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

KAFUR’S DE FACTO RULE lasted only thirty-five days. On his assassination, the nobles in Delhi released Mubarak from prison and installed him as the regent of Shihab-ud-din, the child sultan, though he himself was only seventeen or eighteen years old then. After a few months, Mubarak imprisoned and blinded Shihab-ud-din, and himself ascended the throne, no doubt with the connivance of the ever opportunistic and scheming nobles.

In some ways Mubarak was like his father, and he, following Ala-ud-din’s policy of never to trust defectors, had the assassins of Kafur, who were then strutting about as king-makers, dispersed and their leaders executed, even though the throne he occupied was their gift. And, again like Ala-ud-din, he had no compunction whatever to ruthlessly exterminate his political rivals, including his brothers and close relatives. However, he lacked his father’s unwinking attention to governance; besides, he was addicted to sensual pleasures, and spent most of his time and energy in debauchery.

‘Still he was a man of some excellent qualities,’ notes Barani. And in the early part of his reign, he was a popular ruler. A major reason for his popularity was that he reversed many of the exacting policies of Ala-ud-din. ‘On the very day of his accession he issued orders that the [political] prisoners and exiles of the late reign, amounting to seventeen or eighteen thousand in number, should all be released in the city and in all parts of the country …,’ reports Barani. ‘[Further,] six months’ salary was given to the army, and the allowances and grants of nobles were increased … The sultan from his good nature relieved the people of heavy tributes and oppressive demands; and penalties, extortions, beatings, chains, fetters, and blows were set aside in revenue matters.’

All this was partly deliberate policy, and partly an expression of Mubarak’s indolent nature. ‘Through his love of pleasure, extravagance and ease, all the regulations and arrangements of the late reign fell into disuse; and through his laxity in business matters all men took their ease, being saved from the harsh temper, severe treatment, and oppressive orders of the late king,’ notes Barani. ‘Men were no longer in … fear of hearing, “Do this, but don’t do that;” “Say this, but don’t say that;” “Hide this, but don’t hide that;” “Eat this, but don’t eat that;” “Sell such as this, but don’t sell things like that;” “Act like this, but don’t act like that” … All the old regulations were now disregarded … and an entirely new order of things was established. All fear and awe of the royal authority vanished.’

Nearly all the ‘regulations of Ala-ud-din came to an end on his death, for his son … was not able to maintain even a thousandth part of them,’ continues Barani. The only reform of Ala-ud-din that Mubarak retained was prohibition, but even that only nominally so, for he was quite negligent in enforcing it. ‘Such was the general disregard of orders and contempt for restrictions that wine shops were publicly opened, and vessels of wine by hundreds came into the city from the country.’ As Ala-ud-din’s market regulations were discarded by Mubarak, prices of all things rose. And so did wages. Traders ‘rejoiced over the death of Ala-ud-din; they now sold goods at their own price, and cheated and fleeced people as they pleased … The doors of bribery, extortion, and malversation were thrown open, and a good time for the revenue officers came around … Hindus again found pleasure and happiness, and were beside themselves with joy…. [They] who had been so harassed … that they had not even time to scratch their heads, now put on fine apparel, rode on horseback, and shot their arrows. All through the reign of Mubarak, not one of the old rules and regulations remained in force, no order was maintained.’

‘DURING THE FOUR years and four months [of Mubarak’s reign] the sultan attended to nothing but drinking, listening to music, debauchery and pleasure, scattering gifts, and gratifying his lusts,’ states Barani. ‘The sultan plunged into sensual indulgences openly and publicly, by night and by day, and the people followed his example … His whole life was passed in extreme dissipation and utter negligence. Debauchery, drunkenness, and shamelessness proved his ruin … He cast aside all regard for decency, and presented himself decked out in the trinkets and apparel of a female before his assembled company. He gave up attendance at public prayer, and publicly broke the fast of the month of Ramadan.’ He made one of his cronies, a Gujarati named Tauba, supreme in his palace, and encouraged him to insult the great nobles in foul language, and to ‘defile and befoul their garments … Sometimes he made his appearance in company stark naked, talking obscenity.’

But Mubarak was lucky, for during his reign there was ‘no deficiency in the crops, no alarm from Mongols, no irreparable calamity … No revolt or great disturbance arose in any quarter, not a hair of anyone was injured, and the name of grief or sorrow never entered the breast, or passed from the tongue of anyone.’ The many troubles that arose in the last years of Ala-ud-din and immediately after his death ‘began to abate on the accession of Mubarak. People felt secure,’ concludes Barani. Though there were a couple of provincial rebellions during this period, they were minor affairs, and were easily suppressed.

Mubarak was a bizarre amalgam of wild debauchery and bestial violence. He was highly eccentric, was perhaps insane. Ferishta describes him as ‘a monster in the shape of man.’ There was indeed a demon lurking inside him, which at the slightest provocation burst out into the open and committed the most appalling savageries. Thus when a conspiracy to murder him was discovered, he not only had the principal plotter, Asad-ud-din, a cousin of Ala-ud-din, and his brothers and co-conspirators beheaded, but had even their children of tender years ‘slaughtered like sheep,’ and the women and girls of the families driven out into the streets.

The sultan was at this time swirling in a state of convulsive insecurity. He saw a traitor in every shadow, and that led him to order a series of executions of his potential rivals and enemies. Thus when he heard a rumour that some amirs were conspiring to replace him with the young son of his brother Khizr Khan, he, according to Battuta, ‘seized him (the boy) by the feet and dashed his head against a stone till his brains were scattered.’ He then executed his three surviving brothers, who had all been already blinded and were lodged in the Gwalior prison — their heads were hacked off, and their bodies flung into a ditch. Mubarak even executed his father-in-law, Zafar Khan, the governor of Gujarat.

‘Acts of violence and tyranny like this became his common practice … The good qualities which the sultan had possessed were now all perverted,’ comments Barani. ‘He gave way to wrath and obscenity, to severity, revenge and heartlessness. He dipped his hands in innocent blood, and he allowed his tongue to utter disgusting and abusive words to his companions and attendants … A violent, vindictive spirit … possessed him.’ Mubarak was like a moth dancing around the candle flame, courting self-destruction, but no one dared to caution or counsel him, fearing the consequences.

MUBARAK, AS RIZVI describes him, was ‘passionately homosexual’, and was ‘deeply in love’ with a slave officer from Gujarat named Hasan, whom he designated as Khusrav Khan and made him his closest aide. Khusrav is described with great contempt by Barani as a Parwari, which is sometimes taken to be the name of the untouchable Hindu caste of scavengers in Gujarat. But Barani’s disdain for Khusrav seems to be more an expression of a Turk’s prejudice against Islamised Indians (many of whom were indeed of low caste origin) than of Khusrav’s actual caste origin. According to Amir Khusrav, another contemporary chronicler, Khusrav belonged to Baradus, a Hindu military caste that served as the commandos of rajas. In any case, Khusrav proved himself to be a man of considerable military acumen and prowess, as he demonstrated in his successful campaigns in the peninsula, which took him, in imitation of Kafur’s campaigns, deep into the Tamil country.