So it is hard now to get a sense of the original appearance of the place, or to connect what one sees with one of the few near-contemporary descriptions to survive—that of the traveller Ibn Battuta. He tells us that the bricks of the palace were plated with gold and that in the daylight ‘they shone with such brightness and lustre that one could not gaze at it’. Perhaps he was exaggerating. After all, he also tells us that one of the tanks was filled not with water but with ‘molten gold’.
The Tomb of Sultan Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq, postcard by H.A. Mirza & Sons, c. 1910
Another seemingly miraculous feature of Tughluqabad is that the entire city, including the fort wall which is four miles in circuit, was all built in two years. This was achieved by the simple expedient of co-opting every available mason. While it was under construction, the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya was in the process of building a large stepwell in the precincts of his hospice for the benefit of his followers. Ghiyas-ud-din ordered the workmen to abandon that work and concentrate on his fort. Reluctant to disobey the sultan but still devoted to the saint, they toiled on the fort all day and then sloped off to work on the stepwell by lamplight at night. So the sultan banned the sale of oil to the saint. Nizamuddin responded with a miracle and a curse. His workers found that their lamps burnt just as brightly with water. And Tughluqabad, said the saint, would only ever be inhabited by herders. It has certainly seemed that way in recent times.
Apparently it did not impress Ghiyas-ud-din’s son Muhammad much either. At the start of his reign he embarked on two further large, and somewhat incompatible, building projects. He created Delhi’s fourth city by enclosing the whole tract of land that lay between Siri (Alauddin’s former camp) and the first Delhi. These two were originally quite distinct forts, separated by a distance of some four miles. Muhammad bin Tughluq constructed two long walls connecting them and enclosing the large area in between. This became known as Jahanpanah, the ‘sanctuary of the world’.
Only a few short sections of these walls survive today and the buildings between them almost all date from later periods, so there is little to show for the fourth city. Even before it was finished, Muhammad bin Tughluq decided that the empire needed a second capital, in the south, to serve as a base for the expansion of that frontier. So he founded the new city of Daulatabad on the Deccan plateau (to the east of modern Mumbai). To accomplish this he had to move large numbers of masons to the south.
He also needed a population, and decreed that there would be a general migration. But he found that many of the citizens were reluctant to abandon the now developed comforts of Delhi to embark on an unpredictable adventure in the south, so they were slow to pack. The sultan’s whole plan and the tactics he employed to coerce the populace betray the impractical whimsy and cruelty of a tyrant. When they refused to leave, he burnt their houses. Soldiers sent into one quarter of Delhi to see if anyone was hiding, still hoping to evade the removal, returned with two men, one blind and the other old. The blind man was fired from a catapult (though one assumes not as far as Daulatabad). The old man was tied by the leg to a trailer and was dragged all the way to Daulatabad. By the time the destination was reached nothing remained of him but the leg. Episodes like this account for the historian Ferishta’s comment that Muhammad bin Tughluq ‘seems to have laboured, with no contemptible abilities, to be detested by God, and feared and abhorred by all men’.
Daulatabad remained a strategic southern base for Delhi rulers for many generations, but Muhammad soon abandoned his experiment with the second city and everyone was allowed to return home. He later died while campaigning in Gujarat in 1351. All his efforts to expand the empire had proved futile. He was succeeded by his cousin, Firuz Shah Tughluq (r. 1351–88), who learnt the lesson of his predecessor’s failure and concentrated his efforts on improving conditions in the existing domains.
Firuz Shah is described by contemporary historians as ‘fair-complexioned, having a high nose and a long beard’. It is reported that he led a life of pleasure before unexpectedly coming to the throne, and then gave it all up. It is not clear, however, just exactly what he gave up. He continued to devote a lot of time to hunting, his favourite pursuit; indeed he built some fine hunting lodges. And despite numerous promises he failed to abstain from drinking wine. The change seems to have consisted largely in his taking a more orthodox attitude to law. To this end he introduced—perhaps for the first time in India—the tax known as jiziya, a levy that was commonly applied in the wider Muslim world on non-Muslim subjects. From this point on, over the ensuing three centuries, the periodic imposition or repeal of jiziya remained a controversial matter, in view of the predominantly Hindu population. The initial blow was softened in Firuz Shah’s time by the simultaneous reduction in other taxes, and despite the divisive nature of the policy he remained a popular ruler.
He took great pride in the city, maintaining and adding to its fine buildings. When the top of the Qutb Minar was damaged by lightning he had it repaired, adding the upper two storeys which have white marble facing. The city at this time consisted of three contiguous large enclosures—the original Lal Kot, Jahanpanah and Siri—of which Jahanpanah, in the middle, was probably the least built-up. Tughluqabad, isolated to the east, lay largely abandoned, in fulfilment of the curse of the saint. But despite copious space for development within the existing forts, Firuz Shah was determined to build his own fortified palace complex on the bank of the Yamuna, far away to the north. Now known after him as Firuz Shah Kotla, this ‘fifth city’ substantially survives, though the new suburb that grew up around it, Firuzabad, has disappeared. What remains is the fortification wall that enclosed the palace and the Jami Masjid—a stately and handsomely proportioned mosque, undiminished in grandeur by its lack of ornament and partly ruined condition. Nearby is a stepwell with an unusual spiral inner staircase.
One of the embellishments of his palace is a so-called Ashokan pillar. This monolithic stone column, over forty feet high, bears an inscription on its smooth shaft composed by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, in the third century BCE, to promote the Buddhist faith. Firuz Shah could not possibly have understood this. The script was first deciphered and the text translated by James Prinsep in 1837. But Firuz Shah evidently recognized it as something notable and—perhaps inspired by the earlier deployment of the iron pillar at the Quwwatu’l-Islam mosque—had it carefully conveyed all the way from its original location (Ambala, in Haryana) and erected on a specially made ziggurat in his palace. For good measure he brought another Ashokan column from Meerut and placed it on his hunting lodge on the northern ridge.
Firuz Shah’s principal minister, Khan Jahan Junan Shah, was equally prodigious as a builder, claiming to have sponsored the construction of seven large mosques in Delhi (most if not all of which can be identified with certainty). The most remarkable of them, located back down south in what was then Jahanpanah, is the so-called Khirkhi Masjid or ‘window mosque’. Though built of rubble, it is quite elaborately conceived. It rests, to begin with, on a high platform, so that each of the entrance gates on the north, east and south sides stands at the top of a flight of stairs. Once inside, you find that in addition to the covered prayer hall on the west side and the liwan (or cloister) running around the periphery on the other three sides, lines of columns supporting domes cross the centre of the courtyard, in both directions, bisecting each other. The net result is that instead of having a large open courtyard, there are four small open areas and the rest of the courtyard is covered and enclosed; hence the need for the khirkhis (windows) in the outer wall, to admit light and air. The arrangement is unusual. Something similar was attempted in another of the mosques—the Kalan Masjid in Nizamuddin—sponsored by the same minister, which raises the question whether it was a bit of experimentation with different possible permutations of the mosque form, or whether it was connected with a variation in function. Some large mosques accommodate a madrasa within their cloister. Covering part of the courtyard, and thus widening the cloisters, would m
ake it possible to include a madrasa even when building on a smaller scale.
Another appealing architectural project of Firuz Shah’s reign, in which the sultan had a personal hand, was the madrasa built on the banks of Hauz Khas, the reservoir made earlier by Alauddin Khalji. It was established in 1352, at the very start of his reign, and soon became a major centre of learning. But it seems to have been admired as much for its buildings as for its scholarship. The historian Barani claims that ‘its magnificence, architectural proportions and pleasant air make it unique among the great buildings of the world’. The poet Mutahhar of Kara was more lyrical:
The moment I entered this blessed building through the gate, I saw an even space as wide as the plain of the world. The courtyard was soul-animating and its expanse was life-giving. Its dust was musk-scented, and its fragrance was like the odour of amber. There was verdure everywhere and hyacinths, basil, roses and tulips were blooming and were beautifully arranged as far as the human eye could see . . . Nightingales were singing their melodious songs everywhere.
The Madrasa at Hauz Khas, by an unknown photographer, 1890s
Even allowing for hyperbole, we may infer from this that expansive gardens once adjoined the buildings that we see today: an L-shaped complex overlooking the south-east corner of the (now much reduced) lake, with a courtyard behind.
These authors give few details of the curriculum of the madrasa, though Barani mentions tafsir (exegesis), hadith (the traditions of the Prophet) and fiqh (jurisprudence) as being among the subjects taught. It is quite possible that astronomy and medicine were also studied here. Barani was most concerned to stress that ‘because this madrasa is a monument of good works and public benefaction, prayers obligatory and supererogatory are constantly being offered within its precincts’. Mutahhar was more interested in the menu in the dining hall, telling us that the students were fed on ‘pheasants, partridges, herons, fish, roasted fowl and bulky kids, fried loaves and sweets of different kinds’. They drank pomegranate juice.
The structure at the corner of the complex is the sultan’s own tomb. He had earlier built another tomb for himself elsewhere, in an area that is now a dense suburb near New Delhi Railway Station. That building incorporates a slab that is said to bear a footprint of the Prophet, specially brought from Mecca. But it was used for the burial of one of the sultan’s sons, Fath Khan, who predeceased him. So Firuz Shah built himself a new tomb at this more restful location, amid the nightingales.
Chaos ensued after he died and was laid to rest here in 1388. Part of the problem was his longevity. He was over eighty, and there were members of three subsequent generations present to vie for the throne. His chosen nominee was a great-grandson but he was soon murdered, and the process began of working rapidly through the branches of the family tree. None survived very long and none exerted authority over the provinces, which were ruled by nobles.
A decade of instability in Delhi caught the attention of the Mongol warrior-ruler Timur, known to the Western world as Tamburlaine (derived from Timur-i-leng, meaning Timur ‘the lame’). Taking advantage of the turmoil, he invaded India at the end of 1398 and sacked Delhi. For three days his army looted and destroyed the city. Like an old-fashioned invader, he was bent on plunder more than conquest. He hadn’t really meant the citizens to be slaughtered, he said; they brought it on themselves by offering resistance. When it was over, he spent a fortnight relaxing at Hauz Khas—no doubt enjoying the excellent cuisine—and then set off to return to his capital, Samarkand, taking among his prisoners some of Delhi’s finest architects and craftsmen.
Delhi was a wreck. The nominal sultan, Mahmud (a grandson of Firuz Shah) escaped to Kanauj, leaving a minister to try and restore order. He himself returned to Delhi only in 1405, and died there in 1412, the last of the Tughluqs.
Death in the Park: Sayyids and Lodis
Among the few groups in Delhi who were left unmolested by Timur were the Sayyids, members of families of Arab origin who claimed direct descent from the Prophet. As a Shia, Timur believed in the hereditary (rather than elected) succession of the caliphate and therefore held Sayyids in high esteem. One man in Delhi who claimed such a status was Khizr Khan. Modern historians doubt his claim (it seems highly unlikely that he was even Arab, never mind a Sayyid), but he appears to have persuaded enough of the right people at the time. In 1414, after the death of the last Tughluq, he seized the throne and ruled nominally as a deputy of Timur’s descendants. Indeed he established a dynasty of four rulers, known as the Sayyids, which lasted for thirty-seven years until 1451.
This dynasty is generally written off. One historian refers to them derisively as people who ‘called themselves sultans of Delhi’. Another asserts that they ‘did not make any worthwhile contribution to the political or cultural life of medieval India’. The architectural historian Percy Brown, writing in the 1940s, noted that the Sayyids lacked the resources to build forts, cities, palaces and mosques on the scale of their predecessors and that all that survives of their work is their tombs. He then unfairly suggests that this was really a matter of choice: ‘almost the only form of monument that appealed to the rulers and their subjects at this juncture, were those expressive of dissolution—they excelled in memorials to the dead’. Indeed they built so many tombs that Delhi ‘was converted into a vast necropolis’. For good measure he adds that the Arabic word maqbara—used in India to mean cemetery or tomb-garden—is the source of the English word ‘macabre’. He was wrong about that (‘macabre’ is derived from Old French), but his comments have been seized on by later writers wanting to depict the Sayyid era as a time of gloom and despondency.
In truth it was a time when the former empire was much diminished in size, its regional provinces having all broken away as independent states. Delhi was rather less important politically than the neighbouring sultanates of Jaunpur, Malwa and Gujarat, or the Rajput kingdom of Mewar. Putting a more positive gloss on this, one might say that the fifteenth century was a period when India’s numerous regional states flourished to an unprecedented degree, politically and culturally. The centre meanwhile witnessed a series of palace coups and the ever-dwindling authority of the sultan. The second ruler of the dynasty, Mubarak Shah, was assassinated in 1434. The fourth and last of them bestowed on himself the regnal title Shah Alam (meaning ‘King of the Universe’). Whether or not he intended to invite ridicule, he certainly received it. The standing joke was that ‘from Delhi to Palam is the realm of Shah Alam’. Palam, later the site of the city’s domestic airport, was then a village, five miles to the north-west of the Qutb Minar.
Even this was too much for Shah Alam to handle, plagued as he was by a duplicitous prime minister named Hamid Khan. In the end Shah Alam abdicated in favour of one of the nobles, Bahlul Lodi, who disposed of Hamid and—with the cooperation of other nobles whose confidence he won—slowly began to rebuild the empire.
Of Afghan descent and humble beginnings, Bahlul Lodi (r. 1451–89) took a pragmatic approach to governance, sharing power with loyal supporters and not insisting on the trappings of monarchy. Rather than using a throne, he sat on a carpet with the nobles and refused to allow any discrimination between himself and them or his former fellow officers in the army. He had a fixed daily routine, rising early, spending the morning on official business, the afternoon in the company of religious scholars and the evening in his harem.
After a reign of nearly forty years, he was succeeded by his son Sikander Lodi (r. 1489–1517) and grandson Ibrahim Lodi (r. 1517–26) who continued the process of reconquest and consolidation. Sikander seems to have kept up the austerity to some degree. One contemporary observer reports that he wore simple clothes and refused to wear new ones unless the old were torn. Ibrahim had a reputation for piety but, with a penchant for dancing girls and astrologers, was perhaps beginning to let things slide. There were always factions at court, and in the end one of these brought the Lodis down. They wrote to Babur, a descendant of Timur, to suggest that he might like to come to Ind
ia and claim his rightful inheritance.
As with the Sayyids, no great forts or palaces are attributed to Lodi patronage. A few elegant mosques date from the later Lodi period, but mostly what survives are tombs—as pointed out by the merciless Percy Brown. In fact, tombs became even more numerous and conspicuous because the nobles built theirs as grandly as the sultans. The fine octagonal tomb of Sikander Lodi stands close to, and stylistically resembles, that of Muhammad Shah Sayyid. They compete for our attention in one of Delhi’s finest parks, now known as the Lodi Gardens.
There are several layers to this space. There is evidence that it really was a garden in Lodi times (so the current name is perfectly just) but all trace of it vanished long ago, and by the nineteenth century it was the site of a village called Khairpur. When New Delhi was first laid out in the 1920s, the city stopped just short of the village, to the north; but in 1936 the poor villagers were evicted and the whole area was landscaped in English picturesque mode to create a London-style urban park, named (after the then vicereine) Lady Willingdon Park. Her name survives, carved in a stone gateway on the northern side. But only there. In the 1960s, Jawaharlal Nehru commissioned the architect Joseph Allen Stein to adjust the landscaping. The pond was added and the gardens were renamed after the Lodis, the original proprietors.
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