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

And, most unusual of all in that age of minimal governments, Ala-ud-din ran a maximal government. There was hardly anything in the empire that he did not seek to control and manipulate. And he had to his credit the introduction of several daringly innovative and brilliantly successful administrative and economic reforms. Curiously, he was illiterate — as was the great Mughal emperor Akbar — but that proved to be an advantage for him, as he could innovate freely, without being burdened by conventional wisdom.

‘He was a man of no learning and he never associated with men of learning. He could not read or write a letter,’ scorns Barani. ‘But when he became king, he came to the conclusion that polity and government are one thing, and the rules and decrees of religion are another. Royal commands belong to the king, legal decrees rest upon the judgment of kazis and muftis. In accordance with this opinion, whatever affair of the state came before him, he only looked to the public good, without considering whether his mode of dealing with it was lawful or unlawful. He never asked for legal opinions on political matters, and very few learned men visited him.’

Barani’s comment that Ala-ud-din ‘only looked to the public good’ was meant as a criticism, but to the modern reader it would seem to be a high compliment. The sultan ruled his vast empire with firmness and energy, even with wisdom, and on the whole his rule was beneficial to the people, and under him they lived in greater security and comfort than under any other king of the Delhi Sultanate.

Ala-ud-din was undeniably one of the greatest rulers in Indian history. Unfortunately, in contrast to his splendid public achievements, he had to endure much misery in his private life. He had married his cousin, Jalal-ud-din’s daughter, but she turned out to be a veritable shrew, as was her mother, and the two of them together made his domestic life utterly wretched. ‘The wife of Ala-ud-din tormented him,’ states Ibn Battuta, a fourteenth century Moorish traveller in India. The sultan was a maniac for control, but he could not control his wife. Though he had other wives, domestic disharmony would have been galling to him, especially as he was obsessed with being in control of everything.

The sultan compensated the miseries of his private life with outstanding achievements in his public life. ‘One success followed another,’ reports Barani. ‘Despatches of victory came in from all sides; every year he had two or three sons born; affairs of the state went on according to his wish and to his satisfaction; his treasury was overflowing, boxes and caskets of jewels and pearls were daily displayed before his eyes; he had numerous elephants in his stables and 70,000 horses in the city and environs; two or three regions were subject to his sway; and he had no apprehension of enemies to his kingdom or of any rival to his throne.’

Ala-ud-din had several major military achievements to his credit. But he was not rapacious in his conquests, and was usually generous and honourable in his treatment of the rajas he subjugated, and he often reinstated them on their thrones as subordinate rulers. He was no doubt a despot, as the rulers of the age invariably were, but he was not a whimsical despot. All his policies were formulated, and actions taken, only after very careful consideration, not on impulse. He, as even Barani admits, usually ‘consulted and debated with wise men by night and by day as to the best means’ for achieving his goals. He was even amenable to criticism, and often rewarded those who boldly gave him sensible though unpalatable advice. And, most unusual and laudable of all, he had a genuine concern for the welfare of the common people. Also, contrary to what Barani says, Ala-ud-din enjoyed the company of scholars and creative people, and was a patron of Amir Khusrav and Amir Hasan, renowned poets.

ALA-UD-DIN WAS INVARIABLY successful in all his ventures, and his successes, if we are to believe Barani, fantastically inflated his ambition. ‘His prosperity intoxicated him,’ states Barani. ‘Vast desires and great aims beyond him, or a hundred thousand like him, laid their seeds in his brain, and he entertained fancies which had never occurred to any king before him. In his exaltation, ignorance, and folly, he quite lost his head, forming the most impossible schemes and nourishing the most extravagant desires.’

Some of Ala-ud-din’s schemes, as reported by Barani, were certainly megalomaniacal. ‘If I am inclined, I can … establish a new religion and creed; and my sword, and the swords of my friends, will bring all men to adopt it,’ he once told his nobles. He also dreamed of world conquest. ‘I have wealth and elephants and forces beyond calculation. My wish is to place Delhi in charge of a vicegerent, and then I myself will go out into the world, like Alexander, in pursuit of conquest, and subdue the whole habitable world,’ he vaunted. ‘Every region that I subdue I will entrust to one of my trusty nobles, and then proceed in quest of another. Who is there that will stand against me?’ He even assumed the title Sikandar Sani (Second Alexander), and had the title stamped on his coins and inserted in the khutba read at Friday prayers. ‘His companions, although they saw his … folly and arrogance, were afraid of his violent temper, and applauded him,’ comments Barani.

It was Barani’s uncle Ala-ul Mulk, the kotwal of Delhi and one of the close associates of Ala-ud-din from the time before his accession, who finally opened the sultan’s eyes to the absurdity of his chimeric schemes. This noble used to attend the royal court only on the new moon days because of his ‘extreme corpulence,’ but one day when he attended the court, the sultan asked his opinion about his grand projects. And the kotwal made bold to submit: ‘Religion and law and creeds should never be made the subjects of discussion by Your Majesty, for these are the concerns of prophets, not the business of kings. Religion and law spring from heavenly revelation; they are never established by the plans and designs of man … The prophetic office has never appertained to kings, and never will … though some prophets have discharged the function of royalty. My advice is that Your Majesty should never talk about these matters.’ The sultan, according to Barani, ‘listened, and hung down his head in thought … After a while he said, “Henceforth no one shall ever hear me speak such words.”’

But what about his plan for world conquest, Ala-ud-din then asked. ‘The second design is that of a great monarch, for it is a rule among kings to seek to bring the whole world under their sway,’ the kotwal admitted, but cautioned that what was possible for Alexander might not be possible for any king anymore. ‘These are not the days of Alexander,’ the kotwal cautioned. ‘But what is the use of my wealth, and elephants and horses, if I remain content with Delhi, and undertake no new conquests?’ the sultan persisted. ‘What will then be said of my reign?’ The kotwal then advised the sultan that before planning world conquest he should first effectively defend his kingdom against persistent Mongol incursions, and then conquer the vast unconquered regions of the Indian subcontinent. But even these practicable goals, the kotwal warned, would be difficult to achieve ‘unless Your Majesty gives up drinking excessively, and keeps aloof from convivial parties and feasts.’ Ala-ud-din was pleased with this frank and sensible counsel, and he honoured the kotwal with a robe of honour and various other valuable gifts.

ALA-UD-DIN HEEDED THE Kotwal’s advice, and thereafter focussed his attention on realisable goals, such as expanding his empire and tightening its administration. And in both these he was exceptionally successful. There was a substantial expansion of the territory of the Delhi Sultanate during his reign, so the kingdom became the absolutely dominant political and military power in the subcontinent. But the sultan was not a rash adventurer. His military policy, as in everything else he did, was a potent combination of daring and caution. He took particular care to treat the conquered rajas honourably, and he cautioned his officers setting out on conquests that they should ‘avoid unnecessary strictness’ towards the rajas, and should treat them respectfully, so as to turn enemies into allies. And to ensure that his orders on all these matters were strictly carried out by his officers, Ala-ud-din kept himself fully informed about the movements and activities of his army, by setting up outposts all along its route, to carry news about the army to him, and to carry his instructions back to the army. As a result of these wise and benevolent and yet strict policies of the sultan, ‘subjugated countries and enemies became his ardent supporters,’ states Barani.