-ul-harb, land of
infidels. The quarrel became particularly acrimonious because the Faraizis treated

all Muslims who did not share their interpretation of the religious situation as kafirs,
or infidels.
Aside from the Faraizis, the religious revivalists who had the greatest influence
in East Bengal were four disciples of Sayyid Ahmed Brelvi. One of these was Maulvi
Imam-ud-din, who was born in Hajipur in Bengal, but who was educated in Delhi
under Shah Abdul Aziz, the son of Shah Waliullah. He became a disciple of Sayyid
Ahmed Brelvi at Lucknow in 1824, and was with him at Calcutta during his triumphal
journey to Arabia. At that time he had brought large numbers of people from his
village to be initiated into the new movement by Sayyid Ahmed. He went to Arabia
with Sayyid Ahmed, and later took part in the jihad on the frontier. After the disaster
at Balakot, he returned to his home district, Noakhali, and converted many of its
inhabitants to the doctrines of his master. Another of Sayyid Ahmed's disciples had
a similar success in the Chittagong district. A third member of the group, Maulvi
Inayat Ali of Patna, spent nearly ten years in central Bengal, building mosques and
appointing qualified teachers. His great interest, however, was in the jihad which
Sayyid Ahmed had started on the frontier. He died there in 1858.
The fourth of the great reformers was Maulvi Karamat Ali (d.1873), who
devoted his life to the preaching of Islam in East Bengal. A superb organizer, for
forty years he moved up and down the rivers with a flotilla of small boats, carrying
the message of Islamic regeneration and reform from the Nagas of Assam to the
inhabitants of the islands in the Bay of Bengal. His flotilla was often compared to a
traveling college: one boat was for the residence of his family, another was reserved
for the students and disciples accompanying him, while the third was for lectures
and prayers. Maulvi Karamat Ali revitalized Islamic life in East Bengal, and it has
been said that at the time of his death there was scarcely a village in Bengal that
did not contain some of his disciples.
Maulvi Karamat Ali shared with the Faraizi leaders of East Bengal an
abhorrence of all un-Islamic practices, but he violently disagreed [[286]] with their
position that because of the British conquest, the Friday prayers could no longer be
observed. He argued that India had not become dar-ul-harb, but that even if it had,
Muslims should still carry on all those observances which characterized dar-ul-Islam.
This question of whether or not India had ceased to be dar-ul-Islam continued to be
debated among Muslims, but the great majority of Bengal Muslims continued to
celebrate Friday prayers. Only a very small group remained steadfast to the
teaching of Haji Shariat Ullah that India was dar-ul-harb; they did not offer Friday
prayers in the traditional manner until after the establishment of Pakistan in 1947.
The significance of this religious revival in Bengal in the nineteenth century has
generally been overlooked, but there is no doubt that it gave new life to Islam. The
emphasis on strict religious observances, the denunciation of participation in Hindu
practices, and the call to an austere life, safeguarded the community in a time of
political weakness. These particular "puritan" aspects of the reform movement have

led it to be confused with the Wahhabi movement of Arabia, but there were
important differences in spirit. The four great reformers derived their inspiration
from Shah Waliullah, and they avoided the fanatic extremism usually associated
with the true Wahhabis. They were more forward-looking, more concerned with
spiritual improvement, than were the Arabian group. Above all, they were influenced
by the mysticism of Indian Islam, and Shah Waliullah himself had adopted a
conciliatory attitude towards the teachings of the Sufis. For the Wahhabis, on the
other hand, the Sufis posed a threat to Islamic truth that could not be tolerated.
What the Wahhabis and the disciples of Shah Waliullah shared in common was an
emphasis on the ancient purity of the Islamic way of living, untainted by alien
accretions./6/
The Indian Revolt, 18571858
The course of these religious movements, in common with almost every aspect
of Indian life, was affected by the most spectacular event [[287]] in the history of
nineteenth-century India, the uprising of 1857. The causes of this outbreak have
been a matter of endless dispute ever since. The range of opinion varied then, as it
still does, from those who see it as a simple mutiny by disgruntled soldiers to those
who see it as a nationalist war for an independent India. That the general cause was
the distrust awakened by the rush of social change initiated by the British, and that
this took the particular form of a fear that the changes presaged an attempt by the
British to convert the people to Christianity, there can be little doubt. This fear was
used by those who had been displaced from power by the British to rally support for
one last desperate effort to regain what they had lost.
As far as Islamic civilization was concerned, the immediate result of the
uprising was to cast suspicion on the Muslim community. As the rulers who had
been overthrown, it was assumed that they would be the ringleaders in the war.
Tangible proof of this was the assumption by Emperor Bahadur Shah of leadership of
the revolt at Delhi. That his control was only nominal was plain enough, but his
name still awakened echoes of past glory throughout India. Furthermore, in the
great center of revolt, the Muslim kingdom of Oudh, the leaders were mainly
Muslim, drawn from the ranks of the zamindars embittered by the recent British
seizure of the state.
Evidence of the British feeling that the Muslims had a special responsibility for
the uprising was shown when Delhi was recaptured. Accounts, some true and some
false, of cruel massacres of British women and children by the mutineers had so
enraged British officers that they forgot all considerations of justice and equity and
indulged in an orgy of vengeance. The city was subjected to a punishment such as it
had not undergone even in its dismal history during the eighteenth century. The
massacre of Nadir Shah and the lootings by Marathas, Jats, and Afghans had
continued for only a few days, but in 1857 the ordeal lasted for months. The entire

population was driven out of the city, and in the absence of owners, the houses
were broken into, their floors dug up, and contents removed or destroyed.
Next to suffer were the city buildings. The principal mosques were occupied by
the British troops. One proposal was to sell the Grand Mosque of Shah Jahan.
Another was to convert it into a barracks for the main guard of European troops.
Muslims were not allowed to [[288]] use it until five years later. Some parts of the
Fatehpuri Masjid, the second largest in the city, remained in non-Muslim hands till
1875. The beautiful Zinat-ul-Masajid, built by Aurangzeb's daughter, was only
restored to the Muslims by Lord Curzon at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The royal palace and the fort suffered even more. The palace proper, the residence
of the royal family, was razed and all the gardens and courts were completely
destroyed. "Not one vestige of them now remains The whole of the haram courts
of the palace were swept off the face of the earth to make way for a hideous British
barrack, without those who carried out this fearful piece of vandalism, thinking it
even worthwhile to make a plan of what they were destroying or preserving any
record of the most splendid palace in the world."/7/ There was considerable damage
to the public buildings also. The more important ones were retained, but the
contents of the palace were looted, and even structural decorations were removed.
Perhaps an even greater loss was the destruction and dispersal of the royal
library, where rare works had been accumulated since the days of Babur and Akbar.
While it must have already been damaged during the depredations of the
eighteenth century, it was still a great library at the time of the mutiny. The
contents were looted and scattered to all corners of the earth, so that we find some
leaves of one royal album at Patna, a few in Berlin, some more in the National
Library of Paris, though the major portion found its way to the public and private
libraries of England.
The Hindu population was allowed to return to the city in January, 1858, and
Muslims were allowed a few months later, but the destruction of buildings continued
for a long time. The large areas between the Jama Masjid and the fort, which are
now covered by an extensive park, were originally the principal residential quarters
of the Mughal nobility, and contained the large Akbarabadi Mosque, where Shah
Waliullah's successors used to teach. All these buildings were razed and the entire
area cleared, so that there should be a suitable field of fire beyond the walls of the
fort to house the British garrison.
[[289]] In course of time peace and order returned. The civil authorities, many
of whom were unhappy at what was going on, were at last able to assert
themselves. Canning, the governor-general, was of a kindly disposition, and
although the press cried for vengeance, gradually good sense prevailed, and by
slow stages a return to civil administration was effected. Delhi recovered but it was
now a small appendage of the Punjab. The grand edifices built by a succession of

the Mughal monarchs remained as a reminder of what once had been, but they
were an empty shell. The Delhi of the Mughals had perished for ever.
Out of the tragedy came at least one good result. The enforced dispersal of
scholars meant that Lahore now replaced Delhi as the cultural center of Muslim
India. Urdu was firmly rooted as the language of culture in the land of the five rivers.
Similarly, although Delhi ceased to be a place of learning, those who had drunk at
this fountainhead and had imbibed the spirit of Shah Waliullah and Shah Abdul Aziz
established great centers of learning at Deoband and Aligarh, not far from the old
capital.
Ghalib (17961869), the greatest of Urdu poets, saw the whole tragedy
enacted before his eyes, but he was convinced that there were possibilities for new
life in the destruction of the world he had loved. He had long forseen the breakup of
the old system, before the mutiny he had written:
They gave me the glad tidings of the dawn in the dark night.
They
extinguished
the
candle
and
showed
me
the
rising
sun.
The
fire-temple
got
burnt;
they
gave
me
the
breath
of
fire.
The idol-temple crumbled down and they gave me the lamentation of the templegong.
They plucked away the jewels from the banners of the kings of Ajam.
In
its
place
they
gave
me
the
jewel-scattering
pen.
They removed the pearl from the crown, and fastened it to wisdom.
Whatever they took away openly, they returned to me in secret.
The mutiny led to a careful reassessment of the administration and a
reorientation of many policies. Developments in the political field paved the way for
the later political struggle and the final independence. The control of the
subcontinent by the East India Company was transferred to the British government,
which for the first time took [[290]]direct responsibility for the administration of the
area. This meant the replacement of an indirect rule by direct government
administration. The old expansionist policy at the expense of the native
administered territory was totally abandoned. No Indian state was later annexed,
and Hyderabad, which was marked for an early annexation in the days of Dalhousie,
escaped that fate. In religious matters the British had learned a bitter lesson, and
henceforth they treated local religious sentiments with a respect that was not
always visible in the first half of the nineteenth century.
In the political field a beginning was made which was to have farreaching
consequences. Even before the embers of the great revolt had died out, and while
martial law was yet in force, Sayyid Ahmed Khan, a sincere friend and fervent
admirer of the British, whose loyalty had been tested in the great struggle itself, sat
down to analyze the causes of the revolt. With his sturdy common sense and

characteristic fearlessness he pointed out in a remarkable book that the basic cause
of the revolt was the government's ignorance of the views of the vast population
directly affected by its legislative and administrative measures./8/ This criticism,
coming from a friend, and reinforced by the observations of many Englishmen, led
to remedial action. The Indian Councils Act of 1861 provided for the appointment of
Indians to the governor-general's council for the first time. It marked the beginning
of the association of the native population with the upper administrative councils of
the subcontinent, an association which gradually expanded under the pressure of
public opinion, and ultimately led to the complete transfer of political control in
1947.
Seeds of Separatism
The twilight of the Mughals might seem, in view of the changes that followed,
to have ended with a movement towards the progress and unity of the
subcontinent. But in fact the seeds of separatism, which were to bear fruit in 1947,
had already been sown. Some of the causes of this spirit of division between Muslim
and Hindu can be traced to the changes taking place in the nineteenth century.
The [[291]] mutiny of 1857 was one answer to these changes; a more complex one
was the growth of communalism.
In the first half of the nineteenth century many innovations and reforms were
introduced by the British. Some of these, such as the printing press, the telegraph,
the railways, were the results of scientific progress in the West, which in course of
time became available to other parts of the world. Other stepsthe introduction of
English education, suppression of satiwere the work of administrators impelled by
a desire to bring about social change. The establishment of institutions of a kind
unfamiliar to Indian society, such as the Asiatic Society with its work of editing and
publishing the great works of both the Hindu and Muslim traditions, led to a new
knowledge of the past. The role of this enterprise on the intellectual revival in the
subcontinent cannot be overemphasized.
The general effect of these developments was healthy, forming a valued part
of the heritage of India and Pakistan. All the new measures were not, however, so
beneficial, and some of them have created stupendous problems. Even the literary
and linguistic activity at Fort William College in Calcutta, which had an important
share in the rise of the new Indian languages, did not prove an unmixed blessing.
The bifurcation of the common spoken language of the Hindus and Muslims of
northern India into two separate languages was partly the result of the attempts
made at the college to create "literary" languages. Not only was the polite spoken
language of northern India (Urdu-Hindustani) cultivated at that institution, but with
the help of Lalluji Lal and other Sanskritists, practically a new language was created
in the form of the modern Hindi. This was not the form of the language spoken by
the Hindus or the evolution of any regional dialect, but a new, artificial language. As
Keay says in his History of Hindi Literature, modern Hindi, "was produced by taking

Urdu and expelling from it words of Persian or Arabic origin, and substituting for
them words of Sanskrit or Hindi origin."/9/ A somewhat similar process can be seen
in the creation of modern Bengali. That in the eighteenth century Bengali was
characterized by the presence of a large number of nonindigenous words is
suggested by the comment [[292]] made by Nathaniel Halhed in the preface to his
Bengali grammar in 1778. "Those persons are thought to speak the compound
idiom with most elegance," he wrote, "who mix the greatest number of Persian and
Arabic nouns."/10/ This do-bhashi, or bilingual, form of Bengali fell into disrepute in
the nineteenth century, and a highly Sanskritized vocabulary became the norm of
excellence.
Other aspects of the language policy adopted by the East India Company had
even more important consequences. In 1829 it was announced that it was "the wish
and the admitted policy of the British Government to render its own language
gradually and eventually the language of public business throughout the country,"
and in 1834, English replaced Persian in government offices. The reasons for this
step can be understood, but the British claim of having given cultural consolidation
to India would have had a firmer basis, if along with English an indigenous language
had been given at least a secondary place throughout the country. This might have
been Hindustani which, in its various forms, was understood throughout much of the
subcontinent. Instead of one common language, an entire plethora of vernaculars
was encouraged. Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhiall seemed to get similar
attention. Apart from ballads and simple verse, many of these had no literature, and
the Mughals had refused to give them any official status. Now they were officially
recognized. Prose works in them were systematically sponsored, and in course of
time, a literature in each developed. Thus the cultural unity of the subcontinent of
India became dependent on English, and the seeds of the present language problem
of India and Pakistan were sown.
The British policy with regard to religious communities has also been a subject
of criticism and controversy. The gradual evolution of a common legal system
(outside the limited spheres of the personal law of the Hindus and the Muslims) and
the impartial administration of justice on modern Western lines were perhaps the
most substantial boon conferred on India by the British. In the administrative field,
however, political considerations and historical factors intervened, and to many
historians it has seemed that out of self-interest, the British sought to rule by
dividing Hindus from Muslims. As already [[293]] pointed out, the battle of Plassey
was won by a combination of the officers of the East India Company and the Hindu
merchant princes of Murshidabad, and for many years it seemed to be a sensible
precaution to seek the support of the majority community, the Hindus, against the
Muslims. This policy found a spokesman on the highest level in Lord Ellenborough,
governor-general from 1842 to 1844, who wrote: "I cannot close my eyes to the
belief that the [Muslim] race is fundamentally hostile to us and therefore our true
policy is to conciliate the Hindus."/11/ The same idea had occurred to another

British observer a few years earlier. It was desirable, he thought, that "the Hindoos
should always be reminded that their previous rulers were as much strangers to
their blood and to their religion as we are, and they were notoriously far more
oppressive masters than we have ever shewn ourselves."/12/
This same spirit was reflected in the preface to the great collection of Muslim
histories made by Sir Henry Elliot, The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians.
The intrinsic merit of the Muslim histories might be small, but, he argued, by
showing Islamic rule in its true light, it would make "our native subjects more
sensible of the immense advantages accruing to them under the mildness and
equity of our rule." Those who "rant about patriotism and the degradation of their
present position" would learn from reading the history of Islamic rule how in another
time "their ridiculous fantasies would have been attended, not with silence and
contempt,
but
with
the
severer
discipline
of
molten
lead
and
empalement."/13/ Elliot's work has been severely criticized by modern historians on
the ground that the bias he displays in the preface prevented him making a
selection that presents Islamic rulers in a true light. The work was more than a
private scholarly enterprise: it received official support for publication, and became
the source for most of the historical works produced on the Muslim period. While it
would be difficult to document the effect [[294]] of Elliot's work on communal
relations in India, it is reasonable to suppose that the picture it gave to Indian
students of Islamic India helped to strengthen the growing Muslim-Hindu
antagonism of the nineteenth century.
Yet while some British policies led to a worsening of communal relations, it is
only fair to note that they would not have had much effect if the soil had not been
congenial. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the relations
between the Hindus and Muslims were generally peaceful, but it was because of the
dominance of a third power, and not because of the integration of the two social
groups. The two communities had coexistedgenerally in harmony, often in
friendship, occasionally in conflictbut had never coalesced. Indeed, as R. C.
Majumdar, the Indian historian, has said, between Hindus and Muslims, "the social
and religious differences were so acute and fundamental that they raised a Chinese
wall between the two communities, and even seven hundred years of close
residence (including two of common servitude) have failed to make the least crack
in that solid and massive structure, far less demolish it." It was this dividing wall
which
led,
in
1947,
to
the
partitioning
of
the
subcontinent.
XXI.

Conclusion

[[295]] LOOKING BACK over the ten centuries of Muslim rule that we have
briefly surveyed, it is possible to identify four main strands that have given IndoIslamic culture its characteristic texture. The first of these is the Islamic religious

inheritance, including those aspects specifically rooted in an Arabic tradition; the

second was the Turkish origin of many of the rulers; the third was the pervasive
influence of Persian culture; and finally there was the indigenous environment, both
in India and in Afghanistan, into which Islam came. There has been a tendency to
overlook this indigenous component, but its influence is deep-rooted and allpervading. The predominantly non-Muslim environment in which Indo-Muslim
culture developed and the heritage of an ancient civilization did not leave Islam
untouched. Furthermore, the vast majority of the Muslims were either Hindu
converts, which shows not only in numerous usages and practices carried over from
the ancestral Hindu society, but also in unconscious reactions and mental attitudes.
The vigorous Islamic revival of later centuries has tended to overshadow the
indigenous element. While the Turkish rulers and aristocracy contributed much in
the sphere of government, law, dress, and food, and the Persian element was
prominent in literature, fine arts, mysticism, and philosophy, essentially the two
basic components which gave the civilization its peculiar flavor were the Indian and
the Islamic. It represents the creative efforts and reactions of a Muslim society in a
predominantly non-Muslim area.
This peculiar situation has resulted in developments which distinguish the
course of Muslim civilization in India from those in countries where the population is
predominantly Muslim. The dissimilarity between two main elements of Indo-Muslim
civilization has resulted in a curious phenomenon. At times the attractions of the
native element proved powerful, and there was a large-scale assimilation of
indigenous elements, as under Akbar, Dara Shukoh, and in the writings of Kabir. At
other times, there was a vigorous reaction against [[296]] non-Muslim elements,
resulting in greater repugnance towards them than was traditional in the history of
Islam. In this connection, it is significant that puritanical Wahhabism, with its
emphasis on the purity of Islam, had considerable influence in India. Furthermore,
the continuing presence of a large non-Muslim element has been a persistent
challenge for missionary effort in which Indian Muslims distinguished themselves,
even in recent times.
The local situation has resulted in a fundamental conflict, as symbolized in the
two sons of Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and Dara Shukoh. This situation has resulted in
tensions and occasionally in conflicts, but outside somewhat narrow circles, the
long-term result of two heterogeneous elements constituting Indian Islam has been
a growth of forbearance and toleration of conflicting practices and beliefs. This
toleration extended not only towards non-Muslims, but also to the minority sects of
Islam. Perhaps in no country outside Iran, where Shiaism is the state religion, has
Shia genius had such an opportunity for making a contribution in the realm of
literature, administration, and statecraft. This has been possible because of the
normal prevalence of an attitude of toleration. This forbearance, subject to the deep
attachment to Islam, was extended to European civilization as well.

For understanding the Muslim approach to the problems of the subcontinent it

is worth remembering that though revivalist thinkers, like Hazrat Mujaddid Alif Sani
in Mughal times and Iqbal in the twentieth century, have exercised a powerful
influence, the religious teacher with the greatest following and influence has been
Shah Waliullah, perhaps the most catholic and broadminded of religious reformers
of the modern Muslim world. A position similar to that of Shah Waliullah in the
religious sphere has been occupied by Ghalib in recent times in the literary field. He
has been universally popular with Hindus and Muslims, and his poetry reflects a
personality of broad sympathies, deep humanity, and liberal views. Amir Khusrau
who laid the foundation of the Indo-Muslim cultural tradition in the pre-Mughal
period had the same characteristics. In their writings and in the lives of those whom
they influenced, may be found the true spirit of Islamic India during the period
which has been covered in this book.