‘Promise me that you will be very careful about all the things that have come into your possession recently. Especially the things that have wormed their way into your heart.’ Muhammad was pleased to note that the anger had left her to be replaced with concern.
Haniya’s heart ached with worry. If only God had paid heed to her prayers and allowed her husband to live long enough to prepare and guide their son. How was a mother supposed to warn her firstborn about that vixen he was obsessed with? That same creature who had entrapped her own husband and sidled her way into his bed and heart? Why couldn’t the men in her life see the obvious? That seeing her family slaughtered and being made to endure great evil had wounded and hardened the woman they were obsessed with? That she neither liked nor trusted men?
Her Jauna needed a girl who was loving and dutiful, just like his mother. Instead, he went chasing after that which was already lost to him. It all seemed so hopeless to her.
He smiled sadly, almost as if he could read her mind. ‘Don’t you worry, mother. A Sultan can’t afford to have a heart.’
2
‘What is needed are sweeping reforms,’ Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq was saying to Ahmad, his grand vizier, his chief executioner, Najib, and the historian, Barani. ‘Serious changes that will usher in a new age of peace and prosperity for people from all walks of life. If done right, this land will achieve its full potential for glory and I will be at the head of the greatest empire in history.’
He paused, giving the impression he was lost in thought but was actually studying their reflections in mirrored surfaces placed around the room. He was fond of setting them up in strategic positions to fully observe the reactions of his ministers, and the better to separate the truth in their thoughts from the falsehoods uttered by their tongues.
They all held their tongues, which made it easier for him to read their expressions. I wonder which scroll he read it from, Ahmad was thinking tiredly. Grandiose schemes can easily derail everything we are working so hard to keep together. The man was loyal but he clearly thought his Sultan was most impractical. It was typical of him to feel that the emperor was someone who should be handled with extreme caution. A prudent man, which made him ideal for the job, but Muhammad couldn’t help but wish the Khwaja Jahan would exercise his imagination once in a while.
Barani, on the other hand, had a harsher viewpoint which was entirely at odds with his pacific expression, It is bad enough he has such a cavalier attitude towards the scions of our oldest noble families who carry the blood of the mighty Chagatai Turks in their veins, and consorts with those who have converted to the true faith simply to advance their careers, but he has also gone so far as to appoint these pretend Muslims to important offices. All manner of baseborn creatures and even the infidels now hold the same rank as the eminent nobles or higher. It is disgraceful!
Muhammad stroked his beard and tried not to laugh. Of course Barani dared not give voice to his thoughts. Especially since the Khwaja Jahan was one of those converts he loathed. Ahmad also carried the blood of kings in his veins and could not be lumped together with the baseborn, though Barani would never deign to acknowledge that. As for Najib, it was true his antecedents were not what one would call illustrious, and he too was a recent convert.
The grand vizier kept up appearances, but he had also been known to look out for the Hindus, especially since his Sultan had never discouraged him, and regularly made contributions for the renovations of their temples and financed charitable schemes for adherents of his former faith who had been ground into the dust by fervent Islamists. Which was as it should be. It was pragmatic men like Ahmad as well as the tolerant and large-hearted from all classes of society who had been responsible for building the fragile bridges between the various faiths.
Najib, on the other hand, seemed not to care a whit for Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist or Jain and treated them just the same when they wound up on his executioner’s block. Which was also as it should be. In Muhammad’s opinion, there were good, bad and ugly people in every religion, caste and community, and there were no exceptions to that particular rule.
As for Barani, like a lot of scribes Muhammad knew, his boldness was limited to his words. In real life, he was frightened of those who had the power to crush him for sedition in thought or word. Of his Sultan who could ensure that he would lose his cushy job with its generous stipend and order his execution.
The historian had adopted a diffident air to mask his dislike for the grand vizier—not that he had succeeded in fooling anybody. As for Najib, whom he considered a butcher’s son, he didn’t bother to even pretend and was suspected of having coined the term Sag-al-Sultan—the Sultan’s dog—which, luckily for him, Najib took as a compliment since he preferred the company of his bloodhounds to humans.
Muhammad expected Barani to say something obsequious to overcompensate for his overwhelming opposition to most things his emperor did. His family had fallen on hard times and had little left but pride. The historian was dependent on the emperor’s patronage and largesse, which did not improve his feelings one bit towards his mercurial Sultan. But Muhammad liked him well enough. He could turn a phrase and he did not lack an imagination. Even his lies were beautiful things which he had no doubt would cure and preserve the stories he would some day chronicle for future generations.
‘Your visions for a grand future are bold, sire! I call down Allah’s blessings upon you and urge you to begin this or any other enterprise with the name of the Almighty on your lips. For it will be blessed and the kingdom of Islam will be realized in this world as envisioned by the Prophet . . .’
Ahmad was impassive but Najib groaned out loud. ‘In politics there is no place for any sentiment, religious or otherwise.’ He sneered, ‘Even the shaikhs and mashaikhs you revere so much can’t expect to succeed in their war against the so-called infidels if they are going to stick to the true spirit of Islam. They are all consummate politicians, perfectly capable of manipulating their followers to part with hard-earned money for the ostensible purpose of propaganda or building places of worship. All they do is incite their followers to hate those who do not belong to the same sheep-brained flock, riot against authority and kill to undermine the authority of the Sultan. Moreover, they have no scruples when it comes to relieving Hindus of their ancestral land, tearing down temples or violating their women. It is the very height of hypocrisy.’
Barani replied hotly, ‘Don’t listen to this blasphemer, sire. His Hindu past has warped his understanding of faith, virtue and truth. The holy men only seek to reform those who revere false gods and engage in idolatry, so that they might rise from the muck and embrace a better path that will prove to be uplifting . . .’
‘Don’t listen to this fanatic, sire,’ Najib shot back. ‘Things like faith, virtue and truth have little role to play when the conqueror imposes his will on the conquered. The holy men are a plague upon this land and need to be weeded out with an iron hand. Especially those who spread calumny about their betters from their pulpits.’
Muhammad had to give it to him. Some of the sheikhs were calling for his abdication, accusing him of committing haraam by lying in sin with his stepmother, which was also being bandied about as the reason he supposedly killed his father.
Since the Sultan himself was famous for encouraging total freedom of thought, word and deed, his detractors had brazenly discussed allegations of parricide from a pulpit and gossiped about his incestuous relationship, pointing out that the penalty for such a grave offence was execution. Trusted and high-ranking members of his court had been persuaded to rebel on the strength of this particular argument. Muhammad sighed.
‘Was this the sort of petty infighting you were hoping to avoid when you conceived your scheme for a better future, your majesty? It would certainly stabilize the government,’ Ahmad remarked politely. Barani lowered his eyes in chagrin. Najib merely looked amused.
Muhammad nodded. ‘I am tired of this constant bickering, Ahmad. It is the reason the
empire has been vulnerable to the attacks of the Mongols and other foreign invaders. The Hindu rajas were so caught up in their petty rivalries that they practically invited Mahmud of Ghazna and Shihabuddin of Ghor to fight their enemies.’
He frowned. ‘The Muslim invaders are hardly better. We may have united to destroy our enemies, but now the disunity in our midst threatens to destroy us too. I know that nobody will be happy to hear this, but it is necessary to unify the people by force if necessary.’ Muhammad paused, but none of them seemed willing to volunteer an opinion so he continued, ‘It is not merely a question of religion. On the one hand, we have the privileged wallowing in the lap of luxury, while the poverty-stricken live in squalor, unable to scrape together enough for a single meal. It won’t ever do for the rich to keep on growing richer at the expense of the poor.’
He closed his eyes for a moment. It was his dream to make Dilli the most beautiful city in the entire world, which was why he had commissioned the building of Jahanpanah. The imperial town planners and architects were doing a remarkable job. But he had realized that it would be impossible to realize his vision while the great unwashed roamed the streets.
Through the gaps in their threadbare clothing, one could see that their begrimed bodies had not made the acquaintance of water or soap in ages, and their ripe smell was like a blow to the nostrils. They spat and pissed on public monuments, defaced imperial property and defecated in the open. Even the luxurious hammams he had built for the use of the public based on the Turkish model had been so badly desecrated and looted that they had to be shut down. The ruffians had made off with the splendid objets d’art, towels, sponges, robes, oils, spittoons, soaps and scrapers. He supposed it was a miracle they hadn’t carried away every brick and slab of marble that had gone into its making as well. Savages!
Muhammad had appointed guards to prevent the more wretched of his subjects from behaving in such an unseemly fashion and appointed sweepers to clean the streets regularly, but it was an uphill task.
Then there was the question of the vastness of his domains. Thanks to the military genius of his father, his empire on the day of his ascension included twenty-three provinces: Dilli, Devagiri, Multan, Kahram, Samana, Sivistan, Uch, Hansi, Sarsuti, Madurai, Telangana, Dwarasamudra, Gujarat, Badaun, Oudh, Kanauj, Lakhnauti, Bihar, Kara, Malwa, Lahore, Kalanor and Jajnagar. He was determined to consolidate as well as expand his empire and do his father proud.
Muhammad was an able administrator even if he thought so himself. He had done a good job of establishing an efficient system headed by capable officers handpicked solely on the basis of merit, much to the chagrin of Barani. Wealth poured in from all directions and straight into his coffers.
The damnable thing, though, was that in each province his subjects spoke a different language, worshipped a different God and jealously guarded their own customs, culture and traditions handed down over the ages, which were all at odds with their neighbours’. If that weren’t enough, there was further division on the basis of caste, sub-caste and class. Needless to say, all of them were at loggerheads over conflicting ideologies, identity and questions of religious dogma which grew so bitter, they were forever fighting or plotting to kill each other. He wouldn’t have cared if the sticky mess had not interfered with governance.
‘You were talking about unification, your majesty . . .’ Ahmad prompted him courteously, breaking into his thoughts, and Muhammad bestirred himself.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I have a few schemes in mind that if implemented would put an end to the communal tensions that are tearing my empire apart. We are going to toss people from all the provinces into the pot of governance and force them to coexist or risk their emperor’s wrath. It is about time they all learn to put aside their differences and work for the betterment of this land. Can you see the possibilities if this happens?
‘If I can count on peace and am free of petty regional overlords struggling to achieve independence and spiritual authorities interfering in temporal matters and fomenting trouble, then it is my intention to march onward and outward towards fresh conquests. I want to march to the ends of the world and see all the marvels it has to offer. To die at the head an empire that is at least three times the size of this one.’
Muhammad ignored the sceptical looks the three of them shot him, suddenly united in their unwillingness to follow him down this bold path. The Sultan cleared his throat and glanced meaningfully at Barani. ‘For those who feel that I am not practising and enforcing the tenets of Islam to the best of my ability, my new edict will put an end to all doubts, and in emphatic fashion.’
Ahmad was definitely looking nervous. Barani merely looked hopeful and Najib seemed anticipatory, no doubt convinced it would all be very entertaining.
‘Henceforth, I am going to be very strict where religious matters are concerned, particularly the observance of prayers, attendance at which will be mandatory. Those of the faith will be expected to know the prescribed prayers by heart, as well as ritual observances, obligations and articles of the Islamic code. Court-appointed officials will question the congregation arbitrarily and also monitor them minutely during the hours of prayer. Anybody caught wrong-footed or derelict in the performance of their religious duties will be caught and put to death immediately. I trust my chief executioner will be up to the task?’5
‘Of course, sire! I will be certain to strictly enforce the edict with all the resources at my disposal,’ Najib replied with alacrity.
Barani blanched but made an effort to look approving. Ahmad was made of sterner stuff. ‘With all due respect, sire, don’t you think you are being a little too harsh? Even if your heart is in the right place, Muslims will feel they are being persecuted since it would have to be Hindus who take up patrolling duties during prayer time. It can prove to be counterproductive and exacerbate tension between the warring factions.’
‘Rest assured, Ahmad, good Muslims like you and Barani have nothing to fear. Am I not right? As for me, I know the Quran and every prayer, rite and rule outlined in the religious texts by heart, and it has been so since I was five.’ He glanced at Barani, who swallowed twice before managing a nod of assent. ‘And to ease your fears, I will make it clear that false or fabricated charges are a grave offence that merit execution. That settles it. Make certain that the new rule is enforced immediately.’
All three men bowed their heads in submission and kept their eyes on their feet, refusing to look at each other. He knew they hoped to be dismissed, but he wasn’t done with them yet.
‘The south has been ignored for too long, and my subjects there feel cut off from the warmth and sunshine of their Sultan’s benevolence. I am told the prevailing sentiment is I care little for their pressing problems and am content to let my underlings rule over them and force them to pay tribute. But all that is going to change.’
Three pairs of eyes filled with a mixture of unease and anticipation looked at him. ‘My mind is made up and I would prefer it if you didn’t try to dissuade me. For strategic reasons, I intend to move with my court for a limited duration from Dilli to Devagiri, which will be renamed Daulatabad. It is equidistant to all the key provinces in the realm and will serve as the second capital of the empire. As for Dilli, it will not be abandoned, since my beloved Jahanpanah will be built here. I have also commissioned the building of a new fortress which will be called Adilabad. The move will be made once all the arrangements have been made, so that those moving will not suffer any undue inconveniences. I trust I have your cooperation and support during this period of transition, after which we will stride forward to build the mightiest empire this world has seen.’
Without waiting for a reply, the Sultan dismissed them and turned to gaze out of the window. Even so, it took a few minutes before the three men could pick their jaws off the floor, pay obeisance and retreat. Muhammad smiled in satisfaction. They were sceptical now, but would see the merit of his actions soon.
3
They brought Bahauddin
Gurshasp to him in chains. Muhammad had not been surprised at his rebellion. He had been conspicuous by his absence on the day of his coronation. Muhammad should not have let the slight go unpunished. But Baha was his cousin and had been a great favourite of Sultan Ghiasuddin Tughlaq’s. However, he bitterly regretted his lapse in judgement, for things had become unspeakably ugly between them.
When Baha raised the standard of rebellion from his bastion at Sagar, backed by local Hindu chieftains, Muhammad had deployed his troops with Ahmad at the helm and Malik Majir by his side. Never one to leave things to chance, he had travelled to Devagiri to oversee things with reinforcements in tow. Muhammad had no doubt that his father could have subdued him with a few well-chosen words and half the number of casualties, but as always, he had a difficult time of it.
‘The truth is, I overestimated him!’ he had lamented to Abu.
‘Whatever do you mean?’ Abu wanted to know. ‘Ahmad and Majir decimated his entire army and you have him on the run. The rank traitor and coward!’
‘Exactly! The man is a coward and far more dangerous to others unlike the courageous at heart. I offered generous terms for his surrender: his family and troops would be spared and he himself would be unharmed but placed under house arrest. Even his land and monies would not be seized and left for his offspring. Yet, that ingrate threw it back in my face, and abandoned his family as well as his men.’
‘Well, you do have a reputation for being capricious and cruel.’ Abu was blunt as only he could be. ‘There is no doubt that Bahauddin did not believe a word of the terms offered, convinced that he would be put to death, but only after being tortured by the Sultan’s hound, one Najib who is already infamous for his preferred sadistic measures.’
Muhammad swore. ‘The word of the Sultan is gold and don’t you dare say otherwise.’
‘I didn’t.’ Abu was unapologetic. ‘But we were discussing your increasing penchant for brutality, which was already formidable to start with. Let us not forget that you ordered the execution of many of the Ulama’s enforcers for neglecting to say their prayers with the rest of the congregation and for failing to pass the gruelling exam on some of the more obfuscating passages from the Quran. It hardly enhanced your reputation in the eyes of the faithful.’
Muhammad Bin Tughlaq Page 8