‘Can your medicines help?’ Muhammad had enquired impatiently. ‘And what is to be done to tackle the situation? If this disease is not checked immediately, every man in my army will be dead and drowned in his own shit. Not even Ahsan Shah and the dreadful natural calamities that have besieged us have caused damage on this scale. Something needs to done, and it needs to be done sooner rather than later.’
‘If the disease is left unchecked, it will destroy not only your majesty’s army but will spread from here to Ma’bar and destroy it, besides the rest of your empire and this land as well. In fact, it could theoretically destroy the entire world.’
Ignoring the Sultan’s glare, Wasim examined his own fingernails. Every time the Ulama accused him of believing he was God, Muhammad wondered if they had ever met a typical physician with the aggrandized airs and graces they gave themselves.
‘Cleanliness is key, sire,’ Wasim lectured him as if he were explaining the obvious to a child. ‘The bodies will have to be burned and not left where they are. Only the funerary smoke will deter the flies. Water must be boiled before it is drunk. Food must be prepared only using utensils that have been cleaned and placed in boiling water.’
‘Is there hope or is everyone going to die?’ Muhammad asked him.
‘Some always survive these things, sire, the very young, the old and infirm, the extremely useless, sometimes a few good men,’ he was told matter-of-factly. ‘I will survive and so will you, since I will be taking care of you. Now, sire, if the condition of your stools are any indication, and they are, the disease has taken a hold of you. It is because you ignored my recommendation and insisted on overseeing your men yourself. You must confine yourself immediately and place yourself entirely in my care.’
‘I have never felt better in my entire life!’ Muhammad insisted, hoping that if he ignored the ominous symptoms they would go away. His physician sniffed disapprovingly. Soon enough, Muhammad was taken seriously ill at Bidar in the Telangana region and he lay thrashing in a delirium while Wasim attended to him. They were rubbing his abdomen and limbs with heated castor oil, forcing soups and fluids down his throat and making him swallow a pill that was crushed and mixed with honey every two hours. But the Sultan was sinking.
Muhammad lay empty and depleted, feeling his strength and very life force ebb and flow. Voices seemed to address him from a great distance and he strained to hear the words that throbbed with urgency over the clamouring in his own head and the pounding of his heart. Shapes and incoherent forms emerged from the darkness around him as he fought the dizziness and fatigue while his flesh burned.
He struggled to drown out the cacophony of the sounds of a raging battle, the blaring horns, pounding drums, clashing swords and whizzing arrows. He was in the very thick of the madness, using every one of the skills he had taught himself, to kill before he was killed. Every time he struck with his almighty blade of bronze, his victim’s head flew off his shoulders. Blood fountained high above his head, and he was bathed in the scalding crimson tide as more and more decapitated heads thudded to the dusty ground.
Others rushed him with their swords, screaming abuse at him, their voices hoarse with hate, but he wouldn’t retreat before their onslaught. Rather, he charged them in a ferocious rush, inflicting wounds, pain and death. Bronze rang against bronze as he fended off the attack, keeping his enemies at sword’s length with ferocity. Again and again. His blade moved swift as thought and he marvelled at his own skill and boundless energy as the blows of his enemies proved entirely ineffectual.
Yet, they refused to give up. No matter how many of them he killed, replacements sprang up to fight him. He gritted his teeth. He wouldn’t give up either. But soaked in perspiration, he felt himself tiring. There was a ringing in his head and every part of his body ached fiercely. The swordplay cost him a world of effort and it took everything he had to hold his blade aloft.
Sensing his weakness, they attacked in a relentless wave, knocking him off his feet, howling like wild animals that had brought down their prey ready for the feast. Relief washed over him and his grip loosened on his blade. It would feel good to let go and close his eyes.
Muhammad held on to the sword. Just a little longer. He wished they would end it, so the decision would be taken out of his hands. The exhaustion had seeped into his very soul and he barely had the will to go on. He was so weary; all he wanted was for it to end so that he could allow himself to sink to the depths of the ocean of blood. It was too hard to stay afloat! He couldn’t do it any more. And yet he had to. For as long as he could. There was no one else.
So many mistakes. Too many mistakes to atone for. And yet he had to go on. He felt compelled to try. At the very least. For the sake of everyone, he had failed. For his own sake, before the despair proved too much. So he tried. To fend off the attacks, to get back on his feet and keep on fighting till it was all over. Only then could he lie down, shut his eyes and get some rest. Until then, he would fight.
When he came to, it wasn’t to the beauteous countenance of a houri but the grim visage of Wasim, who had pulled back his eyelid to stare into his pupil. ‘I told them it would work,’ he told him with a grimace of self-satisfaction. ‘Asafoetida, opium and black pepper when taken in the right proportions and administered using my method can bring a man back even from the brink of death.’ He went on muttering, ‘But if only you had listened to me, when I spoke about an ounce of prevention being worth more than a dozen cures, you wouldn’t have come so dangerously close to shitting your life away.’
Muhammad thanked him, though he was tempted to have him throttled.
The Sultan recuperated in Daulatabad. They said it was divine will that he had survived, much to Wasim’s outrage. The bulk of his army had been decimated. His generals and thousands of soldiers were dead. Meanwhile, as he lay incapacitated and the surviving soldiers huddled together in miserable groups, Ahsan Shah had struck coins and established what he called the Madurai Sultanate.
It was a bitter potion to swallow and Muhammad gagged on the taste. But there was no point wallowing in misery when the Sultan’s work awaited. There was trouble afoot in Lahore and Bengal and he could not dally in Daulatabad. Muhammad sent for Qutlugh Khan, the governor. ‘You will have to hold down the fort here. Once news of my illness spreads, there will be rumours of my impending death, and every opportunist will make his bid for power. It will also be your responsibility to bring Ahsan to his knees or make as much trouble for him as you possibly can!’
‘I won’t let you down, your majesty!’ he replied fervently. Muhammad wished he could believe him. If he had a silver tanka for every time somebody said those words before letting him down, he would be able to remount his Khorasan expedition and leave for parts unknown. Alas! But it wasn’t to be.
He promised himself that he would win his southernmost province back after rebuilding his army and sending for reinforcements to aid Qutlugh Khan, but something told him it was a lost cause.
Muhammad had received heartening news from Ahmad. The blackguard had somehow steered clear of epidemics and covered himself in the glory of a stupendous victory. Ibrahim had been defeated and killed, and the Khwaja Jahan sent his sovereign the pickled head of his late adversary to cheer him up.
Then he received dire news from Swarga Dhar. His mother was dying and it had been her desire to be taken to Tughlaqabad. Muhammad did not tarry a moment, though Wasim insisted that he was in no condition to make the journey back. Despite his weakened state, he rode like the wind to be by his mother’s side.
Haniya was far gone. She did not even recognize her son, though she clutched his hand and held it close to her. ‘Is there anything you can do for her?’ Muhammad pleaded with the hakim. ‘You did brag that you could bring a man back from the dead.’ But Wasim could only shake his head in chagrined helplessness.
‘She doesn’t have long, sire. All I can do is make her comfortable and give her a drought to ease the passage to the other side.’
Muhammad
cradled her head in his arms, refusing to leave her side. He hoped she knew that he was close in her weakened state, frail and weightless as a little bird. Khuda sat by his side and sang to their mother. He felt the last breath she drew as she left him for good. Slowly, and with infinite care, he placed his forehead on her lips. ‘Goodbye, mother!’ he breathed. Khuda sobbed gently by his side.
He knew that she had tarried as long as she could only for the sake of her hopeless firstborn. He was more grateful than he could say. Now she was by his father’s side, which was where she had always wanted to be. Muhammad could not begrudge her that. So he buried Haniya in his father’s mausoleum, and left her to rest in peace.
7
Muhammad asked them to bring the Moroccan traveller before him. Despite his fondness for Ibn Battuta, the Sultan had found it necessary to place him under armed guard at the luxurious house that had been turned over for his use. Muhammad looked forward to seeing him. Ibn Battuta was always amusing, even when he was disapproving. He could use the laughs after what felt like a lifetime of putting out political fires.
Even as he mourned the passing of his mother, Muhammad received word that Hulagu, one of the Mongol chieftains, had overthrown Malik Tatar, the governor of Lahore. The Khwaja Jahan had fought the rebel on the banks of the Ravi and slain him.
Truth be told, Muhammad’s sympathies lay with the Mongol and others like him, or the new Muslims, as they were called. The orthodox sects hated them even more than the other infidels, if that were possible, having never forgiven Genghis Khan and his descendants the violent raids they had carried out in Hindustan.
Consequently, the Mongol converts were treated like dirt and Muhammad was convinced it was going to blow up in his face. They usually made up the front ranks in battle but were paid less than others in the same position and begrudged their paltry share of the war booty. Despite Muhammad’s best efforts to treat them more fairly and his elevation of the deserving among them to higher posts, he had known it was only a matter of time before the Mongols retaliated.
‘It is on the petty spite and foolishness of imbeciles that the fate of an empire depends,’ he had remarked somewhat obliquely to Ahmad, who took inordinate pride in presenting him with the decapitated head of a slain enemy. ‘Hulagu was a good man, Malik Tatar would have done well to make use of his talents, instead of alienating him.’
‘Hulagu was a rash and reckless man who made his bid for power and lost. I do not share your sympathy for men like that, your highness!’ Ahmad had replied.
Dwelling on it depressed him and Muhammad let his thoughts return to the man bitten by wanderlust. Battuta had left home at the age of twenty and had been travelling the world ever since: North Africa, Egypt, Arabia, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mecca, Medina, Khorasan, Anatolia and the lands of the Golden Horde.
The Moroccan was made welcome by his fellow kazis wherever he went and clearly had a taste for the good life. He had an easy manner about him and told the most exciting stories about his journeys through dangerous terrain, surviving shipwrecks and bandits, bragging about bedding and wedding the most beautiful and exotic women, sampling the finest vintage of wines, and his acquaintance with the most powerful kings in the known world.
Muhammad was fascinated by his inability to stay in one place too long and leave behind his accumulated wealth, wives and offspring behind without a backward glance, wild and free as a feather picked up by the wind, content to simply glide through life. Battuta did not speak Persian, so Muhammad practised his rudimentary Arabic on him, hoping to become more fluent in the prophet’s tongue. The man was refreshingly honest and the Sultan had learned more from their occasional conversations than the reports of a hundred spies.
He remembered the first time they had met, Muhammad had been effusive in his greeting and Battuta had responded in kind as they exchanged gifts. He knew people would accuse him of fawning over yet another ferenghi but he did so like listening to their perspectives. He enjoyed living vicariously through their experiences of a larger world outside the confines of his suffocating empire.
‘Everything I heard about your generosity is true, sire,’ Battuta had said.
‘I don’t think that is all you heard about me . . .’ Muhammad had prompted him.
‘Well, your highness, the kind folks on the border who helped me to assemble the gifts to be presented to you, especially since I arrived with little more than the clothes on my back, assured me that you would reward me with valuables that far exceed their value. They were wrong only in that they undervalued the bounty I could be expected to receive.’
The Sultan threw back his head and laughed. If the unscrupulous rogues on the border had apprised him of this much, then they would have certainly told him about his so-called partiality to the ferenghis and penchant for assigning the scholars, scribes, administrators and judges among them key positions in his court. He certainly hoped to make a fortune here. He was a sly one, this Battuta, with an eye for gold. Still, it was valuable information, and Muhammad made a note to monitor the situation. It would most certainly come in useful later.
Since Battuta came from a family of judges, Muhammad offered him an honorary position as the Kazi of Dilli, with two assistants to help him. It all seemed to suit Battuta most admirably.
He cleared his throat. ‘I am told you encourage the citizenry to speak openly with you, sire . . .’
‘I certainly do. It is hard not to appreciate a man who says what is on his mind without prevarication. The process of divining the true meaning of the words most use to obfuscate their thoughts tries me sorely.’
‘I feel the same way, your highness,’ Battuta said. ‘While on the way here, I passed Sehwan, and to my shock, men of the true faith—Muslim chieftains, members of the Ulama, the khatibs, preachers of the word of God, and devoted Sunnis—had been nailed to crosses across the ramparts of the city. It chilled my blood that such a travesty had come to pass in the empire of a Sultan known for his faith and devotion.’
‘It is quite a common sight in the realm of a Sultan not quite known for his faith and devotion but who is nonetheless a true believer, since it is a capital offence to use the name of God for the foul purposes of hate-mongering, sedition and treason. Those who are guilty wind up nailed to crosses to deter others inclined to do the same.’
‘May I enquire about the especial nature of their crimes, your highness?’
‘Barani here will tell you.’ Muhammad had smiled knowingly. ‘He has strong opinions on these matters but can seldom be convinced to speak out. I think he is saving it all for the histories he intends to write one day.’
Barani flushed with embarrassment and a touch of resentment at having his intentions exposed so cavalierly before a ferenghi, just arrived in court. Even so, he spoke up. ‘The Sultan in his infinite wisdom named a kafir, Ratan Singh, as the governor of Sehwan. It is wrong to speak ill of the dead, but at the time many among us expressed our doubts about giving such a high post to one who hadn’t even converted to Islam and denounced the Hindu adoration of idolatry. It was predicted that such an unconventional decision could only lead to trouble but the Sultan dismissed our concerns.’
‘Barani also disapproves of bright and ambitious Hindus who convert for furthering their career prospects and to avoid paying the jizya. He thinks of them as abominations. Ratan Singh—may Allah and his gods have mercy on him—was not one for pretence and it was only one among his many virtues.’ Muhammad examined the rings on his fingers for a moment. ‘The old guard among the nobles composed entirely of Persians, Turks and Muslims are keen to preserve their incestuous little circle and refuse to make place for representatives from other races. On the other hand, when foreigners are brought in to fill the empty places in my administration, I am accused of partiality.’
Muhammad nodded for Barani to continue, enjoying the sight of him squirming in discomfiture. ‘In Sehwan, two Muslim chieftains, Wunar and Rumi, angered with Ratan Singh’s aggressive measures to encourage the Hind
us to rise up against the Muslims, deposed him . . .’
‘That is an interesting choice of words, Barani, but I think you mean Wunar and Rumi were bitterly resentful that a man of merit was promoted over them and killed Ratan in a manner that can only be described as treacherous, after fabricating claims that would bring his integrity under question,’ Muhammad corrected him. ‘And their actions had been precipitated by the Ulama and the zealous preachers. On my instructions, Malik Sartez marched from Multan to punish them, and our distinguished visitor subsequently bore witness to the plight of sinners and traitors in my empire.’
Battuta shook his head. ‘I am not sure it is the right message to send, sire, especially in a land where far too many practise idolatry openly, with blatant disregard for the true path of Allah.’
‘It was their land before it became mine,’ Muhammad retorted. ‘And I am mindful of that. As long as my subjects maintain the peace, I couldn’t care less if they worship idols, Buddha or the saviour. I am told that the Christians are determined to wipe out Islam and drive us away from the holy lands. Which is why I thought you might be a little more sympathetic to the plight of the Hindus in these parts, Battuta.’
He remembered the pained looks on both their faces and the words Battuta had left unsaid. How dare he make light of the holy wars and use it to shore up his hollow argument?
Muhammad smiled bitterly at the memory. He was heartily sick of God’s followers and often found himself praying earnestly for the Almighty to strike them down. They had robbed the land of precious peace and thrown one wrench too many in his administrative wheel. Alauddin Khalji wouldn’t have believed it, but the present Sultan had discovered that the biggest threat to his rule was not the Hindus but the Muslims: an amorphous body of holy men with their vested agendas, who were determined to sabotage every aspect of his rule.
Muhammad Bin Tughlaq Page 18