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

Most Muslims in medieval India were in the regions under Muslim rule, but there were a good number of them even in Hindu kingdoms. These were mostly migrants from Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, though there were also some local converts there. Battuta in the fourteenth century found numerous mosques in Kerala, evidently built by Muslim traders from the Middle East who had peacefully settled there and prospered. According to Barbosa, even a Kerala king became a convert to Islam.

The Arabic word islam means ‘submission’, which, as applied to religion, means ‘submission to god’. An adherent of Islam is called Muslim, meaning ‘one who is submissive’ to god.

Orthodox Indians, according to Chach-nama , scorned Arabs as ‘outcaste cow-eaters’.

Buddhism was the dominant religion of Afghanistan before the region became Islamised.

Mahmud Ghazni was a ruthless military adventurer, but he had, according to medieval chronicler Khondamir, a weakness for fair-skinned young boys. At one time he became enamoured of the ‘beauty of a boy of Turkistan … who was as white as silver … [and] looked as beautiful as a virgin of paradise.’ Mahmud demanded the boy from the amir who owned him, and on the amir refusing, the sultan had him plundered and tortured to death.

Mahmud Ghazni, according to medieval chronicler Siraj, ‘was the first Muhammadan king who received the title of sultan from the Caliph.’

Ibrahim, a grandson of Mahmud Ghazni and one of his successors, was physically rather frail, but had ‘36 sons and 40 daughters,’ reports Siraj. He was ‘a great king — wise, just, good, god-fearing and kind, a patron of letters, a supporter of religion, and a pious man.’ He ‘reigned happily for 42 years, and died in 1098, at the age of 60.’

Aibak’s lavish generosity earned him the epithet Lakh-bakhsh: Giver of Lakhs. But he could not stand presumptuous fools. Thus when a court poet recited to him a poem full of obscenities, expecting to be rewarded with a gold coin for each line, all the sultan is said to have given him was a bowl of donkey’s urine.

The term ‘Forty’, used to describe the clique of top nobles of the Delhi Sultanate at one time, was merely a conventional term. The actual number of the members of the group varied from time to time.

Part of the reason for the opposition of nobles to the reign of Raziya was that she seemed to be intimate with Yaqut, an Ethiopian slave. According to Isami, a fourteenth century chronicler, Yaqut ‘used to stand by her side when she mounted her horse. With one hand he used to hold her arm and help her to mount her horse … When the grandees of the state noticed the liberties he took openly, they felt scandalised and said to one another privately, “From the way this demon has made himself more powerful in the State than all other servants, it would be no wonder if he found his way to seize the royal seal.”’

The nobles opposing Raziya, according to Isami, grumbled: ‘All women are in the snare of the devil; in privacy, all of them do Satan’s work. No confidence should be placed in women … At no time can faithfulness be expected of women. Faithfulness is masculine; expect it only from men … When passions of a pious woman are inflamed, she concedes to intimacy even with a dog. If a man places confidence in a woman, she makes him a laughing stock. A woman is a source of danger wherever she be, since she is of devilish disposition … A woman cannot acquit herself well as a ruler, for she is essentially deficient in intellect … A woman who seeks pleasure and is at the same time ambitious, can be hardly free from the sway of passion.’

Barani: Balban was a man of ‘fierce temper and implacable resolution.’

According to Cambridge historian Wolseley Haig’s calculation, Ala-ud-din in his Devagiri campaign seized ‘17,250 pounds of gold, 200 pounds of pearls, 58 pounds of other gems, 28,250 pounds of silver, and 1000 pieces of silk.’

The murderers of Jalal-ud-din Khalji soon met with divine retribution, states Barani. Many of the chief conspirators died in a short time. ‘The hell-hound Salim, who struck the first blow, was a year or two afterwards eaten up by leprosy. Ikhtiyar-ud-din, who cut off the head, very soon went mad, and in his dying ravings cried out that Sultan Jalal-ud din stood over him with a naked sword, ready to cut off his head.’

Barani: When Ala-ud-din on his accession distributed vast sums as largess among the people, ‘they gave themselves up to gaiety and pleasure, and indulged in wine and all kinds of revelry. Within the city they erected several wondrous pavilions, where wine, sherbet, and betel were distributed gratis, and in almost every house an entertainment was held. The maliks, amirs, and all the other men of note and respectability invited one another to feasts; wine, music and mirth became the order of the day.’

Barani: In the first year of Ala-ud-din’s reign, because of this generous scattering of money, ‘folks of all classes, both high and low, lived in such ease and affluence, that I cannot recollect seeing any age or period of such perfect happiness and contentment.’

From where did Ala-ud-din get his reform ideas? Some of his administrative measures ‘were startlingly like that of Arthasastra ,’ comments modern historian Kosambi, and he goes on to speculate that it is possible ‘that the sultan found someone to tell him of the Mauryan regulations.’

Once, on the way back to Delhi from Deccan, Muhammad Tughluq suffered from severe toothache and had to have a tooth extracted. He then erected, over the spot where the extracted tooth was buried, a domed tomb which later came to be called the Dome of the Tooth.

The earliest use of paper money anywhere in the world was in China around the close of the eighth century CE. In the beginning it was more like a bank draft than a currency note. It enabled merchants to deposit gold and silver money in one town, receive a certificate of the deposit, and cash it in some other town. Shortly thereafter the Chinese government used this mode of transaction to transfer the tax collected in the provinces to the imperial capital.