Firuz was equally solicitous about the welfare of his slaves, of whom he had an incredibly large number. ‘Altogether, in the city and in the various fiefs there were 180,000 slaves, for whose maintenance and comfort the sultan took especial care,’ notes Afif. ‘None of the sultan’s predecessors had ever collected so many slaves.’
But Firuz collected slaves to serve the state, not to serve his personal vanity, and he employed them in various productive works. ‘Some were placed under craftsmen and were taught the mechanical arts, so that about 12,000 slaves became artisans of various kinds … There was no occupation in which the slaves of Firuz Shah were not employed,’ continues Afif. ‘A clever and qualified superintendent was appointed over every class of [slave] artisans.’ The slaves were thus turned into economic assets of the state. ‘In some places they were provided for in the army, and villages were granted to them.’ Some 40,000 slaves were employed as royal guards.
Because of the vast number of royal slaves, and the diversity of their functions, Firuz set up a separate government department to administer their affairs. ‘A separate muster-master of the slaves, a separate treasury for the payment of their allowances … [and a separate group of] officers for administering the affairs of the slaves’ were instituted by Firuz, reports Afif. When the royal slaves became too numerous, many of them were distributed among the amirs, ‘who treated them like [their own] children, providing them with food and raiment, lodging them and training them, and taking every care of their wants. Each year they took their slaves to court and reported about their merits and abilities.’ Firuz was a slave owner, but not a slave driver.
Even in the treatment of defeated enemies, Firuz was humane and magnanimous, and that attitude often turned his enemies into his allies. This regard for others was also evident in the care that Firuz took to preserve and cherish the memory of the former sultans of Delhi, rather than remain egomaniacally focussed on himself. ‘It had been a rule among the sultans of Delhi that the name of the reigning monarch only was mentioned in the prayers of Sabbaths and festivals, and no reference was made to the former sultans,’ states Afif. ‘When Sultan Firuz came to the throne … he disapproved of the omission of the names of former kings, and ordered that a khutba should be said first in the names of former kings, and then one in which his own name was mentioned.’
FIRUZ WAS WILLING even to allow some laxity in official appointments, to favour those who served him. He therefore reintroduced the system of hereditary appointments to offices, a system that was disfavoured by Ala-ud-din and Muhammad, for it made birth, instead of competence, as the qualification for government employment, and it created a hereditary aristocracy which could challenge the authority of the sultan. Firuz disregarded those risks, and, according to Afif, ruled that ‘if an officer of the army died, he was to be succeeded by his son; if he had no son, by his son-in-law; if he had no son-in-law, by his slave; if he had no slave, by his nearest relation; and if he had no relations, by his wives.’
This policy was in a way logical—if the throne could be inherited, why not the lesser offices? The policy no doubt adversely affected the administrative and military efficiency of the Sultanate, but would have done that only marginally, as the normal mode of recruitment of officers in the Delhi Sultanate was quite haphazard and whimsical, except during the reign of Ala-ud-din Khalji. Another deliberate laxity that Firuz introduced in administration was the reversion to the old practice of assigning fiefs to royal officers in lieu of cash payment, which again was a policy disfavoured by Ala-ud-din, to prevent officers from gaining territorial power bases independent of the sultan. Firuz also discouraged the use of spies, who were extensively used by previous sulans to keep track of what was happening in the empire and what the royal officers were doing; instead, he sought to build mutual trust between him and his officers.
Firuz was very tolerant—too tolerant, perhaps—of human frailties, and he had a tendency to condone or overlook inefficiency, corruption and misdeeds among government employees. Thus when he was told that ‘many of his soldiers were old and feeble, and unfit for duty,’ and that they should be removed, he, according to Afif, refused to do so, saying, ‘If I remove the old and inefficient men … the poor old men will be greatly troubled and be reduced to distress in their old age. I do not approve of dismissing them and putting their sons in their places … Let an order therefore be promulgated that when a soldier grows old and incapable, his son shall succeed him, [but only] as his deputy. If he has no son, his son-in-law, and failing any son-in-law, his slave shall represent him. The veteran may thus remain at home at ease …’
Similarly, horses of little value were often taken to the registry office by soldiers, and were there passed as serviceable by conniving officers. Reports about this often reached the ears of the sultan, but he ignored them. And when soldiers failed to produce their horses on time at the registry office, and the matter was brought before the sultan, he granted the defaulters a grace time of two months to produce their horses. Reporting these and other such stories, Afif comments that ‘the kindness of the sultan for his people was such as no father or brother could show.’
ALL THIS HOWEVER did not turn Firuz into a weak ruler. Rather, they made him a sensible ruler, who had the self-confidence to leave some laxity and flexibility in administration for the play of human foibles without feeling threatened by it. There is no evidence that his liberal policies had notably weakened the Sultanate. He was doing what was necessary to rule efficiently in the prevailing circumstances of the Sultanate. Firuz was not a weak ruler, but a wise ruler.
Indeed, Firuz had to his credit the introduction—or revival—of certain measures to improve the efficiency of the administration, as in the case of the accounting procedures he enforced. ‘In this reign there were audits of the accounts of the fiefs,’ states Afif. ‘When the feudatory came up from his fief to the court, he was brought before the exchequer, where an audit of his accounts was held, and the results were reported to the throne … The managers of the kar-khanas also had to present the abstracts of their accounts to the exchequer at the end of every year, showing the balance of cash and the stores of goods with them.’
While thus tightening the revenue administration, Firuz also took care to abolish or reduce several taxes, as part of his policy of liberalising the government. He lists as many as twenty-three taxes that he abolished. ‘In former reigns they used to collect frivolous, unlawful and unjust cesses … I had all these abolished and removed from the accounts,’ he states in his autobiography, and goes on to quote a couplet expressing his principle:
Better a people’s weal than treasures vast,
Better an empty chest that hearts downcast.
‘Sultan Firuz made the laws of the Prophet his guide, acting zealously upon the principles they laid down, and prohibiting all that was inconsistent therewith,’ states Afif. ‘No demand in excess of the regular government dues was to be made, and the officer who made any such exaction had to make full reparation…. Such rules were made that the raiyats grew rich … Wealth abounded and comforts were general.’ Similarly, while former sultans used to take for themselves four-fifth of the battle spoils, and give only one-fifth to the soldiers, Firuz reversed this ratio, in conformity with Islamic law. And when fief holders during their visit to the sultan offered him various presents, Firuz had those presents appraised, and he deducted their value from the dues payable by the fief holders to the government, so that they might not suffer any deprivation.
Firuz also abolished the benevolences that the provincial governors were previously required to give to the sultan at the time of their appointment and every year thereafter, for that burden ultimately fell on the shoulders of the common people. In the same spirit, he cancelled the debts that people owed to the treasury on the advances that were given to them by Muhammad for restoring agriculture after a devastating famine in the Doab; in fact he had the records of the debts brought to him at the court, and had them publicly cancelled.
These were not impulsive acts, but carefully planned measures. Firuz was munificent, but he was not a wastrel. He made sure that state funds were not squandered or misappropriated in any way, but served the purpose for which they were allotted, and he exercised strict control over all state expenditures. Typical of this was his control over public works. Though he was a compulsive builder of forts, palaces, mosques, and so on, he looked into every detail of the execution of those projects to make sure that these structures conformed to their approved plans in all respects, and that there was no misappropriation of the funds allotted for them.
And just as he was careful about expenditure, he was also careful about revenue collection. To systematise revenue administration, he conducted, along the lines of what Muhammad had attempted, a comprehensive survey of the revenue potential of the empire and appointed a revenue assessor to supervise the project. When the group produced its report after a survey lasting six years, Firuz made certain changes in revenue administration, particularly in lowering the revenue demand and making it uniform over the years.
THESE LIBERAL AND wise policies of Firuz galvanised economic growth and led to the spread of prosperity in the Sultanate. ‘In the houses of peasants so much grain, horses and goods accumulated that one cannot describe them,’ states Afif. ‘Everyone had large amounts of gold and silver and countless goods. None of the women-folk of the peasantry remained without ornaments; in every peasant’s house, there were clean bed-sheets, excellent bed-cots, many articles and much wealth.’ According to Barani, ‘cattle, food-grains and goods’ filled the houses of village headmen during the reign of Firuz.
The economic expansion of the Sultanate was also stimulated by Firuz’s policy of undertaking various developmental works. Of these, the most important was the construction of five major irrigation canals, the longest of which was the 241 kilometre-long canal that carried the waters of the Yamuna to Hisar in western Haryana. Firuz also built a number of reservoirs, dams and wells. All these substantially increased the area under cultivation and contributed significantly to the prosperity of the people. ‘Not one village remained barren … nor one span of land uncultivated,’ states Afif with becoming exaggeration. The government also benefited directly from the public works, as it collected an additional levy of ten percent from the cultivators who used water from the irrigation facilities built by the state.
In addition to these promotional activities, the sultan directly participated in agricultural expansion by setting up a large number of state farms producing commercial crops. Firuz, according to Afif, ‘had a great liking for laying out gardens,’ and he set up over a thousand of them, where fruits were grown.
As in agriculture, so too in trade, the policies of Firuz, such as the abolition of several octroi duties and the introduction of small denomination coins—which broadened everyday market activities—stimulated the expansion of trade. Firuz was also a zealous builder, who founded a number of new towns and built many palaces, caravanserais, bridges, hospitals, colleges, mosques, mausoleums, public baths, wells, and so on, and these construction projects also stimulated the expansion of economy.
All these activities of Firuz served a dual purpose—while people benefited from them, the state also benefited, as the expansion of the economy led to a substantial increase in the state revenue. Equally, the prosperity and contentment of the people resulting from the progressive policies of Firuz led to peace and stability in the empire. Firuz acted on the sound principle that the prosperity of the king, if it is to endure, has to be based on the prosperity of the people, and that the best means to increase the revenue of the state was not through extortionate tax exactions but through mild taxation that would stimulate economic growth. On the whole, the economic and revenue policies of Firuz were well-suited to promote the welfare of the people as well as of the state. According to Afif, ‘no king of Delhi had ever been in receipt of such an income as Sultan Firuz.’
Gods too favoured Firuz. A good part of the prosperity of the medieval Indian state depended on agricultural prosperity, and this was as much dependent on the favour of the rain gods as on government policies. Firuz, like Ala-ud-din, was very lucky in this. ‘By the blessing of god favourable seasons and abundance of the necessaries of life prevailed in the reign of Firuz Shah, not only in the capital, but throughout his dominions,’ comments Afif. ‘During the whole forty years of his reign there was no appearance of scarcity, and the times were … [as] happy’ as during the reign of Ala-ud-din Khalji, which was the most prosperous period in the history of the Delhi Sultanate. And all goods and provisions at this time were as cheap as they were under Ala-ud-din. But while Ala-ud-din had to make great exertions and adopt coercive measures to achieve it, Firuz achieved it ‘through the favour of god … without any [great] effort on his part … The good fortune of the sultan prevailed … Perfect happiness did the kingdom enjoy in those days.’
FIRUZ WAS ESSENTIALLY a man of peace. He was content with the territories he inherited, and waged no wars of conquest. He was not tempted even when he was invited by rebels in other kingdoms to invade their lands. ‘Keep no more territory than you can manage,’ an old woman had once warned Mahmud Ghazni. This was the wise policy that Firuz followed. His religious orthodoxy was also a factor that influenced his military policy. Typically, when one of his nobles once berated him for shedding the blood of Muslims in wars, and warned him that ‘drawing the sword against the people of Islam had ten evils for every advantage … [the sultan’s] eyes were suffused with tears … and he resolved never again to make war upon [fellow] Muslims,’ states Afif.
But Firuz was not a pacifist. Though in many respects he was a gentle, cultured person, he maintained a huge army of 80–90,000 cavalry, and he had no hesitation to wage wars to repel invaders and to suppress rebellions. In this his actions were often as horrific as those of any other medieval ruler. But on the whole his reign was relatively peaceful, compared to the reigns of most other Delhi sultans, which were marked by near continuous wars. Predictably there were no major rebellions during his reign. And there were only two Mongol incursions, both of which were firmly repulsed. ‘A fierce battle ensued, and the slaughter was great, but victory inclined to the sultan, and the Mongols fled, abandoning their camp and baggage,’ records Afif about the first Mongol invasion. ‘This was the first victory of the reign of Sultan Firuz.’ The second Mongol raid was directed against Gujarat, but that too was easily routed.
Firuz also did make a couple of attempts to recover the territories lost to the Sultanate in the latter part of Muhammad’s reign, but these were halfhearted efforts, and they achieved no notable gains. The first of these campaigns was in the third year of his reign, when he led an army against Shams-ud-din Iliyas Shah, the rebel ruler of Bengal. Iliyas retreated into East Bengal on the approach of the imperial forces, but Firuz pursued and defeated him in a battle, and drove him to take refuge in the fort of Ekdala in East Bengal. Firuz then occupied the town alongside the fort, but decided not to storm the fort, deeming that it was not worth the effort required. In this decision he was also influenced by the wailing of women in the fort—as Firuz stormed into the town, ‘all the ladies and respectable women went to the top of the fort, and when they saw him, they uncovered their heads, and in their distress made great lamentations,’ reports Afif. Firuz then made peace with Iliyas, rejecting the advice of some of his officers to annex Bengal, and returned to Delhi before the dreaded onset of the monsoon.
Firuz’s Bengal campaign was however tarnished by a rare show of savagery by him. Before leaving for Delhi, he decided to leave for the people of Bengal a ghoulish reminder of the consequences of their rebellion. According to Afif, Firuz then ‘issued an order for collecting the heads of the slain Bengalis, and a silver tanka was offered for every head. The whole army then went busily to work, and brought the heads of the slain and piled them in heaps, receiving in payment silver tankas. The heads were counted, and they amounted to rather more than 180,000.’
It should be however noted that Firuz did not order the slaughter of the enemy, as sultans usually did, but only to collect the heads of those already slain in battle.
Firuz and Iliyas thereafter maintained an amicable relationship. But when Iliyas was succeeded by his son Sikandar Shah, Firuz led a second expedition into Bengal, leading an army of 70,000 cavalry, 470 elephants, and a large body of irregulars. But this was a leisurely campaign. Firuz halted for long periods at several places along the way, even founded a new city—Jaunpur, on the banks of the Gomati—on the way, so it took him several months to reach Bengal. And this campaign was no more decisive than his previous Bengal campaign. But he was able to induce Sikandar to accept his nominal suzerainty, and agree to send to him an annual tribute of forty elephants. And Firuz in turn presented Sikandar with 500 Arab and Turkish horses, and honoured him with a jewelled crown.
On the way back to Delhi from Bengal, at Jaunpur, Firuz abruptly turned southward and advanced into Orissa, a sparsely populated and densely forested region of India that had never before been subjugated by the Sultanate. His main purpose of this campaign was to hunt for elephants, as he had heard that ‘elephants were as numerous as sheep’ in Orissa.
On Firuz’s advance into Orissa, the raja there fled to an island for refuge, but from there he sent his emissaries to the sultan to plead for peace. Firuz assured them that he had entered Orissa only for hunting, and had no hostile intentions against the raja. On this assurance, the raja, according to Afif, sent to the sultan ‘twenty mighty elephants as an offering, and agreed to furnish a certain [number of] elephants yearly in payment of tribute. The sultan then sent [ceremonial] robes and an insignia to the raja.’ Apart from the elephant hunt, the only other major act of Firuz in Orissa was the sacking of the renowned temple town of Puri.
The Orissa campaign was quite rewarding for Firuz, but his return journey from there very nearly ended in total disaster, for on the journey back to Delhi his army lost its way, and for six months it wandered about despairingly through trackless plains, dense jungles, and along riverbanks, searching for a way to get out of the labyrinth and get back on the road to Delhi. ‘The army ascended and descended mountain after mountain, and passed through jungles and hills until they were quite in despair and utterly worn out with the fatigue of the arduous march,’ reports Afif. ‘No road was to be found … Provisions became scarce, and the army was reduced to the verge of destruction … At the end of six months a road was discovered … [and the army], after enduring great privations … came out into the open country.’
The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate Page 24