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

THE FIRST NOTED rebellion against Muhammad was in the second year of his reign, and that was by his cousin Baha-ud-din Gurshasp, who held a fief near Gulbarga in northern Karnataka. This was a minor rebellion, and Gurshasp was easily defeated by the imperial forces sent against him. He then fled southward and took refuge with the raja of Kampili, on the banks of the Tungabhadra. As the imperial forces pursued the rebel there, the raja shut himself in the fort of Hosdurg, and when attacked there, the royal women there performed the awesome suicidal rite of jauhar, and the raja himself and several of his officers fought to death against the enemy. Those who survived — some princes and officers — were captured by the Sultanate army and taken to Delhi, where they embraced Islam. Among these converts were two brothers, Harihara and Bukka, who would later revert to Hinduism, return to the peninsula, and found the powerful Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar.

Meanwhile, on the fall of Hosdurg, Gurshasp fled to the Hoysala kingdom, but the raja there timidly handed him over to the Sultanate army. Gurshasp was then taken to Daulatabad, where the sultan had arrived, and he was there flayed alive, and his skin, stuffed with straw, was exhibited in the chief cities of the empire as a warning to other potential rebels.

But that did not prevent rebellions. Rather, as Muhammad’s reign advanced, so did the number of rebellions against him multiply, particularly in the last phase of his reign. And, as rebellions spread, so did the harshness of the sultan’s response to them intensify, in an ever tightening vicious circle of rebellion and suppression.

The sultan spent his last years obsessively scurrying around fighting rebels. But it was all utterly futile, for when he put down rebellion in one place, it broke out elsewhere, and when he moved to suppress the new rebellion, rebellion broke out again in the previous place. This went on and on. The sultan’s efforts were all utterly futile, like cutting off the heads of a hydra, each of which, when cut off, immediately grew back as two.

Soon the Sultanate lost most of its territory in the peninsula, where three new kingdoms then came up: the Madurai Sultanate, the Bahmani Sultanate, and Vijayanagar. Warangal too became independent. There were serious rebellions in North India also at this time. Predictably Bengal now became an independent kingdom. Oudh and north-west India too were plagued by insurgencies. And in Gujarat and Maharashtra a group of foreign migrant officers, often described as the Centurions, broke out in rebellion.

Muhammad set out from Delhi in 1345 to suppress the rebellion of the Centurions. He would never return. All circumstances now turned adverse to the sultan. During this campaign his army was plagued by famine and epidemics. And in Gujarat he was confronted by a resourceful and tenacious adversary, a cobbler turned rebel leader named Taghi, who had, according to Barani, won over to his side several of the amirs of Gujarat. Muhammad defeated Taghi, but could not capture him, as he fled to Sind.

When the sultan was in Gujarat he caught fever and was prostrated for some months. On recovery, he set out for Sind in pursuit of Taghi. In late 1350 he crossed the Indus and advanced along the banks of the river towards Tattah, where Taghi had taken refuge. On the way he kept the fast of the tenth day of Muharram, ‘and when it was over he ate some fish. The fish did not agree with him, so his illness returned and fever increased,’ records Barani. Though Muhammad continued his advance on Tattah by travelling by boat on the Indus, his ailment soon turned critical, and on 20th March 1351 he ‘departed from this life on the banks of the Indus, at 14 kos (45 kilometres) from Tattah.’ He had reigned for 26 years.

WHAT WERE THE thoughts of the sultan as he lay dying? We do not know. There is no record of anything that he said or did in his last days. But certainly his dying thoughts would have been hardly pleasant, for the grand dreams with which he began his reign had all turned into most dreadful nightmares.

Muhammad was a learned man with wide cultural interests, but that was a qualification of little value in a medieval ruler; indeed, the most successful rulers of medieval India, Ala-ud-din Khalji and Akbar, were both illiterate. Undeniably Muhammad had some good and progressive ideas, and several of them were achievable goals. But he did not have the pragmatism or the mental stamina to think through his plans in detail, nor did he have the tenacity and toughness of character to carry them through to success in the face of problems. None — not one — of his schemes was carried to success. Muhammad, for all his posture of toughness, was a weak, wavering ruler, who blamed others for the failure of his schemes, while the faults were all of his own.

Muhammad had the potential of being an agent for revolutionary change for the good in the Sultanate, but his reign turned out to be an absolute disaster. He meant to do good, but ended up doing only harm. All contemporary sources agree that his policies resulted in the ruin of the county and the people. ‘The glory of the state, and the power of the government of Sultan Muhammad … withered and decayed,’ states Barani. In fact, paradoxical though it might seem, it was the good in him that fuelled and fanned the flames of the fiend in him — he turned devilish to punish the people who failed to appreciate the good in him! His frustrations warped his character, turned him into a raging, rampaging monster.

And that brought untold misery on his subjects. In his death, comments Badauni, ‘the king was freed from his people, and they from their king.’

As Muhammad Tughluq lay terminally ill, the anxiety about what the future portended for the Delhi Sultanate and all those associated with it swept through the imperial army. ‘They were a thousand kos distant from Delhi and their wives and children, and were near the enemy and in a wilderness and desert,’ reports Barani. ‘So they were sorely distressed and, looking upon the sultan’s expected death as preliminary to their own death, they quite despaired of returning home.’

Presently, as expected, the sultan died. And that left the army without a commander — and the empire without a ruler. So the entire Sultanate camp, which included a good number of women and children, swirled into utter chaos as it set out to return to Delhi. ‘Every division of the army marched in the greatest disorder, without leader, rule, or route,’ states Barani. ‘No one heeded or listened to what anyone said … When they had proceeded a kos or two, Mongols, eager for booty, assailed them in front, and the rebels of Tattah attacked them in the rear. Cries of dismay arose on every side. Mongols fell to plundering, and carried off women, maids, horses, camels, troopers, baggage, and whatever else had been sent on in advance. They very nearly captured even the royal harem and treasure … Then the villagers who had been pressed into the service of the army … took to flight. They pillaged various lots of baggage on the right and left of the army, and then joined the rebels of Tattah in attacking the baggage train. … [All this plunged the army into a whirl, for] if they advanced in front they were assailed by Mongols; if they lagged behind, they were plundered by the rebels of Tattah … Every man was in despair for his life and goods, his wife and children.’

These troubles went on for a few days. Then, according to Barani, the top officers in the Sultanate camp gathered together and, ‘after a long and anxious deliberation,’ decided to offer the crown to Firuz Shah, a first-cousin of Muhammad, and they went to him and ‘with one voice said, “Thou art the heir apparent and legatee of the late sultan; he had no son … There is no one else … who enjoys the confidence of the people or has the ability to reign. For god’s sake save these wretched people; ascend the throne and deliver us.”’ Firuz, apparently in a show of becoming modesty, expressed reluctance to accept the responsibility, and said that he was planning to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca at that time. But ‘all ranks, young and old, Muslims and Hindus, horse and foot, women and children, assembled, and with one acclaim declared that Firuz Shah alone was worthy of the crown.’