INTRODUCTION #
The process of decentralization and the sign of decay was evident after the death of Alauddin Khilji. It continued, albeit slowly but surely during the Tughlaq’s, due to the various policies and exper- imental decisions made by the Sultan, especially, Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq. The subsequent rulers only hasten the disintegration of the Sultanate.
GHIYAS UD-DIN TUGHLAQ 1321- 1325 #
After eliminating Khusru, Ghazi Malik, a Gov- ernor of Alauddin became the Sultan of Delhi with the name Ghiyas ud-Din Tughluq in 1321.
We know about the period of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq from the material of Ziauddin Barni. Barni’s main works are Tawarikh-i-Firuzshahi and Fatwa-i-Jahandari. Then another important work is left by Ibn Battuta. Ibn Battuta has discussed his travels and incursions in contemporary Islamic world and documented them in Rihla. He was appointed as Qazi by Muhammad Tughlaq and was also appointed ambassador to China. Ibn Battuta gives details about the later part of his rule. Portrait of Muhammad bin Tughlaq in Batutta’s words, “his gateway is never free from a beggar whom he has relived and never free from a corpse, he has slain”
He reintroduced the food market laws which were earlier implemented by his master. He tried to revive all the reforms which were necessary and were earlier implemented. Ghiyas ud-Din Tughluq successfully attempted to bring the peace and pros- perity. Under his elder son Fakhr Malik or Jauna or Ulugh Khan, Deccan Provinces were recovered. A campaign was launched against Bengal, which had
never subject to Delhi since demise of Balban. This gallant old Sultan met his end in 1325 when a roof fell and crushed him beneath its ruins. His son Fakhr Malik ascended the throne in 1325 as Muhammad Bin Tughlaq and reigned for 26 years until 1351.
MUHAMMAD BIN TUGHLAQ 1325- 1351 #
This “Man of Ideas” was a trained intellectual, a keen student of Persian poetry and a philosopher, lover of science and mathematics. He is known for the idea of a Central Capital and experiments with a nominal token Currency. These ideas were all good, but he was in hurry and impatient of the slow adoption of his measures. All those who could not keep pace with his imagination, became victim of his wrath and were punished severely. The result was that Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, as a sultan proved himself a complete failure before the forces of history toppled him.
Donor King: Muhammad Bin Tughlaq gen- erously scattered almost incredible wealth among the foreign visitors, learned men, poets, officials, beggars, diseased and so on. He impoverished the treasury.
Project Khurasan: His project to conquer Persia (Khurasan Expedition), his dream to keep a huge standing army and his plans to invade China (Quarachil Expedition) finished his finances. His idea of invading China met with a disastrous in the passes of Himalayas.
Tax Reforms: The empty treasures needed fresh taxations. He wanted 5-10% more revenue from the Doab region which was the fertile land of his reign. The oppressive taxes reduced the farmers to beggars.
They stopped tilling the lands, lost confidence and burnt their stacks. The cattle were turned loose and moved to Jungles. The Tax reforms of Sultan got failed. Miffed Sultan hounded the wretched subjects and massacred them. Every man captured was slaughtered. This was followed by a famine and the unfortunate subjects were left in deplorable conditions for many years to come.
Transfer of Capital: The inconvenience to rule the wealthy Deccan induced the Sultan to take step and transfer the seat of the government to Daulatabad (near Pune). The idea might have been practical and reasonable if he had ever thought of shifting the official court of Delhi. But, he wanted to transport the whole population of Delhi to the new capital. The inhabitants of Delhi were made to leave their homes and were forced to march 700 miles down south with their women, children and all such belongings they could carry. Many were killed on the way in this forty days journey and few could survive. Daulatabad became the burial ground of the Sultan’s exiled subjects. Sultan got enough wisdom to realize his failure and ordered the people back to Delhi, result was only few could survive to return. Delhi’s houses were deserted now. Sultan “imported” learned men, traders and landholders to repopulate the deserted Delhi, but they could not flourish.
Diwan-i-Kohi: Sultan also got enough wisdom to understand the distress caused by the Famine and the result of the excessive taxation. In 1341, he abolished all the taxes and started sitting twice a week to hear the complaints of the oppressed. He started distributing daily food to the people of Delhi. He also established a loan system to the peasants. He created a department of Agriculture named as “Diwan-i-Kohi”. He established a “Famine Code” to relive the victims of Famine.
Experiments with Token Currency: The heavy drains of the treasury led him to do another disastrous experiment of a token currency. The Idea of token currency was probably borrowed from Paper Money issued by his near contemporary Kublai Khan in China. He introduced the Copper/ brass coins, which were to pass at the value of the contemporary Silver Tanka.
- The silver coin introduced by Muhammad Bin Tughlaq was called Adl.
- The Gold coin, which was finely engraved was called “Dinar”.
He did not foresee the consequences of this monetary experiment. He was aware that the value of the token money depends upon the credit of the treasury (which was full with Gold after his Deccan conquests) but forgot that none other than the state should issue the tokens. Any skilled engraver could copy the inscriptions and strike the copper tokens of the values of the Tankas. The result was that “house of every Hindu turned into a mint and the Hindus produced coins in tens of millions”. They paid their tribute, purchased horses, arms, cloths and all the other things with this forged currency. The local Rajas and village headmen became rich but the government became poor. The value of these coins fell so low that they became worth pebbles. This forced Sultan to repeal the edict and he gave order to bring the copper coins to the treasury and exchange them with old coins of silver / gold. Thousands of men from all corners flocked with these copper coins to the capital and exchanged them with Gold and Silver Tankas. So much of copper coins were brought to the treasury that heaps of them raised like mountains. The experiment meet its disastrous end.
Death and Succession #
The innovations of the Sultan exasperated the people and Sultan became unpopular. There was widespread discontent and rebellion. Bit by bit the empire disintegrated, one province after another revolted. Sultan could suppress the rebels at one point but could not be everywhere. Amid chaos and confu- sion, in 1351 Muhammad Bin Tughlaq died. He had no sons but his cousin Firoz Shah ascended the throne.
FIROZ SHAH TUGHLAQ (1351-1388 AD) #
Once becoming Sultan, Firoz reversed every order of his predecessor. He was a half Muslim, his mother was Hindu. So he got a religious temper- ament, probably to prove himself equal to the Pure Muslims. He started seeking advice of the Ulemas and ruled as per the Shariat. He abandoned all the taxes, which were unlawful as per Shariat.
He abolished Chungi (Octroi). He ordered that the Muslim women should not come out of their houses and visit the tombs.
The Brahmins were not exempted from the Jaziya tax levied on their pilgrimages but abolished Jaziya for those who accepted Islam. He publicly burnt a Brahmin for daring to preach the Muslims.
A lot of Hindu temples were destroyed and mosques were erected. He imposed water tax on the agriculture land which was irrigated by the waters of the canals dug by the state. He acquired numerous slaves and employed them in the royal workshops.
The cities established by him are Firuzshah Kotla (in Delhi) , Jaunpur in Bengal in memory of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, Fatahabad in the name of his newborn son. Second Firozabad on the banks of Yamuna River near Delhi. Here he established one of the Asokan Pillars which he had removed from its original places. One more city was Hissar-i-Firoza in the modern Haryana which is now the town of Hisar. To support the newly founded city of Hissar- i-Firoza, in 1355 he constructed a Double System of Canals from Yamuna to Sutlej. They are referred to as rajwahas in the Indo-Persian historical texts. This Yamuna canal was repaired for irrigation purposes during the time of Akbar.
The Firoz shah’s regime was utmost gentle towards the peasantry. His predecessor Muhammad Bin Tughlaq had introduced a system of government loans for the peasants. The peasants were not able to repay these loans. By the advice of one of his Wazirs named Makbul, he destroyed all the records in his presence, ceremoniously and gave clean chit to the peasants. This was one of the remarkable decisions taken by Firoz Shah Tughlaq which brought general peace and prosperity in the sultanate. In 32 years rule, there were almost no rebels in India under Firoz and this might be one of the reasons.
According to Farishta, a later historian, not less than 845 public works were done during the times of Firoz Shah Tughlaq which included canals, dams, reservoirs, bridges, baths, forts, mosques, schools, monasteries, and inns for pilgrims and travelers. He also repaired the Qutub Minar (1368) which had got damaged previously in an earthquake and many of the tombs of Delhi.
Succession: Firoz Shah died in 1388. He was succeeded by his grandson, Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughlaq II, who was killed within 5 months. Next followed Abu Bakr, Nasir-ud-din Muhammad Shah III, who
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was slaughtered after 4 weeks. In the meantime, Timur attacked India in 1398. Timur left Delhi in December 1398 and marched on Meerut. Then he attacked Haridwar and overran the city in 1399. At Bhokarhedi, he faced stiff resistance from the Hin- dus. In 1399, he returned his capital with numerous slaves and 90 captured elephants laden with precious stones and gold looted from India. He returned to his capital Amu Darya and built a mosque at Samar- kand. This mosque named Bibi- Khanym Mosque is located in Samarkand, Uzbekistan was built by Timur and is named after wife of Timur.
The Sayyid Dynasty #
The impact of the Invasion of Timur was that Delhi was not able to get her old ascendency. After a series of successions the Tughlaq dynasty had ended. In 1414, Khizra Khan, the founder of the Sayyid dynasty, who claimed his descent from the Prophet, took control as a deputy of Timur in India. Four Kings of the Sayyid dynasty indulged in perpetual struggle to retain some sort of control. Khizra Khan was succeeded by his son Mubarak Khan after his death on May 20, 1421. However, he was murdered soon. Last ruler of this dynasty was Ala-ud-Din Alam Shah, who voluntarily abdicated the throne of the Delhi sultanate in favor of Bahlol Khan Lodi on April 19, 1451 and left for Badaun, where he died.
India was once again disintegrated in to smaller independent states and petty rulers ruled the territo- ries, some of which were as small as 20-30 miles. In South India first independent Islamic Kingdom, Bahamni Kingdom had already formed by a vas- sal of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq. In Karnataka the Vijayanagar empire was on its climax.
Lodi Dynasty #
The entire 15th century saw the power of Delhi vanished, following the collapse of the Tughlaq Dynasty, after the invasion of Timur. The Sayyid utterly failed. The Lodi Afghans showed some energy and wisdom but could not regain the old power and pomp. Bahlol Lodi supplanted the last feeble Sayyid in 1451.
Bahlol Lodi 1451–1489: Bahlol Lodi was a good soldier and governor of Sirhind. After taking some minor principalities near Delhi, he was able to
recover Jaunpur and surrounding territories expand- ing the territories as far as Bihar. He had married a Hindu Goldsmith of Sirhind and the offspring of this matrimony was Sikandar Lodi, who succeeded him after his death in 1489.
Sikandar Lodi 1489-1517: Sikandar Lodi was the second son of Bahlol, so naturally there was a power struggle between him and his elder brother Barbak Shah, who was then viceroy of Jaunpur. However, since, his father nominated Sikandar as heir apparent, there was no bloodshed and Barbak Shah kept ruling Jaunpur. Sikandar ascended the throne in 1489 AD.
The campaigns of Sikandar Lodi began to recall the earlier supremacy of Delhi. He was able to sub- due the rajas of Bihar, Bengal, Dholpur, Chanderi, Gwalior, Awadh, Tirhut, Bundelkhand etc. In 1503, he established the city of Agra and in 1506, trans- ferred his capital from Delhi to Agra.
Sikandar, like Firoz Tughlaq was harsh to Hindus and is known to have burnt alive a Hindu Brahmin who preached “Islam and Hindu are both ways acceptable to God”. He razed temples such as Jwalamukhi temple at Nagarkot. He imposed Jaziya on Hindus and did all what he could do to prove
the supremacy of Islam. The dream of conquering the Gwalior fort could never come true in his life. He attacked five times to win this mighty fort but each time he was defeated by raja Mansingh of Gwalior. He died in 1517 and was succeeded by his son Ibrahim Lodi, who was the last Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate.
Ibrahim Lodi 1517-1526: Ibrahim Lodi was obsessed with the Royal prerogative. He made the Afghan chiefs on whose swords his dominion rested, stand motionless in his presence with folded hands and they got so much vexed with his petty rules that discontent rose among them.
Ibrahim tried to subdue the inferno with the blood of some of the elite and result of this blood- shed was that Afghans rose in arms. There was a rebel in all of his sides. The chiefs of Oudh, Jaunpur and Bihar chose Darya Khan as their leader. In Punjab there was a revolt under Daulat Khan. The rule of Ibrahim became so intolerant that one of his uncles Aalam Khan fled to Kabul and invited Babur to invade India. In Mewar, a new power under Rana Sanga was on its zenith. Under these circumstances Babur attacked India and closed the chapter of Delhi Sultanate.
