Delhi Darshan

by Giles Tillotson

  But he was not content with this. He said to himself, ‘Some persons might be oppressed in the course of the night and might desire immediate redress of their grievances’. So he set up two statues of lions on towers at the gate of his palace, and around their necks were two iron chains with a huge bell. The oppressed person would shake the bell in the night and the sultan hearing the sound would instantly look into his case and administer justice.

  The story might sound fanciful (and Ibn Battuta was reporting what he learnt a century after the events), but the idea of the ruler as a fair judge accessible to all—modelled on King Solomon—is a recurring motif in Islamic history.

  Besides impromptu court hearings, Iltutmish found his sleep disturbed by numerous rebellions, staged by resurgent Rajputs or ambitious ministers. With an eye on posterity, he continued the building projects of Qutb-ud-din and paid particular attention to the education of his children. His eldest son predeceased him and was buried in a tomb, located near the modern housing colony of Vasant Kunj, known as Sultan Ghari which is again composed of the columns and lintels of an ancient temple. It was built around 1231 and was the first major mausoleum in Delhi.

  This death left Iltutmish with a dilemma as he felt that his other sons, despite his efforts with their schooling, lacked the necessary qualities to rule, and he nominated his daughter, Raziya, as his successor. The nobles at first overruled him. When Iltutmish himself died in April 1236, they laid him to rest in the tomb next to the Quwwatu’l-Islam mosque and elevated his son Rukn-ud-din Firuz to the throne. As predicted by his father, Rukn-ud-din immediately abandoned himself to pleasures of the flesh. After seven months of forbearance, the nobles grew anxious for the safety of the realm and killed him, replacing him with Raziya.

  The short reign of Raziya (1236–40) has been described by one historian as a ‘bold experiment’. It was one of the few instances in Indian history of a woman ruling (and most of the others came much later). Early on she tried to maintain the conventions of purdah. Her throne was guarded by Amazons and surrounded by a screen, making her invisible to courtiers and public alike. But this proved impractical and she soon abandoned the attempt, switched to male clothing and rode about the city to transact business, thus setting a precedent that was imitated 600 years later by Sikander Begum of Bhopal.

  Raziya controlled the administration and the competing factions at court much more satisfactorily than the three nonentities who followed her, each of whom was eventually killed by rivals. Their deaths cleared the way for the rise of Balban, a ruthless and ambitious courtier, to seize the throne.

  Balban (r. 1266–87) began his life as a slave. There is a story that Iltutmish, given the chance to buy Balban, at first refused because he disliked his face, but was eventually persuaded by his wazir to give him a job in the stables. From there Balban worked his way up through various offices in the palace and postings in the provinces, emerging as the power behind the throne, finally usurping it. Because of his subservient beginnings—something he had in common with Qutb-ud-din—this whole succession of early sultans is traditionally referred to as the ‘Slave Dynasty’. The term is something of an oxymoron, but it is a reminder that even while they appealed to external authorities to assert their legitimacy, they claimed no descent by blood from established ruling clans.

  Feared rather than respected by fellow courtiers during the years of his rise to power, on account of his cunning and connivance, Balban adopted other methods once he had obtained his end. As sultan he developed a reputation instead for austerity and piety. He gave up alcohol, took to prayer with excessive zeal and closely supervised the political education of his sons. But he was still feared because of the harsh punishments he meted out to anyone suspected of sedition. In some cases entire villages were slaughtered.

  The historian Isami records a tale about an elderly woman who came before Balban to plead for the life of her condemned son, insisting on his innocence. Balban ignored her pleas, and the young man was executed. Thereafter the woman appeared each night under the walls of the palace, loudly lamenting her loss and calling for divine retribution. All the efforts of the guards could not prevent the nightly repetition of her exasperating routine. But then, all of a sudden, one night she stopped coming. However, Balban’s relief was short-lived, as he soon discovered that on that night his own favourite son, Prince Muhammad, had been killed in Multan. The woman could not be traced.

  Balban was succeeded by his grandson, Kaiqubad. A handsome young man with pleasing manners, Kaiqubad had been brought up in accordance with his grandfather’s strict regime and reached adulthood without ever having seen a woman or tasted wine. Predictably enough, once enthroned, he went berserk. He built himself a new palace which he filled with musicians, dancing girls and jokers. Members of the elite who shared his tastes joined in the non-stop revelry. Pliable members of the ulema (learned divines) were persuaded to write a fatwa exempting the sultan from fasting during Ramadan. He was distracted from pleasure only by the occasional need to murder a potential rival. It ended badly, of course, with Kaiqubad being wrapped in a blanket and thrown into the Yamuna river by the aggrieved son of someone he had killed.

  Kaiqubad has no tomb and no trace remains of his pleasure palace. In fact, none of the palaces of these early sultans survive. The normal practice was for each ruler to construct a new palace, leaving those of their predecessors to decay. Their tombs, if built, were better maintained, because of the custom prevalent among later sultans of visiting the tombs of saints and of former rulers at important moments, such as before a military campaign. This custom seems to have been a matter of routine, causing some contemporary historians to comment on occasional lapses. We are told, for example, of a later sultan who refused to visit the tomb of Balban, suspecting him of having murdered his predecessor. If others shared his view, this might account for the dilapidated state of Balban’s tomb by comparison with the well-preserved but older tomb of Iltutmish.

  Of the greater part of the city of this time—the houses of nobles, merchants and craftsmen; their schools and markets—nothing substantial remains. Much of it would have been kachha (earth) rather than pakka (stone) in construction, made habitable by wooden and textile fittings, all of which was perishable. So when guidebooks point to the vicinity of the Qutb Minar as the first of seven Muslim cities of Delhi, they are really speaking of a fort that was wrested from the earlier Rajputs, containing a mosque composed of purloined pieces of temples and a few tombs.

  Just outside the walls, abutting them on the south-west, lay a suburb, on the site of the present village of Mehrauli. Here too very little survives from the period of the first sultans. A large stone-lined tank, called the Hauz-i-Shamsi, is said to have been excavated around 1230 by Iltutmish in fulfilment of instructions personally delivered to him by the Prophet in a dream. But the tank today is much smaller than it was when Ibn Battuta saw it, and the stone has been replaced. At the north end of the village lies the dargah or shrine of the Sufi saint Khwaja Qutb-ud-din Bakhtiyar Kaki (known as Qutb Sahib for short). Born in Persia, he came to India soon after the conquest and became a disciple of Khwaja Muin-ud-din, the founder of the Chishti order in Ajmer. He died in 1236 (the same year as Iltutmish) so the nucleus of the dargah must date from then. But his original grave was covered by nothing but earth, in adherence with the general instructions for burial given in the Quran. The structure that now covers it, and the many other buildings within the complex, were all built by admirers and devotees at later times, some as recently as the twentieth century.

  Expansion and Division: Khaljis and Tughluqs

  After the death of Kaiqubad, order was restored to some degree when an Afghan noble of the Khalji clan usurped the throne. Though he had been a good general, he turned out to be a poor ruler, being far too lenient to command respect at court. He was especially indulgent towards his nephew Alauddin Khalji, who repaid the favour by assassinating his uncle in 1296 and taking his place.

  This was not a pop
ular move but Alauddin (r. 1296–1316) was not one to repeat his uncle’s mistakes. He went to the opposite extreme in an attempt to monitor and regulate people’s actions. In his regime the muhtasibs (censors of public morals) and munihis (intelligence officers) worked in concert to form a sort of secret police. They were especially severe on sexual crimes, drinking in public, narcotics, gambling and the hoarding of grain. All the prostitutes of Delhi were forced to get married. Alcoholics were imprisoned in specially made underground dungeons. ‘All the roots of sin and crime are cut off,’ bemoaned the poet Amir Khusrau. Even magicians were punished. Alauddin justified all this on religious grounds. According to one court historian, he admitted, ‘If a man violates the wife of another, it does no harm to my kingdom. If a man drinks, I suffer no injury from it . . . [But] I do what the Prophet has commanded.’

  It is unlikely that Amir Khusrau would have been impressed by that, as he once wrote, ‘Kafir-e-ishqam musalmani mara darkaar neest [I am an idolater of love, the Muslim creed I do not need].’ One of the most famous Indian poets, he managed to retain an association with the Delhi court through several successive reigns and regimes. The focus of his thought, however, was not political but spiritual. He was a friend and devotee of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, and composed numerous Sufi devotional hymns or qawwalis. He wrote in Persian but also in Hindavi, the local vernacular of the time (and among the precursors of modern Hindi). He also knew Sanskrit and incorporated Hindu ideas and imagery in his work. He is often pointed to as typical of the ‘composite’ culture of India under Muslim rule. It would be a mistake, though, to argue that the inclusive nature of his verse indicates a society that was free from religious divisions. On the contrary, we know those divisions existed precisely because Amir Khusrau was among those loudly berating them.

  Though the best remembered and loved today, Amir Khusrau was not the only author or scholar at the court of Alauddin. There was, according to one modern historian, an ‘unprecedented assemblage’ of literary talent that the sultan promoted despite being himself entirely unlettered and ‘an alien to the world of learning’.

  The sultan’s mind was focused not on verse but on expansion. Though careful not to leave the capital for long periods, he personally led numerous military campaigns in a quest to push back the frontiers of the empire, particularly towards the south. But the constant threat of rebellion kept a check on his ambitions. Early in his reign he moved his base to his army camp, situated at Siri, outside the city to the north-east. He had a protective stone wall erected around it, thus creating what has come to be called the second city of Delhi. Much of this wall still stands and encloses, among other things, a sports complex, a residential colony (originally built to house athletes during the 1982 Asian Games) and the old urban village of Shahpur Jat, now overrun by restaurants and boutiques. There is also an auditorium where, from time to time, Delhiites gather to hear distinguished musicians sing the qawwalis of Amir Khusrau.

  Alauddin’s new city was serviced by a vast stone reservoir, the Hauz Khas, which was built outside its walls, to the west. Here too, on the bank, is an old urban village, similarly gentrified in recent decades by art galleries and fashion stores. The name Hauz Khas, though, is now applied more widely to cover the whole densely built-up region between the reservoir and the fort.

  Alauddin did not neglect the old city. He planned a massive enlargement of the Quwwatu’l-Islam, the mosque built by his predecessors. Enlarging a mosque is technically a difficult thing to do, as it is essentially a courtyard enclosure whose boundaries are fixed. But with a steadily growing population the need was pressing since—notionally at least—the entire male Muslim population should be able to congregate for the Friday prayer. Confronted with the same problem earlier, Iltutmish had constructed secondary courtyards, like aisles, enclosing the first in its centre, thus providing more space for the faithful to assemble, on either side of the original core. Lest they feel excluded from the centre of action, the screen across the prayer hall was also extended, to run across the western ends of the new side courts. Alauddin’s builders now proposed a further courtyard enclosure of such massive proportions that the existing parts would occupy merely one corner of it.

  The Qutb Minar, which stands just inside the second courtyard, was also now deemed insufficiently grandiose. Alauddin proposed a second tower, with double the base area, that—in the words of an old guidebook—‘was to have been double the height of the other, and yet perhaps not sufficiently high to represent his overweening pride’. The sultan reportedly employed 70,000 masons on these works. Even so, they were never finished. The rough rubble stump of the so-called Alai Minar in fact serves rather well to represent his thwarted ambitions. It is the architectural counterpart to his frustrated territorial campaigns. From time to time, the Archaeological Survey of India employs craftsmen to keep the buildings in good repair, and the outer courtyards of the ruined mosque echo to the chipping of masons’ chisels, creating the illusion that descendants of the 70,000 are still frantically trying to complete the building of Alauddin’s dream.

  One part that he did complete—and it is worth all the rest—is the beautiful new entrance gate at the mosque’s south-eastern corner, the Alai Darwaza. Faced with red sandstone and white marble panels, it is intricately carved both inside and out with a mixture of geometric and floral patterns. The dome, though not high on the exterior, is impressive when seen from within, and seems to be the first dome in India that was built (in 1310) on the true arcuate system. Adjoining the corresponding south-western corner of the mosque are the much plainer remains of a madrasa which is also believed to have been built by Alauddin. One building within this mini-complex is a tomb and is probably where Alauddin was buried when he died in 1316.

  Alauddin was held in high esteem by later generations. His passing, though, must have been greeted with a sigh of relief in view of the strong-arm tactics and the ever-watchful eye of his police. His son and successor, Qutbuddin Mubarak Khalji (r. 1316–20) immediately relaxed all his father’s regulations and set a different tenor to the court. Some accounts suggest that he liked to amuse his friends by dressing up and performing as a dancing girl. His favourite companion was a Hindu convert who went by the name of Khusrau Khan, by whom he was eventually murdered. Khusrau Khan, having flung the severed royal head from the roof of the palace, seized power and managed to retain it for some months. But his ban on cow slaughter made people doubt the sincerity of his conversion as well as his right to rule. The chaotic situation again invited a military coup, this time staged by a seasoned general named Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq.

  Having spent the larger part of his career until this point protecting the empire from the threat of Mongol invasion, Ghiyas-ud-din (r. 1320–25) enjoyed a high reputation for his valour, but was also considered unusually pious and compassionate for a military man. Contemporary chroniclers mention his friendship with saints and other religious leaders, his freedom from vice and his moderation in dealings with others. Ascending the throne does not appear to have changed him: he continued to receive praise for his respect for sharia (Islamic law) and his concern for the people’s welfare. Of course it is not difficult or surprising to find praise for any sultan in contemporary sources, though in the case of really cruel or profligate rulers there is usually some dissenting voice. But views of Ghiyas-ud-din seem to be well summarized by the historian Barani who commented: ‘Owing to Tughluq Shah’s excessive justice and equity it was not possible for the wolf to look fiercely at the goat, and the tiger and the deer drank water at the same place.’ The image of bestial harmony draws on familiar Islamic ideas, derived from a Judaeo-Christian tradition, about how the just monarch creates extraordinary peace and cooperation.

  Opinions about his son and successor, Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325–51) are more divided. According to some sources he had the same excellent character as his father. He was also erudite and a patron of scholars. He made his sisters and daughters marry religious men rather than memb
ers of the nobility. He abjured wine so strictly that it was simply not possible to buy it in Delhi during his reign. He did enjoy music and kept several hundred professional musicians at court, but nothing improper occurred at any of the concerts he hosted.

  This picture of temperance and moderation is sadly contradicted by some of his actions. His reign got off to a bad start with the manner of the succession. Having personally commanded a campaign in Bengal, his father Ghiyas-ud-din was returning in triumph to Delhi. His son came out to meet him and staged an elaborate welcome ceremony a few miles to the south of the city. He invited his father and his brother (the presumed heir) to sit enthroned in a specially constructed pavilion, which promptly collapsed, crushing both occupants to death. Some insist that it was an accident, that the contrivance toppled over when some elephants, approaching to salute the sultan, trod on its steps. Others think that the pushing elephants were part of a plan.

  Muhammad wasted no time in burying his father and assuming control. The tomb of Ghiyas-ud-din is a gem: neither large nor very ornate but perfectly proportioned. It stands within a miniature fortress, its dome and upper parts like a head and shoulders peeping over the battlements. The plain to its south was once a large artificial lake, created by a dam (now breached) so the composite fortress-tomb would originally have looked like a small island, or a ship afloat. To the north, overlooking and completing this picturesque composition, rise the craggy walls of Tughluqabad, a stupendous fort built by Ghiyas-ud-din that is reckoned as the third city of Delhi.

  Tughluqabad is built over a rocky hill situated five miles to the east of the first city and the Qutb Minar. Its curtain walls on the southern side are up to fifty feet high and encase the hillside. Inside the walls, there are two further fortified areas: the small citadel in the centre of the south side, and a larger palace area covering the south-western portion of the fort. These two areas can be reached from one of the main entrance gates, which was also connected by a causeway to the tomb in its miniature fortress (the causeway has been severed by the modern road). The larger area within the walls, to the north and east, was the site of the city, containing the residential and commercial areas. Much of this part is now badly ruined, a mournful wilderness of rubble and scrub growth, though a modern village occupies one portion. The built-up part is also the home of Delhi’s inland port. This is where cargo containers are brought (direct and still sealed from the docks of Mumbai) to be cleared through customs and assessed for tax. Here is a wilderness of a different kind, composed of rusting metal and oily puddles. It is enlivened by a storeroom with a display of luxury motor cars whose owners are unable or unwilling to pay the exorbitant import duty. Pigeons nest in them.