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

Barani concurs with Battuta that the shifting of the capital to Devagiri was disastrous. ‘It brought ruin upon Delhi, the city which … had grown in prosperity, and rivalled Baghdad and Cairo,’ he writes. ‘So complete was its ruin that not a cat or a dog was left among the buildings of the city, in its palaces or in its suburbs. Troops of the natives, with their families and dependents, wives and children, men servants and maid servants, were forced to move [to Devagiri]. The people, who for many … generations had been … the inhabitants of … [Delhi], were broken-hearted. Many, from the toils of the long journey, perished on the road, and those who arrived at Devagiri could not endure the pain of exile. They pined to death in despondency.’

Though Muhammad took care to provide various facilities for the migrants on their long journey, and helped them to settle in Devagiri, none of that compensated them for their mental agony due to the loss of their traditional domicile. ‘The sultan,’ continues Barani, ‘was bounteous in his liberality and favours to the emigrants, both on their journey and on their arrival; but they were tender, and could not endure the exile and suffering … Of all the multitudes of emigrants, few only survived to return to their home’ when the sultan later re-shifted the capital to Delhi.

Daulatabad remained the capital of the Sultanate for eight years. When Muhammad finally gave permission to the migrants to return to Delhi, most of them joyfully went back, though some, ‘with whom the Maratha country agreed, remained in Devagiri with their wives and children,’ notes Barani. But even with the return of a large number of people to Delhi, ‘not a thousandth part of the [original] population [of Delhi] remained.’

MUHAMMAD HAD MUCH more success in his military campaigns for expanding the territory of his empire than in his administrative reforms. This was partly because his reign was relatively free of Mongol raids. There was only one major incursion into the Sultanate by Mongols during his reign. This was in 1327, early in Muhammad’s reign, when they invaded India under the command of the Chagatai chief Tarmashirin, a Buddhist turned Muslim. The Mongol objective, as usual, was to gather plunder, not to conquer territory, so they stormed eastward through the Indo-Gangetic Plain and advanced as far as Meerut close to Delhi, pillaging and ravaging the land all along the way, and slaughtering people indiscriminately. According to Ferishta, Muhammad then bought them off with a huge ransom, and they sped back home, once again pillaging and ravaging the land all along the way. According to another account, Muhammad made a show of pursuing the Mongols up to Kalanaur in Punjab, a town that now enters history for the first time, where Mughal emperor Akbar would be born 215 years later.

Another aspect of Muhammad’s policy towards Mongols was to try and absorb them into Indian population. According to Barani ‘the sultan supported and patronised Mongols,’ and he induced many thousands of them to come with their families and settle in India, by conferring on them various favours and spending vast sums of money on them, probably in the hope that these fierce warriors would strengthen his army and help him to achieve his various ambitious plans for conquest. But rather than adding to the strength and stability of the Sultanate, Mongol migrants only added to the turmoil of Muhammad’s reign.

Despite that setback there was, during Muhammad’s reign, a significant expansion of the territory of the Sultanate, deep into South India. But in the end even that turned out to be counterproductive. Unlike Ala-ud-din Khalji’s sensible policy of not annexing distant territories that he could not effectively rule, but only of establishing his suzerainty over them, Muhammad sought to annex all the lands he conquered, and early in his reign he extended his direct rule deep into the peninsula as far as Madurai. Virtually all of India, except Kashmir and Kerala at the far ends of the subcontinent, and a few small tracts in between, then came under the direct rule of Delhi.

But Muhammad was not content with this. ‘The sultan in his lofty ambition had conceived it to be his mission in life to subdue the whole habitable world and bring it under his rule,’ notes Barani. Shortly after the Mongol invasion early in his reign, Muhammad dreamed up a plan to conquer Central Asia — if Central Asians could invade India, why not Indians invade Central Asia? For this project the sultan recruited a vast army of 370,000 cavalry, which was maintained by him for a year, but was not deployed in any campaign, so that ‘when the next year came around there were not sufficient funds in the treasury … to support them,’ so they were disbanded, records Barani.

The sultan did however launch a military campaign into the western Himalayan foothills, perhaps in preparation for an invasion of Central Asia, as Barani states, or for an invasion of China, as Ferishta states. But this turned out to be an absolute disaster, as heavy rains impeded the army’s progress, and diseases ravaged soldiers and horses. Beset by these troubles, the hapless army retreated in disorder, but they were then brutally set on by the local people. ‘The whole force was thus destroyed … and out of all this chosen body of men only ten horsemen returned to Delhi to tell the news of its discomfiture,’ reports Barani. The net result of Muhammad’s plans for foreign conquests was that, as Barani comments, ‘the coveted countries were not acquired, but those which he possessed were lost; and his treasure, which is the true source of political power, was expended.’

MUHAMMAD WAS BEDEVILLED by endless problems in the latter part of his reign. His vast empire then began to disintegrate, and large chunks of it broke away. And he had little control even over the remaining territories, as countless rebellions raged through the empire like wild fires. The man who wanted to rule the world could hardly control his own backyard.

‘Disaffection and disturbances arose on every side,’ Barani reports, ‘and as they gathered strength, the sultan became more exasperated and more severe with his subjects. But his severities only increased the distress of the people … Insurrection followed upon insurrection … The people were alienated. No place remained secure, all order and regularity were lost, and the throne was tottering to its fall.’ Muhammad was well aware that his repressive measures were counterproductive, but still would not modify his policy. ‘When I collect my forces and put them (the rebels) down in one direction, they excite disturbance in some other quarter,’ he once told Barani. ‘My kingdom is diseased, and no treatment cures it. The physician cures the headache, but fever follows; he strives to allay the fever, and something else supervenes.’

The empire was clearly swirling into anarchy. What could be done about it? What had former kings done in similar circumstances, the sultan once asked Barani. Barani replied in detail to that query, and concluded: ‘Of all political ills, the greatest and the most dire is the general feeling of aversion … among all ranks of people.’ But Muhammad asserted that he would not change his ways, whatever be the reaction of the people. ‘At present I am angry with my subjects, and they are aggrieved with me,’ he told Barani. ‘The people are acquainted with my feelings, and I am aware of their misery and wretchedness. No treatment that I employ is of any benefit. My remedy for rebels, insurgents, opponents, and disaffected people is the sword. I employ punishment and use the sword, so that a cure may be affected by suffering. The more the people resist, the more I inflict chastisement.’

Barani could have then told the sultan that the problem was not with the people, but with the sultan. But he dared not say that. ‘I could not help feeling a desire to tell the sultan that the troubles and revolts which were breaking out on every side, and this general disaffection, all arose from the excessive severity of His Majesty, and that if punishments were suspended for a while, a better feeling might spring up, and mistrust be removed from the hearts of the people,’ Barani confesses. ‘But I dreaded the temper of the king and could not say what I desired.’