No More Learning

186 (#228) ############################################

186
(cu.
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
metal was assayed, approached the goldsmiths whose duty it would
be to conduct the experiment in the king's presence, and desired
them secretly to cast into the crucible sufficient silver to bring the
molten metal to the standard of purity. They objected that in
accordance with the ordinary precautions on such occasions they
would be so denuded of clothing that they would be unable to
secrete any silver on their persons, but offered to do what was
required if the silver could be placed within their reach. Kajar
Shāh accordingly arranged that the necessary quantity of silver
should be concealed in one of the pieces of charcoal used for heating
the crucible, and the goldsmiths succeeded in conveying it into the
vessel without being observed, so that the king was hoodwinked
and the metal when assayed, was found to be of the standard
purity. Kajar Shāh's presumed innocence was publicly recognised
by his being carried through the city on one of the royal elephants,
and the two informers were banished, but both the investigations
and the public justification of the mintmaster were mere sops to
public opinion, for Kajar Shāh was shortly afterwards dismissed.
The comments of the contemporary historian are even more in-
teresting, as an example of the view which an educated and intelligent
man could then take of such an affair, than his simple record of the
facts. He can
He can see nothing wrong in the concealment of a crime, in
the punishment of the innocent and the vindication of the guilty,
or in the deception practised on the simple Firūz, but commends
Maqbul Khānjahān for having dexteriously averted a public scandal
The same historian, who has nothing but approval for whatever
was established or permitted in the reign of Firüz, applauds another
serious abuse. Of the irregular troops some received their salaries
in cash from the treasury but those stationed at a distance from the
capital were paid by transferable assignments on the revenue. A
class of brokers made it their business to buy these drafts in the
capital at one-third of their nominal value and to sell them to the
soldiers in the districts at one-half. Shams-i-Sirāj 'Afif has no word
of andemnation for the fraud perpetrated on the unfortunate soldier,
and nothing but commendation for a system which enabled so many
knaves to enrich themselves without labour.
Some of the measures introduced by Firüz for the welfare of
his subjects may be described as grandmotherly legislation. One
of them was a marriage bureau and another an employment bureau.
The marriage of girls who have reached marriageable age is regarded
in India, with some reason, as a religious duty, and Firūz charged
himself with the task of seeing that no girl of his own faith remained
a


## p. 187 (#229) ############################################

VII]
THE PILLARS OF ASOKA
187
unmarried for want of a dowry. His agency worked chiefly among
the middle class and the widows and orphans of public servants,
and was most efficient. The employment agency, unlike those of
our day, was concerned chiefly with those who desired clerical and
administrative employment, for at this time the extension of cul.
tivation and the construction of public works provided ample
employment for labourers and handicraftsmen. It was the duty
of the kotwal of Delhi to seek those who were without employment
and to produce them at court. Here Firūz personally made inquiry
into their circumstances and qualifications, and after consulting, as
far as possible, their inclination, provided them with employment.
Whether there was any demand for their services lay beyond the
scope of the inquiry, for the business was conducted on charitable
rather than on economic principles and probably provided sinecures
for many a young idler.
The interest of Firūz in public works was not purely utilitarian,
and he is remembered for two feats of engineering which appear
to indicate an interest in archaeology, but may be more justly at-
tributed to vanity. These were the removal to Delhi, from the sites
on which they had been erected by Asoka, of two great inscribed
monoliths. The first, known as the Mināra-yi-Zarin, or golden
pillars, was transferred from a village near Khizrābād, on the upper
Jumna, to Delhi, where it was re-erected near the palace and great
mosque at Firūzābād, and the second was transported from Meerut
and set up on a mound near the Kushk-i-Shikār, or hunting palace,
near Delhi. The curious may find, in the pages of Shams-i-Sirāj
'Afif, an elaborate and detailed description of the ingenious manner
in which these two great pillars were removed and erected in their
new positions. The difficult feat elicited the admiration of the
Amir Tīmūr when he invaded India, and the pillars, which are still
standing, attracted the attention, in 1615, of 'the famous unwearied
walker,' Tom Coryate, who erroneously supposed the Sanskrit and
Prākrit inscriptions of Asok a to be Greek, and referred them to the
time of Alexander the Great.
The harsher side of Fīrūz Shāh's piety was displayed in the per-
secution of heretics, sectaries, and Hindus. His decree abolishing
capital punishment applied only to those of his own faith, for he
burnt to death a Brāhman accused of trying to propagate his
religion, and the ruthless massacres with which he avenged the
murder of the three Sayyids in Budaun prove his benevolence
to have been strictly limited. In general it seems to have been
due to weakness of character and love of ease, but he could


## p. 188 (#230) ############################################

188
| CH.
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
be firm when a question of principle arose. In the course of years
Brāhmans had acquired, probably by the influence of Hindu officials,
exemption from the jizya, or poll-tax, leviable by the Islamic law
from all non-Muslims, and Firūz was resolved to terminate an ano.
maly which exempted the leaders of dissent from a tax on dissent,
but the exemption had acquired the character of a prescriptive
right, and his decision raised a storm of discontent. The Brāhmans
surrounded his palace and loudly protested against the invasion of
their ancient privilege, threatening to burn themselves alive, and
thus to call down upon him, according to their belief, the wrath of
heaven. 1 Firūz replied that they might burn themselves as soon as
they pleased, and the sooner the better, but they shrank from the
ordeal, and attempted to work on his superstitious fears by sitting
without food at his palace gates. He still remained obdurate, but
they had better success with the members of their own faith, and it
was ultimately arranged that the tax leviable from the Brāhmans
should be borne, in addition to their own burden, by the lower
castes of the Hindus.
The reign of Firūz closes the most brilliant epoch of Muslim
rule in India before the reign of Akbar. ‘Alā-ud-din Khalji, who,
though differing much from Akbar in most respects, resembled him
in desiring to establish a religion of his own devising, had not only
extended the empire over almost the whole of India, but had
welded the loose confederacy of fiefs which had owned allegiance
to the Slave Kings into a homogeneous state. The disorders which
followed his death failed to shake seriously the great fabric which
he had erected, and the energy of Tughluq and, at first, of his son
Muhammad gave it solidity. The latter prince possessed qualities
which might have made him the greatest of the rulers of Delhi had
they not been marred by a disordered imagination. The loss of the
Deccan and Bengal, occasioned by his tyranny, was not an unmixed
evil. The difficulty of governing the former, owing to its distance
from the centre of administration, had been acknowledged by the
1This is an extreme example of the practice of dharna, so common at one time in
India that it was found necessary to make it an offence under the Penal Code. The
aggrieved person sits at the door of his enemy and threatens to. starve himself to
death, in the belief, common to both, that his enemy will be held responsible for
his death and thus become the object of divine wrath. By the Brāhmanical law
the slaying of a Brāhman involves an infinitely greater degree of guilt than any
other crime, and it is difficult to persuade a Brāhman that his person is not more
sacred than that of other men. Lord Macaulay's description, in his essay
Warren Hastings, of the scene at the execution of Nanda Kumār is, like much
else in his historical writings, pure fiction, but it was certainly only by slow de-
grees that Hindus learned the principles of a law which is the same for the Brāh.
man as for the outcaste.
a
on


## p. 189 (#231) ############################################

189
VII).
TUGHLUQ II
ill-considered attempt to transfer the capital to Daulatābād, and
the allegiance of the latter had seldom been spontaneous and had
depended chiefly on the personality of the reigning sovereign of
Delhi, an uncertain quantity. What remained of the kingdom was
more than sufficient to engross the attention of a ruler of ordinary
abilities, and Firūz had, in spite of two great defects of character,
succeeded in improving the administration and in alleviating the
lot and winning the affection of his subjects. Military capacity and
diligence in matters of detail are qualities indispensable to an
oriental despot, and Fīrūz lacked both. After two unsuccessful
expeditions into Bengal he was ſain to recognise the independence
of that country, and his rashness twice imperilled the existence of
his army. His easy tolerance of abuses would have completely
destroyed the efficiency of that mainstay of absolute power, had it
not been counteracted by the vigilance and energy of his officers,
who were carefully selected and entirely trusted by him. His judge-
ment of character was, indeed, the principal counterpoise to his
imaptience of the disagreeable details of government, and the
personal popularity which he enjoyed as the kindly and genial
successor of a capricious tyrant secured the fidelity of his trusted
officers, but his extensive delegation of authority to them under-
mined the power of the crown. No policy, however well devised,
could have sustained this power under the feeble rule of his
successors and the terrible blow dealt at the kingdom within ten
years of his death, but his system of decentralisation would have
embarrassed the ablest successors, and undoubtedly accelerated
the downfall of his dynasty.
Firüz was succeeded at Delhi by his grandson, who took the
title of Ghiyās-ud-din Tughluq Shāh II, while his uncle, Nāsir-ud-din
Muhammad, in his retreat in the Sirmūr hills, prepared to assert
his claim to the throne. Tughluq sent against him an army under
the command of Malik Firūz 'Ali, whom he had made minister with
the title of Khānjahān, and Bahādur Nāhir, a Rājput chieftain of
Mewāt who had accepted Islām and now became a prominent figure
on the political stage. Muhammad retired to a chosen position in
the hills, but was defeated and fled to Kāngra, and Khānjahān, who
shrank from attacking the fortress, returned to Delhi, satisfied with
his partial success.
Tughluq, thus temporarily relieved of anxiety, plunged into
dissipation and sought to secure his tenure of the throne by re-
moving possible competitors. By imprisoning his brother, Sālār
Shāh, he so alarmed his cousin Abu Bakr that that prince was
1


## p. 190 (#232) ############################################

190
[ CH.
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
constrained, in self-defence, to become a conspirator. He found
a willing supporter in the ambitious Rukn-ud-din, Khānjahān's
deputy, who had much influence with the household troops. Their
defection transferred the royal power from Tughluq to Abu Bakr
and Tughluq and Khānjahān fled from the palace by a door opening
towards the Jumna. They were overtaken and slain by a body of
the household troops led by Rukn-ud-din, and on February 19, 1389,
the nobles at Delhi acclaimed Abu Bakr Shāh as their king. The
appointment of Rukn-ud-din as minister followed as a matter of
course, but he was almost immediately detected in a conspiracy
to usurp the throne, and was put to death. This prompt action
established for a time Abu Bakr's authority at Delhi, but a serious
rebellion broke out in the province immediately to the north of
the capital. The centurions of Sāmāna rose against their governor,
Khushdil, a loyal adherent of Abu Bakr, put him to death at Sunām,
and sent his head to Nāsir-ud-din Muhammad, whom they invited
to make another attempt to gain the throne. Muhammad marched
from Kāngra to Sāmāna, where he was proclaimed king on April 24,
1389. He continued his march towards Delhi, and before reaching
the neighbourhood of the city received such accessions of strength
as to find himself at the head of 50,000 horse, and he was able to
take up his quarters in the Jahānnumā palace in the old city. On
April 29 some fighting took place at Firūzābād between the troops
of the rival kings, but the arrival of Bahādur Nāhir from Mewāt
so strengthened Abu Bakr that on the following day he marched
out to meet his uncle and inflicted on him so crushing a defeat that
he was glad escape across the Jumna into the Doāb with no
more than 2000 horse. He retired to Jalesar; which he made his
headquarters, and sent his second son, Humāyūn Khān, to Sāmāna
to rally the fugitives and raise fresh recruits. At Jalesar he was
joined by many discontented nobles, including Malik Sarvar, lately
chief of the police at Delhi, whom he made his minister, with the
title of Khvāja Jahān, and Nasir-ul-Mulk, who received the title
of Khizr Khān, by which he was afterwards to be known as the
founder of the Sayyid dynasty. Muhammad was thus enabled, by
July, again to take the field with 50,000 horse, and marched on
Delhi, but was defeated at the village of Khondli and compelled to
retire to Jalesar. Notwithstanding this second blow his authority
was acknowledged in Multān, Lahore, Sāmāna, Hissār, Hānsi and
other districts to the north of Delhi, and was confirmed by execu-
tions of those disaffected to him, but the general effect of the
prolonged struggle for the throne was temporary eclipse of the


## p. 191 (#233) ############################################

VII ]
NĀSIR-UD-DIN MUHAMMAD
191
>
power and authority of the dominant race. Hindus ceased to pay
the poll-tax and in many of the larger cities of the kingdom menaced
Muslim supremacy. In January, 1390, Humāyūn Khān advanced
ſrom Sāmāna to Pānīpat and plundered the country as far as the
walls of Delhi, but was defeated and driven back to Sāmāna. Abu
Bakr had hitherto been detained in Delhi by the fear that his
enemies in the city would admit Humāyūn in his absence, but this
success encouraged him to attack Muhammad in his stronghold,
and in April he left Delhi. As he approached Jalesar Muhammad,
with 4000 horse, eluded him, reached Delhi by forced marches, and
occupied the palace. Abu Bakr at once retraced his steps, and as he
entered the city Muhammad fled and returned to Jalesar. Abu
Bakr's success was, however, illusory and transient ; his authority
was confined to the capital and the district of Mewāt, where
Bahādur Nāhir supported his cause, and even at Delhi his rival had
many partisans. In August Islām Khān, a courtier who had
a
great influence in the army, opened communications with
Muhammad and placed himself at the head of his adherents in
Delhi. The discovery of the conspiracy so alarmed Abu Bakr that he
retired with his partisans to Mewāt, and Muhammad, on August 31,
entered the capital and was enthroned in the palace of Fīrūzābād.
He ordered the expulsion from Delhi of all the household troops
of Fīrūz Shāh, whose share in the late revolutions had proved them
to be a danger to the State. Most of these troops joined Abu Bakr
in Mewāt and those who claimed the right, as natives of Delhi, of
remaining in the city were required to pronounce the shibb leth
khārā (“brackish'). Those who pronounced it khāri, after the manner
of the inhabitants of eastern Hindūstan and Bengal were adjudged
to be royal slaves imported from those regions, and were put to
death.
The nobles from the provinces now assembled at Delhi and
acknowledged Muhammad as king, and Humāyūn Khān was sent
into Mewāt to crush Abu Bakr and his faction. The army arrived
before Bahādur Nāhir’s stronghold in December 1390, and, being
fiercely attacked by the enemy, suffered considerable loss, but
eventually drove Bahādur Nāhir into the fortresz. Muhammad
himself arrived with reinforcements and Abu Bakr and Bahādur
Nāhir were compelled to surrender. The latter was pardoned, but
Abu Bakr was sent as a prisoner to Meerut, where he soon after.
wards died. Muhammad, on his return to Delhi, learnt that Farhat-
ul-Mulk, who had been left undisturbed in Gujarāt after his victory
over Sikandar Khān, refused to recognise his authority and sent to


## p. 192 (#234) ############################################

192
[CH.
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
>
Gujarāt as governor Zafar Khān, son of Wajih-ul-Mulk, a convert-
ed Rajput.
In 1392 the Hindus of Etāwah, led by Nar Singh, Sarvadhāran
the Rāhtor, and Bir Bhan, chief of Bhansor, rose in rebellion, and
Islām Khān was sent against them, defeated them, and carried
Nar Singh to Delhi; but as soon as his back was turned the
rebellion broke out afresh and Sarvadhāran attacked the town of
Talgrām? . Muhammad now marched in person against the rebels,
who shut themselves up in Etāwa, and when hard pressed escaped
from the town by night and fled. The king dismantled the fortifi.
cations of Etāwah and marched to Kanauj and Dalmau, where
he punished many who had participated in the rebellion, and
thence to Jalesar, where he built a new fortress, which he named
Muhammadābād.
In June, while he was still at Jalesar, the eunuch Malik Sarvar,
Khvāja Jahān, who had been left as regent at Delhi, reported that
Islām Khān, who had been appointed minister, was about to leave
Delhi for Lahore, in order to head a rebellion in the Punjab. Mu-
hammad hastily returned and taxed Islām Khān with harbouring
treasonable designs. He protested his innocence, but the faithless-
ness of his conduct towards Abu Bakr was fresh in the memory of
all, his nephew appeared as a witness against him, and he was put
to death.
In 1393 the Rājputs of Etāwah again rebelled, but the governor
of Jalesar enticed their leaders, by fair words, into Kanauj, and there
treacherously slew all except Sarvadhāran, who escaped and took
refuge in Etāwah. In August of the same year the king marched
through the rebellious district of Mewāt, laying it waste, and on
reaching Jalesar fell sick, but was unable to enjoy the repose which
he needed, for Bahādur Nahir again took the field and Muhammad
was compelled to march against him, and defeated him. From
Jalesar he wrote to his son, Humāyūn Khān, directing him to
march into the Punjab and quell the rebellion of Shaikhā the
Khokar. The prince was preparing to leave Delhi when he heard
of the death of his father at Jalesar on January 20, 1394, and on
January 22 he ascended the throne at Delhi under the title of 'Alā.
ud-din Sikandar Shāh. His reign was brief, for he fell sick almost
immediately after his accession and died on March 8.
1 Bilgrām is another reading, but it is far more probable that Talgrām in the
Doāb was the town attacked, for the Hindus were attempting to establish themselves
in the Doāb, and it is difficult to see why they should have crossed the Ganges and
attacked Bilgrām.


## p. 192 (#235) ############################################

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. Itt
Map 4

68
72
78
#4
es
35
Parashi
Jbelum
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-. -.
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BENGAL
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3950 180 200
English Miles
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80
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88


## p. 192 (#236) ############################################

.
1


## p. 193 (#237) ############################################

VII)
NÀSIR-UD-DİN MAHMOD
193
So little respect did the royal house now command that the
provincial governors, who had assembled their troops at Delhi for
the expedition to Lahore, would have left the capital without
waiting for the enthronement of a new king, had not Malik Sarvar
induced them to enthrone, under the title of Nāsir-ud-din Mahmūd,
Humāyūn's brother, the youngest son of Muhammad.
The kingdom was now in a deplorable condition. The obedience
of the great nobles was regulated entirely by their caprice or
interest, and they used or abused the royal authority as occasion
served. In the eastern provinces the Hindus, who had for some
years past been in rebellion, threw off all semblance of obedience,
and the eunuch Malik Sarvar persuaded or compelled Mahmūd to
bestow upon him the lofty title of Sultân-ush-Sharq, or King of
the East, and to commit to him the duty of crushing the rebellion
and restoring order. He left Delhi in May, 1394, punished the
rebels, and after reducing to obedience the districts of Koil, Etāwah,
and Kanauj, occupied Jaunpur, where he established himself as an
independent ruler. The day on which he left Delhi may be assigned
as the date of the foundation of the dynasty of the Kings of the
East, or of Jaunpur.
Meanwhile Sārang Khān, who had been appointed on Mahmūd's
accession to the fief of Dipālpūr, was sent to restore order in the
north-western provinces. In September, 1394, having assembled
the army of Multān as well as his own contingent, he marched
towards Lahore, which was held by Shaikhā the Khokar. Shaikhā
carried the war into the enemy's country by advancing into the
Dipālpūr district and forming the siege of Ajūdhan (Pāk Pattan)
but, finding that this counterstroke failed to arrest Sārang Khān's
advance, hastily retraced his steps and attacked Sārang Khān before
he could reach Lahore. He was defeated, and fled into the Salt
Range, and Sārang Khān appointed his own brother, Malik Kandhū,
governor of Lahore, with the title of Ādil Khān.
During the course of these events the king visited Gwalior,
where Mallū Khān, a brother of Sārang Khān, plotted to overthrow
Sa'ādat Khān, a noble whose growing influence over the king's
feeble mind had excited the jealousy of the courtiers. The plot
was discovered and some of the leading conspirators were put to
death, but Mallu Khān fled to Delhi and took refuge with the
regent, Muqarrab Khān, who resented the ascendency of Sa'ādat
Khān and, on the king's return to the capital, closed the gates of
the city against him. For two months Delhi was in a state of siege
but in November Mahmūd, whose authority was disregarded by
C. H. I. III.
13


## p. 194 (#238) ############################################

194
( CH.
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
both parties, grew weary of his humiliating position at the gates of
his capital, and fled to the protection of Muqarrab Khān. Sa'ādat
Khān, enraged by his desertion, summoned from Mewāt Nusrat
Khān, a son of Fath Khān, the eldest son of Firūz, and proclaimed
him in Fīrūzābād under the title of Nāsir-ud-din Nusrat Shāh.
There were thus two titular kings, one at Delhi and the other at
Fīrūzābād, each a puppet in the hands of a powerful noble. Saʻādat
Khān's arrogance exasperated the old servants of Firūz who ad-
hered to Nusrat Shāh, and they expelled him from Fīrūzābād. He
fled, in his extremity, to Delhi, and humbled himself before his
enemy, Muqarrab Khān, who gave him an assurance of forgiveness,
but a few days later treacherously caused him to be put to death.
The various cities which had at different times been the capital
of the kingdom were now held by the factions of one puppet or the
other. Muqarrab Khān and Mahmūd Shāh were in Delhi, Nusrat
Shāh and the old nobles and servants of Firūz in Firūzābād,
Bahādur Nāhir, whose allegiance had been temporarily secured by
Muqarrab Khān, was in Old Delhi, and Mallū, who owed his life to
Muqarrab Khān and had received from him the title of Iqbāl Khān,
was in Sirī, but neither Nāhir nor Mallū was a warm partisan, and
each was prepared to shape his conduct by the course of events.
For three years an indecisive but destructive strife was carried
on in the names of Mahmud and Nusrat, but the kingdom of the
former, who had been first in the field, was bounded by the walls
of Delhi, though Muqarrab Khān reckoned Old Delhi and Sirī as
appanages of this realm, while the upstart Nusrat Shāh claimed
the nominal allegiance of the districts of the Doāb, Sambhal, Pāni.
pat, Jhajjar, and Rohtak. The great provinces were independent.
In 1395-96 Sārang Khān of Dipālpūr quarrelled with Khizr Khan
the Sayyid, governor of Multān, expelled him from that city, and an-
nexed his fief. Emboldened by this success he marched, in June, 1397,
to Sāmāna, and there besieged the governor, Ghālib Khān, who fled
and joined Tātār Khān, Nusrat's minister, at Pānīpat. Nusrat Shāh
sent a small reinforcement to Tātār Khān, who on October 8 attacked
and defeated Sārang Khān and reinstated Ghālib Khān at Sāmāna.
At the close of this year a harbinger of the terrible Amir Tīmūr
appeared in India. Pir Muhammad, son of Jahāngir, the eldest son
of the great conqueror, crossed the Indus and besieged Uch, which
was held for Sārang Khān by 'Ali Malik. A force was sent to the
relief of Uch, but Pir Muhammad attacked it and drove it into
Multān, where Sārang Khān then was. In May, 1398, he was com-
pelled to surrender and Pir Muhammad occupied Multān.


## p. 195 (#239) ############################################

VII )
TIMŪR'S INVASION
195
In June, 1398, the deadlock at Delhi was brought to an end
by a series of acts of extraordinary perfidy and treachery, Mallū,
resenting the dominance of his benefactor, Muqarrab Khān, deserted
Mahmud and joined Nusrat, whom he conducted in triumph into
Jahānpanāh, after swearing allegiance to him on the Koran. Two
days later he suddenly attacked his new master and drove him to
Firūzābād and thence to Pānīpat, where he took refuge with Tātār
Khān. Although Nusrat had thus disappeared from the scene the
contest was maintained for two months by Mallū on the one hand
and Muqarrab Khān, with Mahmūd, on the other. At length Mallū
feigned a reconciliation with Muqarrab Khān, who entered Jahān.
panāh in triumph with Mahmūd Shāh while Mallü remained in
Siri. Almost immediately afterwards Mallū treacherously attacked
Muqarrab Khān in his house at Jahānpanāh, captured and slew
him, and, having gained possession of the person of Mahmūd Shāh
exercised the royal authority in his name.
There still remained Tātār Khān and Nusrat Shāh to be dealt
with, and in August Mallū, carrying Mahmūd with him, marched
to Pānīpat. Tātār Khān eluded him and marched to Delhi by
another road, but while engaged in a vain attempt to force an entry
into the capital learnt that Mallū had captured Pānīpat, taken all
his baggage and elephants, and was returning towards Delhi. Tātār
Khān fled and joined his father Zafar Khān, who had, two years
before this time, proclaimed his independence in Gujarāt, and was
now known as Muzaffar Shāh, and Nusrat Shāh found an asylum in
the Doāb.
This was the state of affairs at Delhi when, in October, 1398,
news was received that Tīmūr the Lame, 'Lord of the Fortunate
Conjunction,' Amir of Samarqand and conqueror of Persia, Afghāni-
stān, and Mesopotamia, had crossed the Indus, the Chenāb, and the
Ravī, taken Talamba, and occupied Multān, already held by his
grandson. Tīmūr seldom required either a pretext or a stimulus
for his depredations, but India supplied him with both. The pretext
was the toleration of idolatry by the Muslim rulers of Delhi and the
stimulus was the disintegration of the kingdom, unparalleled since
its earliest days. The invader's object was plunder, for if he ever
had any idea of the permanent conquest of India he certainly
abandoned it before he reached Delhi.
Tīmūr had left Samarqand in April, but had been delayed on
his way to India by an expedition in Kāfiristān, by the construction
of fortresses on the road which he followed, and by the business of
his vast empire. He left Kābul on August 15, crossed the Indus
13-2


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196
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
( CH.
on September 24, and two days later reached the Jhelum, where
he was delayed by the contumacy of a local ruler, Shihāb-ud-din
Mubārak, styling himself Shāh, who, having submitted to Pir-Mu-
hammad, had changed his policy when that prince appeared to be
in difficulties and ventured to oppose Tīmūr, who drove him from
his island fortress on the Jhelum. Mubārak and his whole family
perished in the river and Tīmūr crossed the Jhelum and the Rāvi
and on October 13 encamped before Talamba. He agreed to spare
the ancient town in consideration of a ransom, but differences
regarding its assessment or undue harshness in levying it provoked
resistance and furnished him with a pretext for a massacre.
His advance was delayed by the necessity for disposing of Jasrat,
brother of Shaikhā the Khokar, who had re-established himself in
Lahore when Sārang Khān was overcome by Pir Muhammad.
Jasrat had entrenched himself in a village near the north bank of the
Sutlej and menaced the invader's communications. His stronghold
was taken and he fled, and on October 25 Tīmūr reached the
northern bank of the Sutlej, where he met his baggage train and
the ladies of his harem. On the following day he was joined by
Pir Muhammad, whose movements had been retarded by an epi-
zootic disease which destroyed most of the horses of his army. Tīmūr's
resources, replenished by plunder, enabled him to supply 30,000
remounts for his grandson's troops and Pir Muhammad accompanied
him and commanded the right wing of his army during the rest of
the Indian campaign.
The camp was situated on the Sutlej about midway between
Ajūdhan (Pāk Pattan) and Dipālpūr, both of which towns had
incurred Tīmūr's resentment by rising against Pir Muhammad.
He marched to Pāk Pattan, where he visited the tomb of Shaikh
Farid-ud-din Ganj-i-Shakar, dispatched his harem and heavy bag-
gage by way of Dipālpūr to Sāmāna, started from Pāk Pattan on
November 6, and by the morning of the following day arrived,
after a march of eighty miles, at Bhatnair, where the fugitives
from Dipālpūr and Pāk Pattan had taken refuge. The ruler of
Bhatnair was a Bhāti Rājput named Dul Chand, but his tribe was
already undergoing the process of conversion to Islām, and his
brother bore the Muslim name of Kamāl-ud-din. The city was
captured, with great loss to the Hindus, and on November 9 Dul
Chand, who had shut himself up in the citadel, surrendered. The
refugees were collected and 500 of the citizens of Dīpālpūr were
put to death to avenge their slaughter of Pir Muhammad's garrison
in that town. The citizens of Pāk Pattan were flogged, plundered,


## p. 197 (#241) ############################################

VII )
ADVANCE OF THE INVADER
197
and enslaved. The assessment and collection of the ransom of
Bhatnair again provoked resistance on the part of the inhabitants,
and after a general massacre the city was burnt and laid waste, ‘so
that one would have said that no living being had ever drawn breath
in that neighbourhood. '
On November 13 Tīmūr left this scene of desolation, already
offensive from the putrefying bodies of the dead, and marched
through Sirsa and Fathābad, pursuing and slaughtering the in-
habitants, who fled before him. Aharwān was plundered and burnt,
at Tohāna about 2000 Jāts were slain, and on November 21 Tīmūr
reached the bank of the Ghaggar, near Sāmāna, where he halted for
four days to allow his heavy baggage to come up. On November 25,
near the bridge of Kotla, he was joined by the left wing of his army,
which had marched from Kābul by a more northerly route and had
captured and plundered every fortress which it had passed.
On
November 29 the whole army was assembled at Kaithal and on
December 2 Tīmūr marched through a desolate country, whence
the inhabitants had fled to Delhi, to Pānīpat. On December 7 the
right wing of the army reached Jahānnumā, north of Delhi and
near the northern extremity of the famous Ridge, overlooking the
Jumna. On December 9 the army crossed the river and on the
following day captured Lonī, the Hindu inhabitants of which were
put to death. The fortress, which was surrounded by good pasture
land, was made the headquarters of the army.
The invader's rapid and davastating advance struck terror and
dismay into the hearts of Mahmud Shāh and Mallū, for the limits
and resources of what remained to them of the kingdom were so re-
stricted that no adequate preparations for resistance were possible,
but such troops as remained were collected within the walls of the
city which was also crowded with the host of fugitives who had
fled before Tīmūr's advance. On December 12, as Tīmūr, who had
led a reconnaissance in force across the river, was returning to Lonī,
Mallu attacked his rearguard. Two divisions were promptly sent to
its assistance, Mallū was defeated and driven back into Delhi, and
the only fruit of his enterprise was a terrible massacre. Tīmūr had
collected in his camp about 100,000 adult male Hindu captives, and
when Mallù delivered his attack these poor wretches could not
entirely conceal their joy at the prospect of a rescue. The demonst-
ration was fatal to them, for Tīmūr became apprehensive of the
presence in his camp of so large a number of disaffected captives,
and caused them all: o be put to death.
On December 15 Tīmūr, disregarding both the warnings of his


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198
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
[CH.
astrologers and the misgivings of his troops, whose inexperience
was not proof against absurd fables of the terrors of the elephant in
battle, crossed the Jumna, and early on the morning of the 17th
drew up his army for the attack, while Mallū and Mahmūd led
their forces out of Delhi. The Indian army consisted of 10,000
horse, 40,000 foot, and 120 elephants, which are described as being
clad in armour, with their tusks armed with poisoned scimitars, and
bearing on their backs strong wooden structures occupied by javelin
and quoit throwers, crossbow-men, and throwers of combustibles.
The mention of poison is probably a figure of speech, for poisoned
weapons were not a feature of Indian warfare.
The fighting line of the invading army entrenched itself with a
ditch and screens of thatch, before which buffaloes were hobbled
and bound together to break the onslaught of the elephants, and
the infantry carried calthrops. The Indian attack on the advanced
guard and right wing was vigorously met and failed utterly when
it was taken in rear by a detached force which circled round its
left flank; while the attack of Tīmūr's left on the Indian right,
after repulsing a few ineffectual counter-attacks, was entirely suc-
cessful, and the Indian army broke and fled. The dreaded elephants
were driven off, according to Tīmūr's memoirs, like cows. Mallu
and Mahmud reached the city and that night fled from it, the
former to Baran and the latter to Gujarāt, where he sought the
hospitality of Muzaffar Shāh. They were pursued, and two of
Mallū’s sons, Saif Khān and Khudādād, were captured, besides
many other prisoners and much spoil.
On the following day Tīmūr entered the city and held at the
'Idgāh a court which was attended by the principal citizens, who
obtained, by the mediation of the Sayyids and ecclesiastics, an
amnesty which proved, as usual, to be illusory. Within the next
few days the licence of the soldiery, the rigour of the search for fugi-
tives from other towns, who had not been included in the amnesty,
and the assessment of the ransom led to disturbances, and the
people rose against the foreigners and in many instances performed
the rite of jauhar. The troops, thus freed from all restraint, sacked
the city, and the work of bloodshed and rapine continued for several
days until so many captives had been taken that, in the words of
the chronicler, 'there was none so humble but he had at least
twenty slaves. ' Pillars were raised of the skulls of the slaughtered
Hindus, and their bodies were given as food to the birds and the
beasts and their souls sent to the depths of hell. ' The artisans
among the captives were sent to the various provinces of Tīmūr's


## p. 199 (#243) ############################################

VII ]
THE CAPTURE OF DELHI
199
empire, and those who were stonemasons to Samarqand for the
construction of the great Friday mosque which he designed to raise
in his capital.
We are indebted to Tīmūr for an interesting description of
Delhi as he found it. 'Alā-ud-din's palace-fortress of Siri, some
‘-
traces of which are still to be found to the east of the road from
modern Delhi to the Qutb Minār, was enclosed by a wall, and to
the south-west of this, and also surrounded by a wall, stood the
larger city of old Delhi, that is to say the town and fortress of
Prithvi Rāj, which had been the residential capital of the Muslim
kings until Kaiqubad built and Firūz Khalji occupied Kilokhri.
The walls of those two towns were connected by parallel walls,
begun by Muhammad Tughluq and finished by his successor, the
space between which was known as Jahānpanāh, 'the Refuge of
the World,' and the three towns had, in all, thirty gates towards
the open country. Fīrūzābād, the new city on the Jumna built by
Fīrūz Tughluq, lay some five miles to the north of Jahānpanāh.
The three towns of Sirī, Old Delhi, and Jahānpanāh were laid
waste by Tīmūr, who occupied them for fifteen days and on January
1, 1399, marched through Fīrūzābād, where he halted for an hour
or two, to Vazīrābād, where he crossed the Jumna. On this day
Bahādur Nāhir of Mewāt arrived in his camp with valuable gifts
and made his submission. At Delhi Tīmūr had already secured
the adhesion of a more important personage, Khizr Khān the
Sayyid, who had been living since his expulsion from Multān under
the protection of Shams Khān Auhadi at Bayāna, and, having
joined Tīmūr, accompanied his camp as far as the borders of
Kashmir.
Meerut refused to surrender to the invader but was taken by
storm on January 9, the Hindu citizens being massacred ; a detach-
ment plundered and destroyed the towns and villages on the
eastern bank of the Jumna, and Tīmūr himself marched to the
Ganges. After a battle on that river on January 12, in which he
captured and destroyed forty-eight great boat-loads of Hindus, he
crossed the river near Tughluqpur on January 13, defeated an army
of 10,000 horse and foot under Mubarak Khān, and on the same day
attacked and plundered two Hindu forces in the neighbourhood of
Hardwār. The course which he followed lay through the Siwālik,
the outermost and lowest range of the Himalaya, and his progress
was marked by the almost daily slaughter of large bodies of Hindus
who, though they assembled in arms to oppose him, were never
able to withstand the onslaught of the Mughul horse and, as they fled,


## p. 200 (#244) ############################################

200
( CH.
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
were slaughtered like sheep. On January 16 he captured Kāngra,
and between January 24 and February 23, when he reached the
neighbourhood of Jammū he fought twenty pitched battles and
took seven fortresses. Continuing his career of plunder and rapine
towards Jammū he arrived before that city on February 26, and
sacked it on the following day. Both Jammu and the neighbouring
village of Bāo were deserted, and he was disappointed of human
victims, but an ambuscade which he left behind him to surprise the
Hindus when they should attempt to return to their homes inter-
cepted and slew large numbers and captured the raja, who was
carried before Timūr and saved his life by accepting Islām and
swearing allegiance to the conqueror.
Shaikha the Khokar had sworn allegiance to Timūr after the
defeat of his brother Jusrat, but had broken his promise to join
the invading army, had given it no assistance, and had insolently
ignored the presence in Lahore of Hindū Shāh', Timur's treasurer,
who had come from Samarqand to join him in India. An expedition
was sent to Lahore, the city was captured and held to ransom, and
Shaikhā was led before Tīmūr, who put him to death.
On March 6 Tīmūr held a court for the purpose of bidding
farewell to the princes and officers of the army before dismissing
them to their provinces, and on this occasion appointed Khizr
Khān the Sayyid to the government of Multān, from which he
had been expelled by Sārang Khān, Lahore, and Dipālpūr. Some
historians add that he nominated him as his viceroy in Delhi, but
this addition was probably suggested by subsequent events.
On March 19 Tīmūr recrossed the Indus, and two days later
leſt Bannū, after inflicting on India more misery than had ever
before been inflicted by any conqueror in a single invasion.
Mahmūd's tale of slaughter from first to last probably exceeded
his, but in no single incursion did he approach Timūr's terrible
record.
After his departure the whole of northern India was in indes-
cribable disorder and confusion. Delhi, in ruins and almost depopu-
lated, was without a master, and the miserable remnant of the
inhabitants was afflicted with new calamities, in the form of famine
and pestilence. Famine was the natural consequence of the whole-
sale destruction of stores of gain and standing crops by the invading
army, and the pestilence probably had its origin in the pollution of
the air and water-supply of the city by the putrefying corpses of
the thousands of victims of the invader's wrath. So complete was
1 Hindū Shāh was an ancestor of the historian Firishta.
a


## p. 201 (#245) ############################################

VII]
DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM
201
the desolation that 'the city was utterly ruined, and those of the
inhabitants who were left died, while for two whole months not
a bird moved wing in Delhi. ' The kingdom was completely dis-
solved. It had been stripped of some of the fairest of its eastern
provinces by the eunuch Khvāja Jahān, who ruled an independent
kingdom from Jaunpur ; Bengal had long been independent ; Mu-
zaffar Shāh in Gujarāt owned no master ; Dilāvar Khān in Mālwa
forbore to use the royal title, but wielded royal authority ; the
Punjab and Upper Sind were governed by Khizr Khān as Tīmūr's
viceroy; Sāmāna was in the hands of Ghālib Khān and Bayāna in
those of Shams Khān Auhadi; and Kālpi and Mahoba formed a
small principality under Muhammad Khān. Mallū remained for
the present at Baran, but Nusrat Shāh, the pretender whom he had
driven from Delhi and who had since been lurking in the Doāb,
again raised his head, and with the assistance of 'Adil Khān became
for a space lord of the desolate capital. Mallū's influence with the
Hindus of the Doāb enabled him to defeat a force sent against him
from Delhi, and by the capture of its elephants and material of war
he obtained such superiority over Nusrat Shāh that he expelled
him from Delhi and forced him to take refuge in Mewāt, his old
home, where he soon afterwards died. In 1399 Mallū defeated
Shams Khān Auhadi of Bayāna, who had invaded territory con-
sidered to belong to Delhi, led an expedition into Katehr, and
compelled the turbulent Hindus of Etāwah to pay him tribute, but
failed to convince them of his supremacy and was obliged, in the
winter of 1407—01, to take the field against them. He defeated
them near Patiālī and marched on to Kanauj with the object of
invading the kingdom of Jaunpur, where Malik Qaranful had suc-
ceeded his adoptive father, the eunuch Khvāja Jahān, under the
title of Mubārak Shāh. On reaching Kanauj he found Mubārak
encamped on the opposite bank of the Ganges, but for two months
neither army ventured to attack the other and a peace was con-
cluded. He had been accompanied on this expedition by Shams Khān
Auhadi and Mubārak Khān, son of Bahādur Nāhir, but he regarded
both with suspicion, and during his retreat from Kanauj took the
opportunity of putting them to death,
In 1401, after his return to Delhi, Mallu perceived that the
prestige of the fugitive Mahmūd Shāh would be useful to him, and
persuaded him to return to the capital. The wanderer's experiences
had been bitterly humiliating. Muzaffar Shāh of Gujarāt would
not compromise his newborn independence by receiving him as
king of Delhi, and was at no pains to conceal from him that his
>


## p. 202 (#246) ############################################

202
[CH.
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
presence was distasteful until, aſter repeated slights, he retired to
Mālwa, where Dilāwar Khān Ghūrī, mindful of his obligations to
Mahmūd's father, received him with princely generosity and as-
signed to him a residence at Dhār. In this retreat he was probably
happier than in his gilded bonds at Delhi, but he could not refuse
the invitation to return, and Mallū, after receiving him with
every demonstration of respect interned him in one of the royal
palaces and continued to govern the remnant of the kingdom
with as little restraint as though Mahmūd had never returned from
Malwa.
In 1402 the death of Mubārak Shāh and the accession of Ibrāhīm
Shāh in Jaunpur appeared to Mallū to offer another opportunity
for the recovery of this territory, and he marched to Kanauj,
carrying Mahmūd with him, but again found the army of Jaunpur
confronting him on the opposite bank of the Ganges. Mahmūd,
chafing at his subjection to Mallū, fled from his camp by night and
took refuge with Ibrāhim Shāh, from whom he hoped for better
treatment, but he was so coldly received that he left Ibrāhim's
camp with a few followers who remained faithful to him, expelled
Ibrāhīm's governor from Kanauj, and made that city his resi-
dence. Here several old servants of his house assembled round
him, and Mallū, who was considerably weakened by his defection,
returned to Delhi, Ibrāhīm acquiesced in Mahmud's occupation of
Kanauj and returned to Jaunpur.
Latter in this year and again in the following year Mallu
attempted to recover Gwalior, which had been captured during
the confusion arising from Tīmūr's invasion by the Tonwār Rājput
Har Singh, and was now held by his son Bhairon, but although he
was able to defeat Bhairon in the field and to plunder the country
he could not capture the fortress, and was compelled to retire.
Bhairon harassed him by lending aid to the Rājputs of Etāwah,
and in 1 404 Mallū besieged that city for four months, but was fain
to retire on receiving a promise of an annual tribute of four
elephants, and marched to Kanauj, where he besieged Mahmud
Shāh. Here also he was baffled by the strength of the fortifications,
and returned to Delhi. In July, 1405, he marched against Bahrām
Khān, a turbulent noble of Turkish descent who had established
himself in Sāmāna. On his approach Bahrām fled towards the
Himālaya, and was pursued as far as Rūpar, where a pious Shaikh
composed the differences between the enemies and Bahrām joined
Mallū in an expedition against Khizr Khān. Their agreement was
of short duration, for on their march towards Pāk Pattan Mallū


## p. 203 (#247) ############################################

VII ]
DEATH OF MALLO
203
caused Bahrām to be flayed alive. As Mallū approached Khizr
Khān advanced from Dipālpur and on November 12 defeated and
slew him in the neighbourhood of Pāk Pattan.
On Mallū's death the direction of affairs at Delhi fell into the
hands of a body of nobles headed by Daulat Khān Lodi and
Ikhtiyar Khān, at whose invitation Mahmud Shāh returned, in
December, to the capital. Daulat Khān was appointed military
governor of the Doāb and Ikhtiyār Khān governor of Fīrūzābād.
In 1406 Mahmud sent Daulat Khān to reduce Sāmāna where,
since Bahrām's death, another of Firūz Shāh's Turkish slaves,
Bairam Khān by name, had established himself as Khizr Khān's
deputy, and himself marched to Kanauj with the intention of punish-
ing Ibrāhīm Shāh of Jaunpur for his contemptuous treatment of him
when he had fled to his camp from that of Mallū. Ibrāhīm again
marched to the Ganges and encamped opposite Kanauj, and after
some days of desultory fighting a peace was concluded, and each
monarch set out for his capital, but Ibrāhim immediately retraced
his steps and besieged Kanauj. Malik Mahmūd Tarmati, who com-
manded the fortress for Mahmud Shāh, held out for four months and
then, seeing no prospect of relief, surrendered, and Ibrāhīm, who
spent the rainy season at Kanauj, was joined by some discontented
nobles of the court at Delhi. This accession of strength encouraged
him, in October, 1407, to take the offensive against Mahmud Shāh,
and he marched to Sambhal, which was almost immediately surren-
dered to him by Asad Khān Lodī. Having placed Tātār Khān in
command of Sambhal he marched towards Delhi, and was on the
point of crossing the Jumna when he learnt that Muzaffar Shāh of
Gujarāt, having invaded Mālwa and captured Hüshang Shāh, who
had succeeded his father, Dilāvar Khān, in that country, intended
to pursue his career of conquest towards Jaunpur. He therefore
retreated towards his capital, leaving a garrison in Baran, but in
the summer of 1408 Mahmūd Shāh recovered both Baran and
Sambhal.
In the meantime Daulat Khān had, on December 22, 1406, driven
Bairam Khān from Sāmāna to Sirhind and had, after a short siege,
compelled him to surrender. He befriended and patronised his
defeated adversary and established himself at Sāmāna, but on the
approach of Khizr Khān fled into the Doāb, while most of his partisans
deserted to Khizr Khān. Besides Sāmāna Khizr Khān captured
and annexed Sirhind, Sunām, and Hissar, so that beyond the walls
of Delhi only the Doāb, Rohtak, and Sambhal remained subject to
Mahmud Shāh.


## p. 204 (#248) ############################################

204
(CH.
THE LATER TUGHLUQS
In 1408 Mahmūd recovered Hissar, but the temporary success
profited him little, for on January 28, 1409, Khizr Khān appeared
before the walls of Fīrūzābād and besieged the city, and at the same
time sent his lieutenant, Malik Tuhfa, to ravage the Doāb. The
country, wasted and impoverished by several years of famine, was no
longer capable of supporting an army, and Khizr Khān was therefore
compelled to retire, and in the following year was employed in recall-
ing to his allegiance Bairam Khān of Sirhind, who had again allied
himself to Daulat Khān; but in 1410 he reduced Rohtak after a siege
of six months, during which the mean-spirited Mahmūd made no
attempt to relieve the town, though it was within forty-five miles of
the capital. In the following year Khizr Khān marched to Nārnaul,
plundered that town and three others to the south of Delhi, and then,
turning north-wards, besieged Mahmud Shāh in Siri. Ikhtiyār Khān
prudently joined the stronger party, and surrendered Fīrūzābād to
Khizr Khān, who was thus enabled to cut off all supplies from
the direction of the Doāb, but Mahmūd was once more saved by
famine, for Khizr Khān was again compelled, by the failure of
supplies, to raise the siege and retire. In February, 1413, Mahmūd
died at Kaithal after a nominal reign of twenty years, during which
he had never wielded any authority and had more than once been
a fugitive from his capital, and with him died the line of Ghiyas-ud-
din Tughluq.
On his death the nobles transferred their allegiance to the strong.
est of their number, Daulat Khān Lodi, whose first act as ruler of
Delhi was to march into the Doāb and compel the Rājputs of
Etawāh and Mahabat Khān of Budaun to own him as their sover-
eign. His progress was checked by the discovery that Ibrāhim Shāh
of Jaunpur was besieging Qādir Khān, son of Mahmūd Khān, in
Kālpī, and in order to avoid an encounter with the superior forces of
Ibrāhim he returned to Delhi.
In December, 1413, Khizr Khān invaded Daulat Khān's territory
and, leaving a large force to besiege Rohtak, marched into Mewāt,
where he received the submission of Bahādur Nāhir's nephew, Jalāl
Khān. Thence he marched across the Doāb to Sambhal, plundered
that town, and in March, 1414, returned to Delhi with an army of
60,000 horse and besieged Daulat Khān in Siri. Daulat Khān held
out for four months, when some of his officers treacherously admitted
the besiegers, and he was forced to throw himself on his enemy's
mercy. On May 28 Khizr Khān entered Delhi as its sovereign and
founded a new dynasty, known as the Sayyids; and Daulat Khān
was imprisoned in Hissar,


## p. 205 (#249) ############################################

VII)
EXTINCTION OF THE DYNASTY
205
The empire of Muhammad Tughluq had included the whole
continent of India, with the exception of Kashmir, Cutch and a
part of Kāthīāwār, and Orissa. On the death of his grand-nephew
Mahmūd the extent of the kingdom was defined by the contem-
porary saying:
حکم خداور عالم از دهلی تا پالم
“The rule of the Lord of the World extends from Delhi to Pālam'-
a small town little more than nine miles south-west of the capital.
Independent kingdoms had been established in Bengal and the
Deccan before Muhammad's death, and the rebellion of the royal
officers in the south had enabled the Hindus to found the great
kingdom of Vijayanagar and had facilitated the establishment in
Telingāna of a Hindu state in subordinate alliance with the king-
dom of the Deccan, not with Delhi. During the reigns of the feeble
successors of Fīruz the province of Oudh and the country to the
east of the Ganges as far as the borders of Bengal were formed
into the independent kingdom of Jaunpur ; the great provinces of
Gujarāt and Mālwa and the smaller province of Khāndesh severed
their connexion with Delhi and became separate states ; a Hindu
principality was established in Gwalior and Muslim principalities
in Bayāna and Kālpi; the nominal allegiance of Mewāt was trans-
ferred from one prince to another at the caprice of the local chief-
tain ; the Hindus of the Doāb were almost continually in revolt
and the ruler of Delhi had to be content with the small contributions
which he could extort from them by armed force when he was not
otherwise engaged ; and the ruin of the state was completed by the
invasion of Tīmūr, who established in the Punjab a power which
eventually absorbed the kingdom of Delhi.


## p. 206 (#250) ############################################

CHAPTER VIII
THE SAYYID DYNASTY
The claim of Khizr Khān, who founded the dynasty known as
the Sayyids, to descent from the prophet of Arabia was dubious,
and rested chiefly on its causal recognition by the famous saint
Sayyid Jalāl-ud-dīn of Bukhārā. He assumed no title associated
with royalty, but was content with the position of viceroy of Shāh
Rukh, Tīmūr's fourth son and successor, to whom he is said to
have remitted tribute, and with the title of Rāyāt-i-Aʻlā, or 'the
Exalted Standards. ' His success reunited the Punjab to Delhi, but
the turbulent governors and fief-holders who had withheld their
allegiance from a lawful master hesitated at first to acknowledge
an upstart, until by degrees many of the old nobles of the late
dynasty submitted to him and were permitted to retain their
former offices and emoluments.
The Hindus of the Doāb and Katehr withheld payment of
tribute, and in the year of his accession Khizr Khān found it
necessary to send an army under Tāj-ul-Mulk to reduce to obedi.
ence Har Singh, the rebellious raja of Katehr. The raja fled into
the forests of Āonla, but a rigorous blockade compelled him to
submit and to give an undertaking to pay tribute in future.
Mahābat Khān, governor of Budaun, also made his submission, and
Táj-ul-Mulk recrossed the Ganges and compelled the fief-holders
and Hindu chieftains of the lower Doāb, among them Hasan of
Rāpril, Raja Sarwar of Etāwah, and the raja of Kampil, to own
allegiance to their new master. In Chandwar he restored Muslim
supremacy, which had been subverted by the Hindus, and returned
to Delhi with the tribute, or plunder, which he had collected in the
course of his expedition.
The chronicles of the Sayyid dynasty are chiefly a history of
expeditions of this nature. Khizr Khān was the most powerſul
ruler of a house the influence and dignity of which decayed with
an unvarying and unchecked rapidity seldom surpassed in the most
ephemeral of eastern dynasties, and even in his reign military
force was the normal means of collecting the revenue. Recalcitrants
were not treated as rebels, and the only punishment inflicted was
the exaction of the taxes due from them and of a promise, which
they usually violated on the first opportunity, to make regular
1 In 26° 58'N. and 78° 36'E. Then an important town.


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CH. VII)
SUPPRESSION OF REVOLTS
207
remittances in the future. Thus, in July, 1416, a most inconvenient
season for the collection of revenue, Tāj-ul-Mulk was sent to Bayāna
and Gwalior, not with a view to the reduction of these fortresses but
merely to recover, by plundering at random the unfortunate culti-
vators, the equivalent of the tribute which should have been paid.
With this, and with arrears of tribute which he collected from
Kampila and Patiāli, he returned to Delhi.
In 1415, Malik Sadhū Nādira had been sent to Sirhind as the
deputy of Khizr Khān's son Mubārak, on whom that district had
been bestowed, and in the following year the Turkish landholders,
kinsmen and dependants of Bairam Khān, the former governor,
rose under the leadership of Malik Tughān, put him to death, and
occupied the fortress. Zirak Khān was sent against them and
pursued them across the Sutlej and as far as the lower slopes of
the Himālaya, but did not venture to continue the pursuit into the
mountains, and returned to Delhi.
In the same year Khizr Khān himself took the field with the
object of chastising Ahmad I of Gujarāt who, by pursuing his
rebellious uncles to Nāgaur, which was nominally, at least, subject
to Delhi, had violated the fronties of the kingdom. Ahmad, on
learning of his approach, fled into Gujarāt, and Khizr Khān retired,
receiving on his homeward march tribute from Iliyās Khān, the
Muslim governor of Jhāin, the raja of Gwalior, and his own former
protector, Shams Khān Auhadi of Bayāna, whom he might well
have spared.
On his arrival at his capital he learnt that Tughān and his
followers had returned to Sirhind and were besieging Malik Kamāl
Badhan, who had been appointed deputy of Mubārak in the place
of the murdered Nādira. On this occasion Zīrak Khān was more
successful, for he overtook the fugitive Turks at Pāel, where Malik
Tughān submitted and surrendered his son as an hostage for his
good behaviour, for which subservience he was rewarded with the
fief of Jullundur.
Early in 1418 Har Singh of Katehr was again in revolt, and was
on this occasion brought to pay and suffered a complete defeat at
the hands of Tāj-ul-Mulk. He fled, and was pursued into the hills
of Kumāon, where Tāj-ul-Mulk, unable to seize the object of his
pursuit, contented himself with the ignoble but customary satisfac-
tion of plundering the people amongst whom the rebel had found
an asylum, and returned to the plains. From Katehr he marched to
Etāwah, and there besieged Raja Sarwar, who was again in rebel-
lion. Unable to reduce the fortress, he plundered the inhabitants


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208
CH.
.
THE SAYYID DYNASTY
of the district and returned to Delhi in May, but his devastating
progress, which had resembled rather the raid of a brigand chief
than an expedition for the permanent establishment of order, had
so exasperated the people of the region through which he had
passed that before the end of the year Khizr Khān found it neces-
sary to follow in the tracks of his lieutenant, and the record of his
progress exhibits both the frailty of the bond between him and his
subjects and the futility of the means which he employed for the
establishment of his authority. He was compelled to use force
against the people of Koil, within eighty miles of his capital, and
then, crossing the Ganges, laid waste the district of Sambhal. His
proceedings so alarmed Mahābat Khan of Budaun, who was in his
camp and was, perhaps, conscious of shortcomings in his adminis-
tration or apprehensive of the discovery of his traffickings with the
rebels, that he fled and shut himself up in Budaun, which Khizr
Khān besieged for six months without success. For the history of
this and the following reign the sole original authority is an
encomiast of the Sayyids, and it is impossible to fathom the under-
current of politics or to estimate the difficulties with which Khizr
Khān was confronted, but Mahābat Khān was an old noble of the
late dynasty, and there were in the royal camp several of his former
comrades who had formally submitted to the new order of things,
and in June, 1419, Khizr Khān discovered the existence among
them of a conspiracy to which Mahābat Khān was doubtless a party,
and, in order to separate his enemies, raised the siege and returned
towards Delhi. On June 14 he halted on the banks of the Ganges
and put the leading conspirators, Qavām-ul-Mulk and Ikhtiyār
Khān, to death.
In the following year he was reminded of his early misfortunes
by the appearance in Bajwāra, near Hoshiārpur, of an impostor
who pretended to be that Sārang Khān who had expelled him from
Multān. The real Sārang Khān had died in captivity shortly after
his surrender to Pir Muhammad, and this fact must have been
widely known, but interest may lead the intelligent, as ignorance
leads the vulgar, to espouse the cause of a pretender; and the
name of the man who had driven before him, as chaff before the
wind, the occupant of the throne of Delhi was well chosen by
the impostor. Khizr Khān was, however, well served. A family of
the Lodi clan of the great Ghilzai or Khalji tribe had recently been
domiciled in India, and its leader, Malik Sultān Shāh Bahrām,
subsequently styled Islām Khān, by which title he may now con-
veniently be known, had been appointed governor of Sirhind. He


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VIII ]
EXPULSION OF TUGHÂN KHẨN
209
was dispatched against the pretender, who marched to the Sutlej
to meet him but was defeated and compelled to retire. After the
battle Islām Khān was joined by Zirak Khān of Sāmāna and Malik
Tughān of Jullundur, and before their overwhelming force the
impostor fled, by way of Rūpar, which he had made his head-
quarters, into the mountains. He was ineffectually pursued but
emerged and fell a victim to the perfidy of Malik Tughān, who
inveighed him into his power and treacherously put him to death,
being prompted to this act rather by cupidity than by loyalty, for
the impostor had amassed great wealth.
In the same year Tāj-ul-Mulk was dispatched on another foray.
dignified by the name of an expedition against rebels, into the
districts of Koil and Etāwah. Raja Sarwar was besieged in his
fortress, but no important military success was gained. The
wretched inhabitants of the country were, as usual, plundered and
Sarwar purchased the retreat of the raiders by a contribution to
the royal coffers and one of his oft-repeated promises to pay with
more regularity in the future. On returning from Etāwah Tāj-ul-
Mulk plundered Chandwār and invaded Katehr, where he compelled
Mahābat Khān to pay the tribute due from him.
In August news was received at the capital that Malik Tughān,
whose resources had been replenished by the plunder of the pre-
tender, was again in rebellion and had marched from Jullundur to
Sirhind where, having plundered the country, he was besieging the
fortress. Malik Khair-ud-din was sent to its relief and, marching
by way of Sāmāna, was there joined by Zirak Khān. Tughān raised
the siege of Sirhind and retreated, and Khair-ud-din and Zīrak
Khān pursued him across the Sutlej and compelled him to seek
refuge with Jasrat the Khokar, the son of that Shaikhā who had
established his independence in the reign of Mahmūd Shāh. Jasrat
had been carried off into captivity by Tīmūr, with his father, but
on the conqueror's death had regained his freedom and returned
to his country, where having established for himself an independent
principality of considerable extent, he had gained over the army
of Kashmiri a victory which fostered in his mind extravagant
notions of his power and importance and inspired in him the belief
that the throne of Delhi was within his reach. Tughān's fief of
Jullundur was bestowed upon Zirak Khān.
In 1421 Khizr Khān marched into Mewāt to assert his authority
in that province, captured and destroyed the former stronghold of
Bahādur Nāhir and received the submission of most of the inhabitants.
1 See Chapter XII.
14
C. H. I. III.


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210
( CH.
THE SAYYID DYNASTY
He then turned to Gwalior, and on January 13, during his march
thither, his faithful minister, Tāj-ul-Mulk, died, and his office was
bestowed upon his son, Malik Sikandar Tuhfa, who received the
title of Malik-ush-Sharq. The raja of Gwalior took refuge within
his fortress and by means of the usual dole and the usual empty
promise relieved his subjects from the depredations of the royal
troops. Thence the king marched to Etāwah, where Sarwar Singh
had lately died and his son was prepared to purchase peace on the
customary terms, and here he fell sick and hastened back to Delhi,
where he died on May 20, 1421, having designated his son Mubārak
Khān his heir. He is extolled as a charitable ruler but his charity
was confined within the narrow limits of his territories and to the
members of his own faith.
Mubārak, beside whose weakness that of his father assumes
the appearance of strength, found it no longer necessary to feign
vassalage to any of the rulers who now governed the fragments of
Tīmūr's vast empire, and freely used the royal title of Shāh, which
his father had never assumed. On his coinage he was styled
Mu'izz-ud-dīn Mubārak Shāh, and another unmistakable claim to
complete independence was exhibited in his profession of allegiance
to the puppet Caliph alone. He confirmed most of the nobles in
the fiefs and appointments which they had held during the late
reign, but, conscious of his own weakness, pursued the fatuous
policy of perpetually transferring them from one fief to another.
He perhaps attained his object of preventing any one noble from
acquiring a dangerous local influence in any district of the kingdom,
but it was attained at the cost of efficient administration, and the
discontent of the nobles, harassed by these vexatious transfers, led
finally to his downfall. In pursuance of this policy Malik Rajab
Nādira, son of the late Sadhū Nādira, was transferred from Firūzā-
bād and Hānsī to Dīpālpūr, to make room for the king's nephew,
Malik Bada, who eventually succeeded him as Muhammad Shāh.
The early days of the reign were disturbed by the activity of
Jasrat the Khokar, who, with the interests of the fugitive Tughān
as a pretext and the throne of Delhi as a lure, crossed the Sutlej
and attacked Rāi Kamāl-ud-din, a vassal of Delhi, at Talwandi.
Rāi Firūz, a neighbouring fief-holder, fled towards the Jumna, and
Jasrat occupied Lūdhiāna, ravaged the country eastwards as far
as Rūpar, and returning across the Sutlej, besieged Zirak Khān in
Jullundur, when a composition not very creditable to either party
was effected.
Zirak Khān betrayed the interests of his master
by the surrender of the fortress and Jasrat betrayed his guest by


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VIII)
MUBĀRÁK SHÃH
211
was
sending his son to Delhi as an hostage for his father's good be-
haviour, and his former adversary, Zirak. by seizing and imprison.
ing him. With Jullundur as a base Jasrat again crossed the Sutlej
and on June 22 appeared before Sirhind, now held for Mubārak
Shāh by Islām Khān Lodi. In July, although the rainy season was
at its height, Mubārak Shāh marched to the relief of Sirhind, and
as he approached Sāmāna Jasrat, after releasing Zīrak Khān, who
rejoined his master, retreated to Lūdhiāna, whither Mubārak Shāh
followed him. Jasrat, having collected all available boats, crossed
the flooded river and encamped in security on the opposite bank.
As the rains abated Mubārak Shāh retired, in real or feigned
apprehension, along the bank of the river to Qabūlpūr, while
Jasrat, who had failed to observe that a force had been dispatched
up stream to search for a ford, followed him. The two armies were
still facing one another when Jasrat learnt that this force had
crossed the river and, fearing lest his retreat should be cut off,
retreated precipitately towards Jullundur, but was unable to rest
there owing to the vigour of Mubārak's pursuit, during which the
fugitives suffered heavy losses, and retired to the lower slopes of
the Kashmir highlands. Bhim, raja of Jammū, guided the royal
army to the principal stronghold of the Khokars, which
captured, with heavy loss to the defenders, and destroyed, but
Jasrat escaped. From the hills Mubārak Shāh marched to Lahore
ruinous and deserted since its capture by Tīmūr's troops and spent
a month in replacing its once formidable defences by a mud fort.
On returning to Delhi he left Malik Mahmūd Hasan, who had dis-
tinguished himself at the passage of the Sutlej and was hence-
forward the ablest and most active of his nobles, with a force of
2000 horse to hold the restored outpost of the kingdom. By May,
1422, Jasrat had reassembled his army, descended from the hills,
and attempted to carry the new citadel by assault, but was repulsed
and forced to retire. For more than a month he harassed Mahmud
Hasan by desultory skirmishes, but, finding his labour vain, retired
to Kalānaur, his principal place of residence in the plains. Here
he met Raja Bhīm of Jammū, who was marching to the assistance
of Mahmūd Hasan, and after one battle made peace with him and
retired towards the Beas. In the meantime Mubārak Shāh had
dispatched to the aid of Mahmūd Hasan the minister, Sikandar
Tuhfa, who crossed the Rāvī, once more drove Jasrat into the hills
and marched to Lahore, where he was welcomed by Mahmud Hasan
on September 28. Malik Rajab Nādira of Dipālpur arrived at
Lahore at the same time, and the three nobles marched to Kalānaur,
>
14–2


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212
[CH.
THE SAYYID DYNASTY
where they were met by Raja Bhim, to punish Jasrat's presump-
tion. They invaded the Khokar country, but Jasrat had escaped
into the higher ranges, and after plundering the homes of his
tribesmen the three nobles returned to Lahore.
During the absence of the minister, Sikandar Tuhfa, from the
capital the governor of Delhi, Sarvar-ul-Mulk, induced the feeble
king to order, for the benefit of himself and his son, a redistribution
of various important offices. Sikandar Tuhfa was dismissed from
the office of minister, to make way for Sarvar-ul-Mulk, who was
succeeded as governor of Delhi by his son Yusuf. Sikandar Tuhfa
received the fief of Lahore as compensation for the loss of the first
post in the kingdom, but his transfer thither necessitated the
removal of Mahmūd Hasan, who was transferred to Jullundur, but
was ordered for the time to wait on Mubārak Shāh with the con-
tingent maintained from his fief.