Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

Slavery declined in the late Sultanate period, and became quite insignificant during the Mughal rule. Babur does not mention slaves at all in his autobiography. However, slavery did exist in India during the Mughal period, as European travellers noted, but their numbers were insignificant, and nearly all of them were domestic slaves. There were no state slaves under the Mughals.

WOMEN GENERALLY SUFFERED far more discrimination than slaves in medieval India, in all sections of society, but more so in upper caste Hindu society, though there were some commendable exceptions to this. Their life was confined to their family. They had no social role whatever. In fact, in medieval Hindu society their position was much worse than what it was in ancient India, where there were hardly any lifestyle restrictions on women, and they ate and drank whatever their men ate and drank. Ramayana , for instance, relates that Sita, the ultimate Hindu ideal of wifely propriety, drank wine in the company of Rama, her husband. But later the scene changed altogether, and Smriti rules of medieval India severely circumscribed the life of Hindu women, and ordained that a wife who drank liquor should be superseded, or even abandoned.

On the whole, women had very low social standing in medieval India. The only notable exception to this was in the matrilineal Nair society of Kerala, where women enjoyed a status equal to that of men. Also, among the poor all over India, women enjoyed a good amount of freedom, for their lives were too basic to be segregated into male and female domains. It was mainly the middleclass women who suffered most from social constraints.

Illiteracy was very common among medieval Indian women, and in some Hindu castes it was even considered shameful for respectable women to be literate. In upper class Muslim society, women had to observe purdah, and were secluded in the zenana, the female quarters of their home. They were not allowed to have any contact with any men other than the members of their immediate family. And when they appeared in public, they had to wear the burqa, a shapeless, sack-like outer garment that covered their entire body from head to foot, leaving only a narrow veiled opening over the eyes. Among the affluent, women travelled in closed litters. Even in mosques women were segregated from men. In some Islamic societies women were not even allowed into mosques, as Prophet Muhammad is said to have preferred women to pray at home. Affluent Hindus, particularly the political aristocracy in North India, in time adopted some of the Muslim social practices, such as sequestering their women, to gain social recognition by the Muslim ruling class.

Despite these various restrictions on the life of women in medieval India, women in royal and aristocratic families, in Hindu as well as Muslim society, generally led a good life, and enjoyed all the creature comforts available in that age. They also exercised a fair amount of influence on government and society from behind the curtain of the zenana, by acting through intermediaries. Sometimes they even took part in battles. Thus when Delhi was attacked by a rebel force when sultan Buhlul Lodi was away on a campaign, and there were only very few soldiers in the fort then, a number of women under the leadership of a woman, Bibi Matu, put on male attire and took up combat positions on the battlements of the fort, to scare away the attackers. Similarly, the concubine of a rebel noble in Sind—‘a strumpet who was indeed surpassingly beautiful’—took over the captaincy of the noble’s army when he fell in battle. She, according to Yadgar, ‘put on a suit of armour, bound round her waist a gilt quiver and, placing a helmet on her head, joined the army.’ The ultimate political status that any woman gained during the Sultanate period was by Raziya, who ascended the throne in Delhi on the death of her father, Sultan Iltutmish, and proved herself to be better than many sultans, in administration as well as in battle.

On the whole Muslim women, despite purdah, enjoyed higher status and greater freedom in society than most Hindu women. They could inherit property and obtain divorce, privileges that Hindu women did not have. In several Hindu communities, such as among the Rajputs, the birth of a girl child was considered a misfortune, and female infanticide was widespread, but Muslims did not have that practice.

The traditional Indian prescription for sensible living was to divide man’s life into four successive stages— brahmachari (student), grihastha (householder), vanaprastha (anchorite), and sanyasi (religious mendicant). Each of these stages, except the last stage, had its own specific pursuits: acquisition of knowledge as brahmachari , fulfilment of social and family responsibilities as grihastha , and spiritual quest as vanaprastha . And finally, after fulfilling all these duties, in the last stage of his life, as sanyasi , man renounces all human pursuits, both temporal and spiritual, and frees himself from life even while living.

This was the ideal. The reality was quite different. Hardly anyone, except a few exceptional individuals, went through all the prescribed four stages of life. The sole concern of nearly everyone was to earn a good livelihood and lead a pleasant life as a householder. In this mundane scheme of life, the most important events in the life of an individual were getting married and begetting children. These were the essential first steps for man to fulfil his responsibilities to his family, his society, and his species.

Marriage was considered particularly essential for women, and it was a matter of disgrace for a family to have unmarried adult women at home. But getting daughters married off entailed huge expenses — in Hindu as well as Muslim society, but more so in Hindu society — which were beyond the means of many families. In Delhi the sultans sometimes provided financial assistance to needy Muslim parents, to help them out of their embarrassing predicament of not having funds to marry off their daughters suitably. Thus Firuz Tughluq, according to Afif, ‘founded an establishment for the promotion of marriages’, which granted funds to poor Muslims to dower their daughters. Hearing about this, ‘people … flocked to the city from all parts of the country, and received grants for purchasing housekeeping requisites for their daughters.’

Among the affluent, it was considered essential to celebrate marriages lavishly, as demonstrations of their family status. Marriage celebrations in royal families were naturally the grandest, and were festive occasions for all in the royal capital. Thus, according to Amir Khusrav, on the occasion of the marriage of prince Khizr Khan, Ala-ud-din Khalji’s son, the whole city of Delhi was magnificently decorated with triumphal arches, and the public were entertained with music and dance, illuminations, jugglery, acrobatics, and so on.

MOST MIDDLE AND upper class families in medieval India were polygamous, in Hindu as well as Muslim society. Muslims were permitted by their religion to have four legal wives. Besides, they could have any number of concubines they fancied, and some Muslim kings and nobles maintained incredibly large harems. Thus Begarha, the sultan of Gujarat, had in his harem ‘three or four thousand women,’ reports Varthema. And Khan-i Jahan, an Andhra Hindu convert to Islam who became the vizier of Firuz Tughluq, was, according to Afif, ‘much devoted to the pleasures of the harem, and sought eagerly for pretty handmaids. It is reported that he had 2000 women of Rum and Chin in his harem, where he spent much of his time notwithstanding his onerous official duties.’ Such sexual profligacy involved no social disapprobation in medieval Indian society; rather, it was prestigious for a man to have a large number of wives and concubines. Says Battuta about himself: ‘It is my habit never to travel without [my slave girls].’