No More Learning

. Its buildings were very few and in other respects it was quite
empty. '
The transportation of the population of Delhi has been des-
cribed as a punitive rather than an administrative measure. A
measure adopted in the following year, the enhancement of the
assessment on land in the Doāb and the introduction, with a view
to further taxation, of a census of the houses and cattle, partook of
both characters. The Hindus of the Doāb were disaffected and
turbulent, but it is inconceivable that they should have been guilty
of the folly, imputed to them by Muhammad, of inviting the
Mughuls to invade th country. They had had experience of
Mughul raids, and would not have prepared a scourge for their own
backs, but the measure was designed to replenish the treasury as
well as to punish the people, and it failed of both its objects.
The extent of the enhancement is uncertain. The statement
that the demand was increased ten fold and twenty-fold is almost
certainly hyperbolical, and the statements of Firishta, who says that
it was increased three-fold and four-fold, and of Budauni, who says
that it was doubled, are probably nearer the truth ; but whatever
the extent of the enhancement may have been the cultivators were
unable to meet the demand, and abandoned their holdings and took
to brigandage, so that the treasury suffered and the guilty went
unpunished. The reprisals ordered by the king converted one of
the richest and most fertile provinces of the kingdom into the seat
of a war between the royal troops and the inhabitants.
Some means of replenishing the treasury had to be devised, and
it was now that Muhammad conceived the idea of his famous
fictitious currency. He may have heard of the paper currency of
Khubilāı Qā-an in China, and the fictitious money of the Mughuls
in Persia, and it was perhaps in imitation of these fiscal measures
that he issued brass or copper tokens which were, by his decree, to
pass current for the silver tanga of 140 grains. Mr. Thomas, in his
Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi' has contended that
Muhammad's vast power and the great wealth of his dominions
justified, or almost justified, this measure, and that its failure was
due to unforeseen causes, but the contemporary historian Barani
asserts that it formed a part of the kings' extravagant design of
bringing under his away the whole habitable world, for the execution
1 Edition of 1871, pp. 239-47.
C. H. I. III.
10


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146
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
[ CH.
a
of which boundless wealth would be necessary, and from this state-
ment it would appear that Muhammad had no clear notion of the
uses and limitations of a fictitious currency, but believed that he
could, by his decree, virtually convert brass and copper into silver
and gold. He was rudely undeceived. With the almost worthless
tokens the people purchased the gold and silver coins for which
they were legal tender. The revenue was paid in the tokens, which
were also freely used by foreign merchants in their disbursements
but refused by them in payment for their goods, but the principal
factor in the collapse of the scheme was the wholesale counterfeiting
of the tokens. As Mr. Thomas says, 'There was no special machinery
to mark the difference of the fabric of the royal mint and the handi-
work of the moderately skilled artisan. Unlike the precautions
taken to prevent the imitation of the Chinese paper notes there was
positively no check on the authenticity of the copper tokens, and no
limit to the power of production of the masses at large. ' The
justice of these remarks will be appreciated by those acquainted
with the appearance and workmanship of the copper coinage of
India before the introduction of European methods of minting.
An artisan with a few simple tools and a moderate degree of skill in
· their use could sell at the price of silver any brass or copper which
fell into his hands, and this result might have been foreseen. The
enormous extent to which counterfeiting was carried on is described
in graphic terms by all the historians, and Barani merely paints the
picture in somewhat vivid colours when he writes that every Hindu's
house became a mint.
The tokens were not current for more than three or four years,
and as an oriental despot, who is, in fact, the state, cannot be
expected to understand that public funds are held in trust for the
public, some credit is due to Muhammad for his prompt acknow-
ledgement of his error by the recall of the tokens, though it is
doubtful whether he had any conception of the cost of the measure.
It was proclaimed that silver coins would be issued to the public
from all treasuries in exchange for brass and copper tokens, so that
the state began by buying copper at the price of silver and ended by
virtually distributing silver gratis, for so vast was the quantity of
tokens which poured in that no use could be found even for the
metal. Mountains of them arose at the treasuries and lay there for
years. The remains of them were still to be seen, a century later,
in the reign of Mu'izz-ud-din Mubārak Shāh. As Budaunī says,
* After all, copper was copper, and silver was silver. '
Discontent now manifested itself among a very different class of


## p. 147 (#189) ############################################

VI ]
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY
147
>
>
Muhammad's subjects. It was three years since he had compelled
his courtiers to transfer their families to Daulatābād, and he had
already been absent for two years and a half from his new capital.
Those in attendance on him began to murmur that they might as
well have been permitted to keep their families at Delhi if they
themselves were to be compelled to live there, but Muhammad was
probably obeying his own impluse rather than their importunity
when he returned, in 1330, to Daulatābād.
In the following year Ghiyās-ud-din Bahādur rose in rebellion
at Sonārgāon, but the rising was crushed by Bahrām Khān, and
the rebel was put to death. His skin, like that of Gurshāsp, was
stuffed with straw and exhibited in the principal cities of the
kingdom.
The following year, 1331-32, passed uneventfully at Daulatābād,
but the king's tyranny was bearing its fruit in the Doāb, and in
1333 he returned to Delhi and led a punitive expedition into that
region, which he treated in all respects as a hostile country. Baran,
now Bulandshahr, was first attacked, and the whole district was
plundered and laid waste. The inhabitants were slaughtered like
sheep, and rows of Hindu heads decked the battlements of the city
of Baran. Those who escaped fled into the jungles, where they
were hunted like wild beasts. Continuing his march in a south-
easterly direction the king plundered and devastated, in like manner,
the districts of Kanauj and Dalmau', where he was still engaged
when Ibn Batūtah arrived at Delhi late in 1333 or early in 1334.
The Moorish traveller's account in his Tuhfat-un-Nuzzār fi
Gharaib-il-Amsār, of his journeys and sojourn in India, throws
much light on the condition of the country, the character of its
sovereign, and many details. He arrived at the mouth of the Indus
on September 12, 1333, and his arrival, as he was a foreigner, had to
be reported to Qutb-ul-Mulk, the governor of the city of Multān.
He describes a rebellion at Sihwān, not mentioned in the general
histories of the reign, which had been suppressed shortly before
his arrival. The king had appointed to the government of Sihwān
a Hindu named Ratan, who was well skilled in accounts, and whom
he entitled 'Azim-us-Sind. The appointment gave great offence to
Wunār, chief of the Sūmras, and to a noble named Qaisar-ur-Rūmi
living at Sihwān, who resented the appointment of a Hindu governor
over them. Having involved him in hostilities with some brig-
ands or tribesmen in the neighbourhood of Sihwān, they attacked
him by night, slew him, and afterwards plundered the treasury.
1 The town of Dalmau is situated in 25° 4' N. and 81° 6' E.
10-2


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-148
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
[CH
'Imād-ud-Mulk Sartiz, governor of Sind, marched against the rebels,
and Wunār fled to his tribe, but Qaisar sustained a siege of forty
days in Sihwān and eventually surrendered on receiving an assurance
that his life would be spared, but 'Imād-ul-Mulk broke faith with
him, and put him and large numbers of his followers to death.
Many were flayed, and their skins, stuffed with straw, were sus-
pended from the walls and public buildings of the city. The sight of
these miserable relics so horrified Ibn Batūtah, who was compelled
by the heat of the weather to sleep in the open air, as to hasten his
departure from the city. After some stay at Multān he travelled
by way of Abohar, Pakpattan, Sirsa, and Hānsi to Delhi. His
account of the journey illustrates Muhammad's lavish hospitality
to foreigners visiting his dominions and the disorder prevailing in
the country.
When he reached Delhi Muhammad was in the Kanauj district,
but the minister, Khvāja Jahān, saw that he and his fellow travel.
lers were well received at the capital. The king's generosity to
these strangers, who had no claims on him, was fantastic. Ibn
Batūtah himself received 6000 tangas in cash, a grant of three
villages within thirty miles of Delhi which gave him an annual
income of 5000 tangas, and ten Hindu slaves.
Some months later Muhammad returned from Kanauj, and on
June 8, 1334, reached Tilpat. Ibn Batūtah was among those who
went forth to meet him, and describes the king's kindly reception
of himself and others, his ceremonial entry into the capital, and the
great honour shown to foreigners, whom he was ever solicitous to
attract to his court. They were offered appointments, which few
were prepared to accept, for they were, for the most part, mere
beggars, who had visited India with the object of amassing wealth
as quickly as possible and carrying it back to their own countries.
Ibn Batūtah, to whose original grant two other villages were added
and whose annual stipend was fixed at 12,000 tangas, was willing
to work for his bread, but hesitated to accept the post of gāzi of
Delhi on the ground of his ignorance of the language of the country
and of his attachment to the Māliki sect of the Sunnis whose
practice differed somewhat from that of the Hanafi sect, whose
religion was established in India. The king removed both obstacles
by offering to appoint two assistants, who would perform the duties
of the post while Ibn Batūtah enjoyed the stipend.
The king had enjoyed but a brief period of repose at Delhi
when he was summoned southward by the news of a serious rebel.
lion. He had appointed Sayyid Jalāl-ud-din Ahsan of Kaithal to the


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VI]
THE KINGDOM OF MADURA
149
a
government of Ma'bar, the most southerly province of his kingdom.
Ahsan now raised the standard of rebellion at Madura, proclaimed
his independence under the style of Jalāl-ud-din Ahsan Shāh, and
struck coin in his own name. On January 5, 1335, Muhammad left
Delhi for southern India, travelling by way of Daulatābad, where
he levied heavy contributions to the expense of equipping his army.
He marched thence for Madura by way of Bidar and Warangal,
but at the latter place his further progress was stayed by a pesti-
lence, probably cholera, which broke out in his army. The disease
raged in the camp, smiting alike the great noble and the humble
camp follower, and the mortality was appalling. The king himself
ſell sick and his health was not restored for several months. All
thought of a further advance was abandoned, and Muhammad,
leaving Malik Qabül at Warangal as governor of Telingāna, began
to retrace his step. He never had another opportunity of recover-
ing the lost province of Ma'bar, which remained a petty kingdom
for the next forty years. All that is known of its history is to be
ascertained from its coins", from the narrative of Ibn Batūtah, who
was son-in-law to its founder, and from a few inscriptions, and may
be related in the course of a brief digression.
Jalāl-ud-din Ahsan Shāh, having declared his independence in
A. H. 735, was slain in A. H. 740 by one of his officers, who usurped
the throne under the title of 'Alā-ud-din Udauji but had not
reigned a year when he was slain by a stray arrow which pene-
trated his head when he had removed his helmet after a victory
over the infidels,' that is to say the subjects either of the Pandya
or of the Kerala kings, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Qutb-
ud-din Firūz Shāh, who was slain in a revolt after a reign of forty
days. On his death the throne was seized by Ghiyās-ud-din Dāma.
ghånī, who had been a trooper in the service of Muhammad Tughluq,
and now assumed the title of Ghiyás-ud-din Muhammad Dāmaghān
Shāh. He married a daughter of Ahsan Shāh, and thus became
the brother-in-law of the wife of Ibn Batūtah, who was a guest at
his court after leaving that of Muhammad Tughluq, and records
some of the atrocities committed by him, such as the torture and
massacre of a great number of Hindu captives, men, women, and
children. He also records Dāmaghān Shāh's victory over Vira
Ballāla III of Dväravatipura, who was over eighty years of age and
was captured, strangled, and flayed by his adversary, who had
learnt some lessons at the court at Delhi, and hung the stuffed skin
of the raja on the wall of Madura. The death of Dāmaghān Shāh's
1 See J. A. S. B. , Pt. I, Ixiv, 49, and J. R. A. S, 1909, p. 667.


## p. 150 (#192) ############################################

150
[ch.
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
a
6
only son from cholera on his return to Madura and his own death
a fortnight later from the effects of an aphrodisiac were regarded
as the due punishment of his cruelties.
He was succeeded in A. H. 745 (A. D. 1344) by his nephew, Nāsir-
ud-din, who had been a domestic servant at Delhi before his uncle's
elevation to the throne of Madura, and now assumed the title of
Mahmud Ghāzi Dāmaghān. He slew all the officers, of the kingdom
likely to disturb his possession of the throne, and among them the
husband of his predecessor's daughter, whom he married immedi-
ately after her husband's death. It was during his reign that Ibn
Batūtah, though pressed by him to stay, left the court of Madura.
He was succeeded by . Adil Shāh, whose coins were dated A. H.
757 (A. D. 1356), and he by Fakhr-ud-din Mubārak Shāh, whose
earliest coins are dated in A. H. 761 (A. D. 1360), and who apparently
reigned until A. D. 1368-69, or perhaps until A. D. 1372-73, when he
was succeeded by 'Alā-ud-din Sikandar Shāh, whose latest coin is
dated in A. H. 778 (A. D. 1377-78). The rising power of the great
Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar had, some years before, begun to
overshadow the small Muslim state of Madura, and an inscri tion
of Sangama I, the founder of the first dynasty of Vijayanagar,
records a victory over that proud lord of Madura, the valiant
Turushka. ' In another inscription of 1371 Goppana, commanding
the army of Bukka I, son of Sangama and third raja of Vijayanagar,
claims a victory over the Turks of Madura, and the date of
Sikandar's latest coin is probably that of the extinction of the
Muslim dynasty of Madura by Bukka I.
We now return the movements of Muhammad Tughluq, who
retired from Warangal to Bidar, of which city and province he
appointed Shihab-ud-din governor, conferring on him the title of
Nusrat Khān. This appointment marks the introduction of the
pernicious system, which was soon to become general, of farming
the revenue. Muhammad's lavish profusion and wild and disastrous
schemes of conquest so impoverished him as to render him des-
perate, and the system of farming the revenue was introduced with
the object of wringing from the wretched cultivator the utmost
farthing. His experience in the Gangetic Doāb should have taught
him the axiom that there is a point beyond which demands cannot
be raised, and that human beings will not labour to till the soil
unless they are allowed to retain a proportion of its fruits sufficient
to maintain life. In the later years of the reign no experienced and
conscientious official would enter into the unholy competition for
6


## p. 151 (#193) ############################################

vi ]
THE FARMING OF THE REVENUE
151
governorships, for the government of districts and provinces was
virtually put up to auction, and he who promised to pay the largest
annual sum to the treasury obtained the prize. The successful
bidders were usually men of mean origin, devoid of knowledge,
experience, and compassion, who, without staying to consider what
men could or would pay, made the most extravagant promises,
only to discover that they could not meet their obligations. It was
well known that the king would make no allowance for circum-
stances, and the defaulter was left with no remedy but rebellion.
Nusrat Khān agreed to pay the treasury, for the districts placed
under his charge, the annual sum of ten millions of tangas, and
Muhammad continued his retreat. At Bir he suffered from a severe
toothache, and his vanity caused to be erected over the spot where
the tooth, when extracted, was buried, a domed tomb, which is still
standing and is known as the Dome of the Tooth.
Reports of the king's sickness at Warangal had been exagger-
ated into rumours of his death, which had been believed by Malik
Hüshang of Daulatābād, a noble with whom he had been on terms
of peculiar affection and intimacy. Hūshang had risen in rebellion,
but on learning that Muhammad was alive and was returning to
Daulatābād fled and sought an asylum with a Hindu chieftain in
the Western Ghāts, who subsequently surrendered him. The rebel,
strange to say, was pardoned.
Muhammad had for some time past deliberately encouraged
foreigners of all nations to settle in his dominions. He cherished
the insane design of subjugating the whole world. His knowledge
of geography was scanty and he could form no conception of the
magnitude of the task which he proposed to himself, but he under-
stood that the first step to be taken would be the conquest of the
neighbouring countries of Transoxiana and Persia, and with this
object in view he encouraged wealthy and influential Mughuls and
natives of Khurāsān to enter his service in the hope that they would
assist him in the conquest of their native lands. Later in his reign,
when he had succeeded in obtaining the formal recognition of al-
Hākim II, the Abbasid Caliph in Egypt, he obliged these foreigners
to swear allegiance to him as the only lawful Muslim sovereign.
For the conquest of Persia he raised an enormous army, the
maintenance of which so depleted his treasury that in the second
year of the army's existence no funds remained for its payment,
and it melted away.
Not all the foreigners so freely welcomed and so liberally
remunerated proved to be faithful, and during the king's absence


## p. 152 (#194) ############################################

152
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
(CH.
in the south Hulāgů, a Mughul noble at Lahore, proclaimed his
independence, appointed Gul Chandar, Chief of the Khokars, his
minister, and slew the governor, Tātār Khān the elder. Khvāja
Jahān, the minister, assembled an army at Delhi and marched
towards Lahore, taking with him, among others, Ibn Batūtah, who
has left an account of the expedition which, though brief, is the
most circumstantial which has come down to us. Hulāgū and Gul
Chandar marched to meet Khvāja Jahān, and the two armies met
and fought on the banks of one of the great rivers of the Punjab,
probably the Sutlej. Hulāgū was defeated and fled, and large
numbers of his army were drowned in the river. Khvăja Jahān
advanced to Lahore, where he punished, after his master's manner,
the remnant of the rebels and their partisans. Many were flayed
alive and many were slain in other ways, and three hundred of the
widows of the victims were sent into imprisonment at Gwalior.
Before leaving Daulatābād the king gave general permission to
those who had been transported from Delhi eight years before to
return to their former home, and most of them returned joyfully,
but some had become attached to the land of their exile, and
remained there.
During Muhammad's absence from Delhi a heavy calamity had
befallen northern India, and famine was sore in the land. It lasted,
like that recorded in the Book of Genesis, for seven years, and was
the most severe famine of which we have any record in India. It
is attributed by historians to natural causes, and Budauni goes as
far as to say that ‘for seven whole years not a drop of rain fell from
the heavens. ' This is, of course, mere hyperbole, and must be inter-
preted to mean that the rainfall was deficient for seven years, but
it is certain that the famine was not due to natural causes alone,
or the province of Oudh would not have been able to afford relief
during that period to the inhabitants of Delhi and the Doāb.
Muhammad's exactions, which extinguished cultivation in large
tracts of the Doāb, and his severity, which destroyed those who
might have cultivated the land, contributed in no small measure to
the calamity, which is always mentioned in connexion with, though
not directly attributed to, his ill-treatment of his subjects in the
Doāb.
His way to Delhi lay through the usually fertile province of
Mālwa, and here he had an opportunity of observing the havoc
which famine had wrought upon his people. Towns and whole
districts were depopulated and even the postal runners were con-
strained to abandon their posts, so that the royal mails no longer


## p. 153 (#195) ############################################

VI]
FAMINE AND REBELLION
153
ran between Delhi and Daulatăbăd. A pound of grain cost twenty-
two or twenty-three grains of silver, and the people were reduced
to eating unnatural and loathsome food. Ibn Batūtah saw some
women cutting strips from the skin of a horse which had been dead
for some months, and eating them, cooked hides were exposed for
sale in the bazars, and people thronged round the butchers to
catch and drink the blood of slaughtered cattle. Some travellers
resting in the deserted city of Agroha, now Hissar, found a man
cooking a human foot, and as the famine grew ever more severe
human flesh became a common article of food.
Muhammad was not regardless of the sufferings of his people.
A daily ration of grain was issued for six months to all the citizens
of Delhi, and cooked food was distributed at the wealthy college
which his eccentric piety had endowed at the tomb of the worthless
Qutb-ud-din Mubārak, and at other shrines in the city. Large
sums of money were advanced to enable husbandmen to buy seed
and plough-cattle, to sink wells, and to improve and extend their
holdings, but the king insisted on the application of these grants
or loans to the objects for which they were made, and to no other.
In some cases the starving people were too weak to carry out the
works for which the money was granted, in others they were con-
vinced, by the continued failure of the rains of the futility of
spending money on tilling and sowing the parched land, and they
applied the grants to their own immediate needs. This was regarded
as contumacy and Muhammad punished the miserable transgressors
with such rigour that the tale of executions shocked and disgusted
even those accustomed to his barbarous severity, and this measure
of relief produced more misery than would have resulted from a
policy of inaction.
It was not only at Daulatābād that the news of the king's sick-
ness in Telingāna had given rise to reports of his death. The
rumour had been circulated and had gained some credence at
Delhi and in its neighbourhood. Sayyid Ibrābīm the Pursebearer,
son of Sayyid Jalāl-ud-din Ahsan of Madura, was a favourite of the
king, whose confidence in the son was so little shaken by the father's
rebellion that Ibrāhim was left as governor of the districts of Hānsī
and Sirsa when Muhammad left Delhi for the south. He heard and
was inclined to credit the news of the king's death, and when a
large remittance of treasure of Sind reached Hānsi on its way to
Delhi he detained the convoy on the pretext that the roads were
unsafe, with the intention of seizing the treasure and establishing
his independence as soon as he should receive confirmation of the


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154
(CH.
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
news of the king's death, but on learning that the rumour was false
he allowed the convoy to pass on to Delhi. No overtact of rebel.
lion had been committed, and had Ibrāhim kept his own counsel,
he might have escaped suspicion, but he had incautiously mentioned
his design in the presence of his servants, and the matter reaced
the king's ears. Owing to the regard which he had for Ibrāhim he
hesitated to proceed to extremities against him, and he might have
escaped had not a treasonable speech, rashly uttered, been reported
at court. He was arrested and confessed, under fear of torture,
his real object in detaining the treasure, and the king put him to
death.
Nusrat Khân now discovered that he was not able to remit
to Delhi even a quarter of the sum of ten millions of tangas which
he had promised to pay annually from the revenues of Bidar, and
rose in rebellion. Reinforcements were sent to Qutlugh Khān at
Daulatābād, and he marched against the rebel, besieged him in
Bidar, captured him, and sent him to Delhi,
Muhammad now decreed a fresh evacuation of Delhi, actuated
on this occasion by a desire for the welfare of his subjects. The
fertile province of Oudh had for many years prospered under the
mild and paternal rule of its governor, 'Ain-ul-Mulk, and from its
overflowing granaries the king purposed to relieve the misery of
his people. Any attempt to transport grain through the starving
and turbulent Doāb would have been foredoomed to failure, and
since he could not bring food to his people he led his people to the
food. On the western bank of the Ganges, near the site of the
ancient city of Khor, in 27° 33' N. lat. and 79° 35' E. long. at a dis-
tance of 165 miles from Delhi, he caused a city of booths to be built,
to which he gave the Sanskrit name of Sargadwāri (Swarga-dwāra),
'the Gate of Paradise,' and which he made his headquarters for the
next six years. To this city he brought the inhabitants of Delhi,
and here they were fed. 'Ain-ul Mulk and his brothers loyally
supported him, encamped on the opposite bank of the river, and
conveyed the hoarded grain of Oudh to Sargadwārī, the temporary
booths of which were replaced in the following year by more per-
manent buildings, where the citizens of Delhi dwelt, not only in
plenty, but in moderate comfort.
Neither his people's distress nor his preoccupation in relieving
it could restrain the king from indulging his vain dreams of world-
empire, and in 1337–38, the year after the foundation of Sargadwāri,
he perpetrated one of his greatest acts of folly. The dream of con-
quering Transoxiana and Persia had faded, but there were other


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VI ]
INVASION OF TIBET
155
lands to subdue. Beyond the vast mountain chain which bounded
his kingdom on the north-east lay the mysterious land of Tibet,
and beyond that again the great empire of China, and an army
which could traverse the mountains might, Muhammad believed,
take those two countries by surprise. Of the nature of the country
and the inhabitants, the narrow passes, the perilous mountain paths,
the sheer precipices, and the bitter cold to be endured by troops
bred in the scorching plains of India he could form no idea, and
he persuaded himself that dread of his wrath would carry his troops
over all obstacles. An army of 100,000 horse and a large number of
foot was assembled at Delhi under the command of Malik Nikpai,
who held the honorary post of chief of the inkstand-bearers, and
was dispatched on the desperate adventure.
The troops marched
by way of Nāgarkot, or Kangra, the capture of which in this year
is recorded in an ode of Badr-i-Chāch, and entered the mountains
after plundering and devastating the villages on their lower slopes.
They advanced by a narrow road, which would admit no more than
one horseman at a time, along the precipitous mountain side, but
safely reached the stronghold, which Ibn Batütah call Warangal,
of the local chieftain, where they halted after their toilsome journey.
Here they were overtaken by the heavy and drenching rains of the
mountains, which spread disease among men and horses and de-
stroyed large numbers of both. The officers sought and received
permission to lead their men back to the plains, there to await the
end of the rainy season, when a second attempt might be made to
traverse the mountains, and they set out with all their plunder, but
the mountaineers had aseembled to harass their retreat and occupied
the gorges and defiles. Great stones and felled trees were hurled
from the heights on the retreating host, laden with its plunder,
stragglers were cut off, the passes were held and stoutly defended,
and the highlanders so thoroughly performed their task that they
destroyed the army almost to a man, and recovered all the plunder.
Nikpāj, two other officers, and about ten horsemen were all who
returned to Delhi and the king was deeply humiliated. He was
obliged to conclude with the mountaineers who had destroyed his
army a treaty of peace, in which the only condition to his advantage
was an undertaking to pay tribute for the land cultivated by them
in the plains, which was at all times liable to be overrun by his
troops.
The effects of this campaign on the kingdom were disastrous.
Not only had a great army and the enormous quantity of treasure
which accompanied it been lost, but Muhammad's reputation had
>


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156
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
(ch
received such a blow that disaffection in the regions groaning under
his tyranny blazed into rebellion, and he was never again able to
place himself at the head of such a host as he had assembled for
the conquest of China.
In 1338-39 Bahrām Khān, governor of Eastern Bengal, died,
and an officer of his troops proclaimed his independence in that
province under the title of Fakhr-ud-din Mubārak Shāh. The
tortuous course of events in Bengal which resulted in the death of
Qadr Khăn, governor of Lakhnāwati and in the establishment of
Fakhr-ud-din Mubārak in the eastern and of Shams-ud-din Iliyās in
the western province and finally, in 1352, as sultan of all Bengal
will be traced in Chapter XI. Muhammad's activities were para-
lysed by the blow which he had received in the Himālaya and by
the havoc which famine had wrought in his dominions, and he
could take no steps to restore his authority in the eastern provinces,
so that Bengal was permanently lost to him.
In the following year, 1339-40, came news of another serious
rebellion in the Deccan. 'Ali Shāh Kar (the Deaf'), an officer
)
serving under Qutlugh Khān, was sent to collect and escort to
Daulatābād the revenue due from the province of Gulbarga, the
defencelessness of which tempted him to rebellion. He attacked
and slew Bhairon, the Hindu officer who held Gulbarga, raised a
force by means of the treasure which he should have conveyed to
Daulatābād, marched to Bīdar, slew the governor, and occupied
the town. Here, however, he was defeated by Qutlugh Khān,
surrendered to him, and was sent to Delhi.
The king himself was now embarrassed by a rebellion. 'Ain-ul-
Mulk, governor of Oudh, had for many years governed his province
with ability and clemency and had acquired great influence and
popularity. The successful victualling of Sargadwāri was due
entirely to his prudence and foresight and to his admirable arrange-
ments for the conveyance of grain to the temporary city. Many of
the respectable inhabitants of Delhi, fearing the king's tyranny,
had withdrawn from the city and had settled in Oudh, where they
received generous treatment at the hands of 'Ain-ul-Mulk, who
attached them to himself and ensured the extension of cultivation
in his province by granting them villages in fee. With these
immigrants had come others, less desirable fugitives from justice,
who were harboured on the immoral eastern principle that it is
dishonourable to surrender to justice even a malefactor who has
sought an asylum with a protector. “Ain-ul-Mulk was humiliated
by a demand for their surrender, but the chief cause of his estrange-


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VI ]
REBELLION OF 'AIN-UL-MULK
157
ment from the king was the latter's design of transferring him to
the government of the Deccan in the place of Qutlugh Khān. The
avowed reason for the transfer was 'Ain-ul-Mulk's efficiency and
success as a provincial governor, from which some improvement in
the situation in the Deccan might be expected, but it was generally
known that the deplorable condition of the southern provinces was
due not to any fault of Qutlugh Khān, who was a loyal and able
governor, but to the pernicious system of farming the revenues,
and 'Ain-ul-Mulk feared, probably with justice, that the king's real
motive in transferring him from Oudh was jealousy of his power
and influence, and that the object of appointing him to a govern-
ment in which Qutlugh Khān had failed was to ensure his disgrace
and destruction. His brothers, who had loyally assisted him in the
government of Oudh now urged him not to submit to the caprice
of an ungrateful master, but to rely on the support of the people
by whom he was so well beloved. Opportunity favoured him, for
the elephants, horses, pack animals and cattle of the royal army
had been sent across the Ganges into Oudh for grazing, and the
rebellion was precipitated by the seizure of those animals, while
'Ain-ul-Mulk fled from the camp and joined his own army on the
cast of the Ganges. He assumed the title of Sultān 'Alā-ud-din,
and Muhammad, for the first time in his reign, had cause to tremble
for his throne and his life. The disaster to his army in the Himālaya
had impaired his prestige and his severity and cruelty had alienated
the nobles in his cainp, on whose fidelity he could no longer rely.
The rebel army, though composed of poor material, was more
numerous than his own, and he desired to avoid an immediate
battle. Hastily summoning reinforcements from Delhi and other
towns, he marched rapidly towards Kanauj, seeking the protection
of its walls. The rebels on the eastern bank marched from Ban.
garmau, and it seemed that Muhammad's only hope of safety lay in
outstripping them. When it became known that they had crossed
the river he was much alarmed, for he did not believe that they
would have vertured on this step without encouragement from
traitors in his own camp. The rebels, to the number of 50,000,
attacked bis outposts by night, and the battle soon became general.
Notwithstanding the overwhelming numerical superiority of the
enemy, the Persians, Turks and Khurāsānis in the royal army
fought valiantly, and at dawn the rebels were in full flight and
were pursued for twenty miles. Many, including two of 'Ain-ul-
Mulk's four brothers, were slain in the battle or the pursuit, or
drowned in the Ganges. Malik Ibrāhīm, one of 'Ain-ul-Mulk's


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158
(CH.
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
accomplices in rebellion, seized him and carried him before the
minister, Khvāja Jahān, in the hope of earning a pardon, and the
minister, after causing 'Ain-ul-Mulk to be stripped, carried him
before the king. The captive was naked save for a small loin-cloth,
and was mounted on an ox. Following him was a large number of
other prisoners, and the sons of the courtiers disgraced themselves
by crowding round the unfortunate prisoners, heaping abuse on
'Ain-ul-Mulk, spitting in his face, and beating with their fists his
companions in misfortune.
Few rebels who fell into the hands of Muhammad Tughluq
escaped a cruel death, but the tyrant had the grace to remember
the long and faithful service of 'Ain-ul-Mulk, and the captive,
instead of being executed, was condemned to imprisonment in
sackcloth and chains.
From Kanauj Muhammad marched to Bangarmau, and thence
performed a pilgrimage to the shrine of the half-mythical hero
Sālār Mas'ûd, said in story to have been sister's son to Mahmud of
Ghazni, and one of his bravest warriors. From Bahrāich, where
the hero's tomb stands, he sent Khvāja Jahān with a sufficient
force to intercept the remnant of 'Ain-ul-Mulk's army and to pre-
vent the fugitives from entering the kingdom of Bengal. The
minister was also entrusted with the task of collecting all those
who had migrated from Delhi into Oudh, and of conducting them
to their homes. This measure, strange to say, was conceived in
clemency and the fugitives were kindly treated instead of being
dealt with as rebels.
From Bahrāich the king returned to Delhi after an absence of
two and a half years, and here found 'Ali Shāh Kar and his brothers,
who had been sent from the Deccan by Qutlugh Khān. With rare
clemency he contented himself with banishing them to Ghaznī, but
‘Ali Shāh afterwards returned to India without permission, and
was captured and executed. At the same time 'Ain-ul-Mulk was
pardoned, released from prison, and reinstated in the government
of Oudh.
Muhammad's active but inconstant mind had conceived at
Sargadwārī the notion that no sovereign could legitimately wield
authority unless he were commissioned by God's vicegerent on
earth, the Caliph and Commander of the Faithful, and set himself
diligently to inquire who the Caliph was and where he was to be
found. He ascertained from travellers that there still existed in
Egypt a puppet of the house of 'Abbās, who claimed the dignity.
Their information was not very recent, for they styled him al-


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Vi )
RECEPTION OF GHITAS-UD-DIN
159
Mustakfi, while he who bore that title had died or had been
deposed a year earlier, but the coins of A. H. 740 (A. D. 1340-41)
bear the title of al-Mustakſi and the ceremonial performance of
the Friday prayers and the observation of the great festivals of
Islam were suspended until the king should have received the
Caliph's recognition, which he sought by means of a humble
petition, accompanied by costly gifts, but three years passed
before a reply could be received. This act of humility indicated
no change in the king's nature, and neither his arrogance nor his
impatience of contradiction or disobedience was diminished.
Had he only had patience he might have maintained at his
court, like the Mamlūks of Egypt, a submissive Caliph of his own,
for in this year there arrived at Delhi from Transoxiana, where he
had been living under the protection of the Mughul Khān, 'Ala-ud-
din Tarmāshirin, Ghiyās-ud-din Muhammad, son of 'Abd-ul-Qāhir,
son of Yusuf, son of 'Abd-ul-´Aziz, son of the Abbasid Caliph al-
Mustansir of Baghdad, who reigned from 1226 to 1242. His descent
having been verified he was received with great honour. To the
two messengers who arrived at the court seeking permission for
their master to visit it the king gave 5000 tangas, to which were
added 30,000 tangas for Ghiyās-ud-din himself. The leading ecclesi-
astics and theologians of the court were sent as far as Sirsa to
meet him, and the king himself met him at Mas'ūdābād, now
Bahādurgarh. After a ceremonious interchange of gifts he held
Ghiyās-ud-din's stirrup while he mounted and they rode together,
the royal umbrella being held over the heads of both. Ghiyās-ud-
din received extraordinary privileges at court, and the profusion
of the king's liberality to him is not to be reconciled with sanity.
The vessels in his palace were of gold and silver, the bath being
of gold, and on the first occasion of his using it a gift of 400,000
tangas was sent to him; he was supplied with male and female
servants and slaves, and was allowed a daily sum of 300 tangas,
though much of the food consumed by him and his household came
from the royal kitchen ; he received in fee the whole of 'Ala-ud-din's
city of Sīrī, one of the four cities (Delhi, Siri, Tughluqābād, and
Jahanpanāh) which composed the capital, with all its buildings,
and adjacent gardens and lands and a hundred villages; he was
appointed governor of the eastern district of the province of Delhi ;
he received thirty mules with trappings of gold; and whenever he
visited the court he was entitled to receive the carpet on which
the king sat. The recipient of all this wealth and honour was but
a well-born beggar, mean and miserly almost beyond belief. He


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160
(CH.
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
ate alone, not from pride or arrogance, but because, as he confessed
to Ibn Batūtah, he could not bear to see other mouths eating his
food and grudged even a lamp in his palace, preferring to sit in
darkness. He personally collected sticks in his garden for firewood,
and stored them, and compelled his personal servants to till his
land. He was dishonest as well as parsimonious, and Ibn Batūtah
vainly demanded payment of a debt which the descendant of the
Caliphs owed him.
Multān was the scene of the next rebellion. Malik Shāhū Lodi,
an Afghăn noble who had a considerable following of his own tribe,
had risen in that province, slain Malik Bihzad, its governor, ex-
pelled another officer, and seized the city. The king assembled his
army and set out from Delhi, but had travelled no more than two
or three stages when he heard of the death of his mother. This
was a real loss to the kingdom, for she was charitable and generous,
not with the insane profusion of her son, but in due measure. The
people, no less than the king, deplored her loss, for her counsels
had to some extent restrained her son's ferocity, and after her
death no such acts of clemency as the pardoning of 'Ain-ul-Mulk,
'Ali Shāh Kar, Húshang, Nusrat Khān, and other rebels are
recorded.
Muhammad would not permit his mourning for his mother to
interrupt the expedition which he had undertaken, but when he
reached Dīpālpur he received a petition from Shāhū expressing
contrition, and learnt at the same time that the rebel and all his
followers had fled beyond his reach into the mountains of Afghani-
stān, and accordingly returned to Delhi. The subsequent rebellions
in Gujarāt and the Deccan were partly due to the severity of the
restrictions placed upon Afghāns in India in consequence of Shāhū's
revolt.
When the king returned to Delhi the famine was at its worst,
and the people were eating human flesh. He had been engaged,
since his return from Sargadwārī, in devising schemes to restore
prosperity to the land which his tyranny had done so much to
devastate. To the regulations which he framed he gave the name
of uslub, or 'methods' and by their means, says Barani, with prob-
ably unconscious irony, agriculture would have been so improved
and extended that plenty would have reigned throughout the earth,
and so much money would have poured into the treasury that the
king would have been able to raise an army capable of conquering
the world – had they been practicable.
A department to deal with all questions relating to agriculture
was created and placed under the charge of a minister called, for


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vi )
THE REGULATIONS
161
no apparent reason, Amir-i-Kühi, or ‘Mountain Lord,' and it was
ordained that the kingdom should be divided into districts thirty
by thirty leagues, or about 1800 square miles, in area, in which not
one span of land was to be left uncultivated, and crops were to
be sown in rotation. This ordinance was the conception of a mere
theorist. No allowance was made for forest, pasture, or unculturable
land, and though the order relating to rotation appears to indicate
some knowledge of the principle of scientific agriculture it is clear,
from the examples given, that these principles were not understood.
Barley, for instance, was to follow wheat ; sugarcane, a most ex.
hausting crop, after which the land should have been allowed to
lie fallow for at least a year, was to follow barley ; and grapes and
dates were to follow sugarcane.
To these districts were appointed
superintendents who, to borrow a term from Anglo-Irish history
which literally translates their designation, were styled 'under-
takers, who undertook to see not only that the regulations were
carried out to the letter, but also to re-people the land and make
every square mile maintain a fixed number of horse soldiers. None
but irresponsible adventurers would have entered into such an
agreement, and even these would have held aloof but for the
immediate inducements offered. The king, who was as bad a judge
of men as he was of affairs, would not a favourite scheme
baulked at the outset, and undertakers were induced to come forward
by gifts of caparisoned horses, rich robes of honour, and estates to
reward them for their promises and large sums of money to enable
them to inaugurate the scheme. These gifts were, as the historian
says, their own blood money, for when they perceived the impossi-
bility of meeting their engagements they appropriated to their own
use all that they had received and trusted to events to enable them
to escape an almost inevitable fate. More than seventy millions of
tangas were thus disbursed in gifts to the undertakers and at the end
of the stipulated term of three years so little of what had been
pro-
mised had been performed that Barani speaks of the performance as
not one hundredth, nay, not one thousandth part of the promise,
and adds that unless Muhammad had died when he did, in his ex-
pedition to Sind, not one of the undertakers would have survived
his resentment.
The second regulation encouraged Mughuls to settle in India.
These fierce nomads might furnish a mobile and efficient army, but
they could not replace the industrious peasantry whose labours had
filled the coffers of the state and who had been, in many tracts,
dispersed and destroyed by famine and oppression. The Mughuls
C. H. I. III.
11
see


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162
[CH.
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
were attracted to India by enormous gifts, and by favours of every
description, so that at the beginning of every winter numbers of
commanders of tens of thousands and of thousands arrived with
their wives, their families, and their followers, received great sums
of money, horses, and jewels, and were entertained at princely
banquets. This expenditure on an unproductive class maintained
at great cost necessitated further schemes for the improvement
and development of the resources of the state, and the third regu-
lation was framed to this end. Of the details of the scheme nothing
is recorded, nor is it easy to divine what sources of revenue the king
could have tapped other than those which he had already exploited
to the utmost, but as the regulation is said to have been enforced by
clemency mingled with severity it perhaps provided for the levy of
forced loans and benevolences, which led naturally to the framing
of the fourth regulation, enhancing the severity of the penal code.
The frequency and cruelty of the punishments inflicted by the king
bred seditions and rebellion which still further inflamed his wrath
and increased his severity, and even suspects were seized and cruelly
tortured until in their agony they confessed to imaginary crimes
and were executed on their confessions.
Barani relates an interesting conversation which he had with
the king on political offences and their punishment. The occasion
was Muhammad's halt at Sultānpur, about two years after this
time, on his way to suppress the rebellion in Gujarāt. The king,
referring to the disorders and revolts in all parts of his dominions,
expressed a fear lest men should attribute them all to his severity,
but added that he should not be influenced by irresponsible opinion.
He asked Barani, as one versed in history, for what offences kings
of old had been wont to inflict death. Barani admitted the necessity
for capital punishment, without which order could not be main-
tained, and said that the great Jamshid of Persia had inflicted it for
seven offences, viz. apostasy, wilful murder, adultery by a married
man with another's wife, high treason, rebellion, aiding the king's
enemies, and such disobedience as caused injury to the state, trivial
acts of disobedience being expressly excepted. Muhammad then
asked for what crimes capital punishment was sanctioned by the
Islamic law, and Barani replied that there were only three for which
it was provided, apostasy, wilful murder of a Muslim, and rape of
a chaste woman, but that it was understood that kings might,
for the maintenance of peace and order, inflict it for the other
ſour crimes for which it had been sanctioned by Jamshid.


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vi )
IBN BATŪTAH'S MISSION
163
some-
Muhammad replied that Jamshid's code had been framed for earlier
times, when men were innocent and obedient, and that in the latter
times wickedness had increased upon the earth and a spirit of dis-
affection was everywhere abroad, so that it had become necessary
to punish with death acts of disobedience which would formerly
have been regarded as venial, lest the infection should spread and
disaffection breed open rebellion. In this course, he said, he would
persevere until his death, or until his people became submissive.
His reply embodies his whole theory of penal legislation. He re-
garded his people as his natural enemies, and the penal laws
as a means of visiting his personal displeasure on them. They
accepted the challenge, and the hideous rivalry continued until
his death.
On July 22, 1342, Ibn Batūtah left Delhi. Favoured foreigner
though he was his life had been twice in danger. In terror for his
own life, he was sickened by the daily spectacle of the king's cruelty.
‘Many a time,' he writes, 'I saw the bodies of the slain at his gate,
thrown there. One day my horse shied under me and I saw
thing white on the ground and asked what it was, and my com-
panions told me that it was the breast of a man who had been cut
into three pieces. The king slew both small and great, and spared
not the learned, the pious or the noble. Daily there were brought
to the council hall men in chains, fetters, and bonds, and they
were led away, some to execution, some to torture, and some to
scourging. On every day except Friday there was a gaol delivery,
but on Friday the prisoners were not led out, and it was on that day
only that they took their ease and cleansed themselves. May God
preserve us from such calamities ! !
Muhammad took advantage of Ibn Batūtah's desire to leave
India and intention of continuing his travels to appoint him his
envoy to China. During the expedition into the Himālaya a temple
or shrine to which Chinese pilgrims resorted had been destroyed,
and the emperor of China had sent a mission seeking leave to
rebuild it. Muhammad was prepared to grant this permission on
condition that the worshippers paid jizyı, the poll-tax levied from
idolators, and Ibn Batūtah, with a hundred followers, was deputed
to accompany the Chinese mission on its return and to deliver this
decision. He was accompanied to the port of embarkation by an
escort of 1000 horse, without which it would have been unsaſe to
travel through Muhammad's dominions, and his account of his
journey discloses the deplorable condition of the country. The
Gangetic Doāb was seething with revolt. The town of Jalālī, near
11-2


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164
[CH.
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTY
Koil (‘Aligarh) was besieged by 4000 Hindu rebels, and seventy-
eight of the mission's escort were killed on the way thither. Ibn
Batūtah was himself taken prisoner by a band of Hindus, and escaped
with great difficulty, after suffering many hardships. It was no
unusual thing for Muslim governors to be besieged in their cities
by bands of Hindu rebels, and they were sometimes obliged to
appeal to Delhi for assistance. Ahmad Khān, governor of Gwalior,
offered to entertain Ibn Batūtah with the spectacle of the execution
of some Hindus, but the Moor had had his fill of horrors at Delhi,
and begged to be excused.
In 1343 Muhammad was called to the districts of Sunām,
Sāmāna, Kaithal, and Guhrām where the Hindus had entirely
abandoned agriculture and deserted their villages, assembling in
large camps in the jungles, where they lived by brigandage. The
rebellion spread as far cast as the lower slopes of the Himālaya and
called for extensive operations and vigorous action. Muhammad
performed the congenial task thoroughly. The camps of the rebels
were plundered and broken up, and the gangs were dispersed, but
the ringleaders were treated with unusual leniency. They were de-
prived of their ancestral lands, but were brought into Delhi and
settled there with their wives and families. Many became Muslims,
and as many were also ennobled it may be assumed that their con-
version was the price of their preferment.
On his return to Delhi in 1344 Muhammad received Hāji Sa'id
Sarsarī, the envoy sent from Egypt by the Abbasid-al-Hākim II in
response to his prayer for pontifical recognition. The envoy was
received with the most extravagant honours, and the arrogant
Muhammad's self-abasement before him verged on the grotesque.
The king, all the great officers of state, the Sayyids, holy and
learned men, and all who could pretend to any importance went
forth from Delhi to meet the envoy, who bore the Caliph's decree
of recognition and a robe of honour for Muhammad. The king
walked several bowshots barefoot as the envoy approached, and,
after placing the decree and the robe of honour on his head in
token of reverence, kissed his feet several times. Triumphal arches
were erected in the city and alms were lavishly distributed. On
the first Friday after the envoy's arrival the long discontinued
Friday prayers were recited with great pomp and the names of
such previous rulers of India as had failed to secure the formal
recognition of one of the Abbasid Caliphs were omitted from the
formal sermon. The most exaggerated respect was paid to the
envoy. His utterances were recorded and repeated as though they


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vi ]
REBELLION IN KARA
165
had been inspired and, as Barani says, 'Without the Caliph's com-
mand the king scarcely ventured to drink a draught of water. '
The festivals of Islam were now again observed, the legends on the
coins were corrected and Muhammad sent Hāji Rajab Burqaʻī to
Egypt as envoy to the Caliph.
In 1344 a rebellion broke out in Kara. This rich district had
been farmed for an immense sum to a worthless debauchee, who
bore the title of Nizām-ul-Mulk. He discovered, when he attempted
to fulfil his promise to the king, that he could not collect the tenth
part of what he had contracted to pay to the treasury and, in his
drunken despair, raised the standard of rebellion, styling himself
Sultān 'Alā-ud-din. The king was assembling troops at Delhi when
news was received that 'Ain-ul-Mulk had justified the clemency with
which he had been treated by marching from Oudh and capturing
and slaying Nizām-ul-Mulk, and the news was confirmed by the
arrival of the rebel's skin. The Shaikhzāda of Bastām, who had
married the king's sister, was sent to complete the work and to
restore order in the Kara district, and stamped out the embers of
rebellion with great severity.
The king's attention was now turned to the Deccan where the
revenue collections had fallen by ninety per cent. The decrease
was probably due to the introduction of the farming system and to
consequent rebellions, but Muhammad was easily persuaded to
attribute it to the sloth and peculation of the collectors appointed
by Qutlugh Khān. On December 8, 1344, the poet Badr-i-Chāch
was sent from Delhi to recall Qutlugh Khān from Daulatābād,
and his brother, Maulānā Nizām-ud-dīn, a simple man devoid of
administrative experience, was sent from Broach to succeed him,
but with restricted powerz. Muhammad, ever ready to remedy dis-
orders by new devices, now divided the Deccan into four revenue
divisions (shiqq) to each of which was appointed a governor upon
whom the enforcement of new regulations and the extortions of
the uttermost tanga of the revenue were strictly enjoined. The
removal of the mild and pious Qutlugh Khān, whose benevolent
rule and readiness to stand between the people and the king's
wrath had won the love of Hindu and Muslim alike, excited the
gravest apprehensions, and a discontent which might at any moment
burst into the flame of rebellion ; and the king's avowed intention
of collecting annually 670 millions of tangas from the four divisions,
and the selection of the agents who were to enforce the demand,
increased the people's alarm. Mālwa was included in the Deccan
and formed with it one shiqa, to the government of which was


## p. 166 (#208) ############################################

166
( ch.
THE TUGHLUQ DYNASTÝ
appointed ‘Azīz Khammārt, a low. born, unscrupulous and extortion-
ate official who had won an evil reputation as revenue collector in
the 'thousand' of Amroha, a tract containing about 1,500 villages,
and whose propensity to cruelty was now stimulated by the express
injunctions of the king, whose fury stigmatised all officials and
farmers in the Deccan, but above all the centurions,' as traitors and
rebels. In respect of this class 'Azīz received special instructions.
Impelled by the hope of plunder and profit the 'centurions,' said the
king, were the instigators and fomenters of every revolt and rebellion,
and 'Aziz, liberally supplied with troops and funds, was to use his
utınost endeavour to destroy them. These injunctions fell upon
willing ears, and 'Aziz, immediately after his arrival at Dhār, the
seat of his government, caused eighty-nine 'centurions' to be put to
death before his official residence. This barbarous act excited
among the 'centurions' of Gujarāt and the Deccan a horror which
was enhanced by the king's official approval of it. Not only did
Muhammad himself send 'Aziz a robe of honour and a farmān prais-
ing his services to the state, but the courtiers and great officers at
the capital were commanded to follow their master's example.
This insane policy produced its inevitable result. The king had
declared war against a whole class of his servants and the 'centurions'
of Dābhoi and Baroda in Gujarāt were the first to take up the
challenge. Taking advantage of the dispatch by Muqbil, governor
of Gujarāt, of the annual remittance of revenue from his province
they fell upon the caravan and were enriched not only by the tribute
but by quantities of merchandise which the merchants of Gujarāt
were sending to Delhi under the protection of the convoy.
When the news of the rebellion reached Delhi the king appointed
a council of regency consisting of his cousin Fīrūz, Malik Kabir,
and Khvāja Jahān and towards the end of Ramazān, A. H. 745, leſt
Delhi, never to return. He halted for some days at Sultānpur,
about twenty-two miles west of Tughluqābād, in order to avoid
marching during the fast, and on Shawwal 1 (February 5, 1345)
1 In the Bibliotheca Indica edition of the text of Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shāh. ‘Azīz
is always styled Himār (“the ass'). In the Cairo text of Ibn Batūtah the Bibliotheca
Indica text of Budaunī, and the Bombay text of Firishta he is called Khammār
('the Vintner'), which seems to have been his correct designation. Between the two
words, as usually written, there is a difference of only one dot, the omission of which
may be due to a scribe's carelessness or may be an author's deliberate pleasantry.
2 This term literally translates the 'amirs of hundreds' or yūzbāshi, who were not,
however, purely military officers, but revenue officials responsible for the collection
of taxes in groups of about a hundred villages each, who were entitled to a com
mission of five per cent, on their collections.


## p. 167 (#209) ############################################

VI]
REBELLION IN GUJARAT
167
>
continued his march towards Gujarāt. While at Sultānpur he was
disturbed by the news that 'Azīz had marched against the rebels.
In oppressing the poor, in plundering the rich, in torturing and
slaying the helpless, 'Aziz had few equals, and was a servant after
his master's heart, but Muhammad knew that he was no soldier
and learnt to his vexation, but without surprise, that the rebels
.
had defeated and captured him and put him to death with
torture.
The king marched from Sultānpur to Anhilvāra (Pātan) in
Gujarāt, and, leaving Shaikh Mu'izz-ud-din and other officers in
that town to reorganise the administration of the province, passed
on to Mount Ābū, whence he sent an army to Dabhoi and Baroda
against the centurions,' who were defeated with heavy loss and,
after collecting their wives and families, retired towards Daulatābād.
The king then marched to Broach and thence sent a force to inter-
cept them. His troops came up with them on the bank of the
Narbada, again defeated them, captured their wives and families,
camp equipage and baggaged and slew most of the men, A few of
their leaders contrived to escape on barebacked horses, and took
refuge with Mān Singh, raja of Baglāna, who imprisoned them and
took from them such money and jewels as they had succeeded in
carrying off. The royal troops halted on the Narbada, and there
their leader, Malik Maqbūl, received and promptly executed an
order to arrest and execute the 'centurions' of Broach, who had
accompanied him. There is no suggestion that these officers had
failed in their duty, but they were 'centurions' and that was enough
for Muhammad. The few who escaped the executioner's sword fled
to Daulatābād, where their account of the king's ferocity added
fuel to the fire of sedition in the Deccan.
At Broach Muhammad found such employment as suited his
temper. The collection of the revenue had been neglected for some
time past, and the tale of arrears was heavy. Extortionate collectors
were appointed, no excuse was accepted and what was due was
exacted with the utmost severity. Inability to pay, as well as
obstinacy in refusing payment, was punished with death, and the
ghastly list of executions was increased by means of a minute and
careful investigation of the past behaviour of the people. Whoever
had in any way helped the rebels, whoever expressed sympathy
with them, whoever bemoaned their fate, was put to death, and as
though the
of his proceedings in Gujarāt were not
sufficient to exasperate his subjects in the south, the king appointed
two notorious oppressors to conduct an inquisition into the conduct
rumours


## p.