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

‘This sultan has also three or four thousand women [in his harem], and every night he sleeps with one, and she is found dead in the morning. Every time that he takes off his shirt, that shirt is never again touched by any one; and so also his other garments; and every day he chooses new garments … [The sultan could consume poison daily, because] his father had fed him upon poison from his childhood.’ This portrait, bizarre though it might seem, is at least partly confirmed by Barbosa, who visited Gujarat around this time. ‘I have heard that he was brought up from childhood to take poison, for his father, fearing that, in accordance with the usage of the country, he might be killed by that means, took this precaution against such a catastrophe,’ writes Barbosa. ‘He began to make him eat of it in small doses, gradually increasing them, until he could take a large quantity, whereby he became so poisonous, that if a fly lighted on his hand, it swelled and died at once, and many of the women with whom he slept died from the same cause.’

Begarha had other strange practices too. ‘In the morning, when he rises, there come to his palace fifty elephants, on each of which a man sits astride; and the said elephants do reverence to the sultan, and they have nothing else to do,’ reports Varthema. ‘And when he eats, fifty or sixty kinds of [musical] instruments play, namely, trumpets, drums of several sorts, and flageolets, and fifes, with many others, which for the sake of brevity I forbear mentioning. When the sultan eats, the said elephants again do reverence to him.’ Curiously, the raja of Vijayanagar also had a custom of being greeted by an elephant in the morning. ‘The king has a white elephant, exceedingly large,’ reports Razzak, ‘Every morning this animal is brought into the presence of the monarch, for to cast eye upon him is thought a favourable omen.’

IN CONTRAST TO the rigid and grandiose formality of the court customs of most kings of the middle and late Sultanate period, court customs in the early Sultanate period were quite simple. But they became rigidly formal during the reign of Balban, who had a very lofty concept of kingship and considered it an imperative practical necessity, for good governance, to elevate the sultan to a status far above the nobles, and thus create an unbridgeable psychological distance between him and the nobles, so that royal diktats would be unquestioningly obeyed by all. Balban therefore enforced in Delhi a court etiquette somewhat similar to that of the pre-Islamic Sassanian monarchy of Persia, such as requiring courtiers to prostrate before the sultan, and kiss his throne or his feet.

To match his exalted concept of kingship, Balban always maintained a sternly regal demeanour in public, and took every care to be impeccably ceremonious in all he did. And he demanded that his courtiers also should behave becomingly in his presence. He permitted absolutely no frivolity, even loud laughter, in the court. The later sultans were not quite as stern as Balban, but most of them did maintain a fair amount of formality in the court. The only sultan who notably relaxed the court practices was Khizr Khan, the founder of the Sayyid dynasty, who reverted to the simplicity and camaraderie in the relationship between the courtiers and the sultan that had existed in the early Sultanate period.

There was usually a master of the ceremonies at the court, to regulate the people who entered the court and to ensure that proper order was maintained there, and that all observed the formalities required of them. All strangers presenting themselves to the sultan were required to make an offering to him as a homage. ‘No stranger admitted to court can avoid offering a present [to the sultan] as a kind of introduction, which the sultan repays by one of much greater value,’ states Battuta. And the sultan when he wanted to honour a courtier or a visitor invested him with a khilat , a ceremonial robe.

Court etiquette was fairly elaborate in Vijayanagar also. There, as Paes notes, those attending the court, ‘as soon as they enter make their salaam to him (the raja), and place themselves along the wall far off from him. They do not speak to one another, nor do they chew betel before him, but they place their hands in the sleeves of their tunics and cast their eyes on the ground. And if the king desires to speak to anyone, it is done through a second person … The salaam, which is the greatest courtesy that exists among them, is that they put their hands joined above their head as high as they can.’ And all men respectfully removed their footwear before entering the royal court.

Most courtiers were servile sycophants, and were obsequious towards the king, and they passively conformed to the abject subservience required of them in the royal court, for their career depended on the whim and pleasure of the sultan. It was very rarely that anyone spoke out in the court; usually when the king asked his nobles for some advice, they in turn asked him what was in his mind, and they generally agreed with whatever he suggested.

THE CUSTOMS AND practices observed in the Delhi court are described in detail by Battuta. ‘The sultan’s palace in Delhi is called Dar Sara, and has many doors. At the first door there are a number of guards … trumpeters and flute-players,’ states Battuta. ‘When any amir or person of note arrives, they sound their instruments and announce, “So-and-so has come! So-and-so has come!” The same takes place also at the second and third doors.

‘Outside the first door are platforms on which executioners sit, for the custom amongst them is that when the sultan orders a man to be executed, the sentence is carried out at the door of the audience hall, and the body lies there for three nights.

‘Between the first and second doors there is a large vestibule with platforms along both sides, on which sit those whose turn of duty it is to guard the doors. Between the second and third doors there is a large platform on which the principal naqib (chief usher) sits … [He holds a gold mace in his hand] and on his head he wears a jewelled tiara of gold, surmounted by peacock feathers. The second door leads to an extensive audience hall in which the people sit.

‘At the third door there are platforms occupied by scribes … One of their customs is that none may pass through this door except those whom the sultan has authorized, and for each such person he assigns a number of his staff to enter [the court] along with him. Whenever any person comes to this door the scribes write down “So-and-so came at the first hour”, or the second [hour], and so on, and the sultan receives a report of this after the evening prayer. Another of their customs is that anyone who absents himself from the palace for three days or more, with or without excuse, may not enter this door thereafter except by the sultan’s permission. If he has an excuse of illness or otherwise, he presents the sultan with a gift suitable to his rank. The third door opens into an immense audience hall called Hazar Uslun, which means “a thousand pillars”. The pillars are of wood and support a wooden roof, admirably carved. The people sit under this, and it is in this hall that the sultan holds public audiences.’ According to Nikitin, a Russian traveller in India in the fifteenth century, ‘the sultan’s palace has seven gates, and at each gate are seated 100 guards and 100 Muhammadan scribes, who enter the names of all persons going in and out.’

IT WAS AN indispensable duty of the sultan to hold a durbar every day, sometimes even twice a day, morning and afternoon. ‘As a rule his audiences are held in the afternoon, though he often holds them early in the day [also],’ reports Battuta about the practice of Muhammad Tughluq. ‘He sits cross-legged on a throne placed on a dais carpeted in white, with a large cushion behind him and two other as armrests, on his right and left. When he takes his seat, the vizier stands in front of him, the secretaries behind the vizier, then the chamberlains, and so on in the order of precedence. As the sultan sits down the chamberlains and naqibs say in their loudest voice: Bismillah!