Subsequently, Ghiasuddin tried to win over the nobles to his cause by stating that Islam needed them to unite and make common cause against the tyrant who favoured Hindus and sought to root out the Muslims from Hindustan. In a fiery speech, he said, ‘The Hindus have captured the realm of Islam, and have subverted the Alai house. I hereby wish to avenge the wrongs done to that house. Just as you have readily and actively co-operated with me for years in the past, I wish you even at this juncture to help me’ (Husain, p. 36).
This ploy was ineffective, though, because many of the Islamic nobles and even those among the Muslim clergy continued to ally themselves with Sultan Nasiruddin, who had won them over with generous gifts of land and gold. This episode notwithstanding, Sultan Ghiasuddin Tughlaq enjoys a well-deserved reputation for fairness and tolerance as he did his best to put out the flames of communal violence, which plagued his reign as well as his son’s.
5. In all matters pertaining to religion, Muhammad bin Tughlaq displayed the same perplexing contradictory manner that was unique to him. As a devout Muslim, he practised the faith in keeping with the rationalism and spirit of inquiry that were a part of his own scholarly attributes, and did not seek to promote or propagate Islam using state-sponsored machinery. He even tried to understand other religions and had lengthy discourses with holy men of other faiths, and this, coupled with his harsh treatment of the Muslim clergy, made them his enemies. It did not help that to prove himself to those who questioned his faith, the Sultan chose to implement a policy compelling people to say the prescribed prayers in the strictest orthodox manner under threat of capital punishment.
Ibn Battuta, the famous Moroccan traveller and author of Rihla, was impressed with the Sultan’s insistence on the strict observance of ritual prayers, ‘making congregational attendance at them obligatory, and punishing any dereliction of them most severely. Indeed, he put to death for neglecting them on one day alone nine persons, of whom one was a singer. He used to send out men, specially charged with this duty, to the bazaars; any person found in them after the commencement of prayers was punished . . . He gave orders also that the people in general should be required to show a knowledge of the obligations of ablution, prayer, and the binding articles of Islam. They used to be questioned on these matters; if anyone failed to give correct answers he was punished’ (Batuta, 1971, p. 693).
6. Bahauddin Gurshasp’s rebellion was one of the earliest, and an important one, since it exemplified the savagery Muhammad bin Tughlaq was capable of when he was angered or felt betrayed. He has been roundly criticized for his actions in having his cousin flayed and ordering that his flesh be cooked with spices and rice, and rightly so, but it must be remembered that it was a cruel age and wielders of absolute power felt they had little choice but to deal with traitors and rebels with an iron hand using brutal means of execution for the ostensible purpose of serving as a deterrent for those who felt inclined towards treason and treachery. The Sultan was simply no better and perhaps only slightly worse than those who held similar positions both before and after him. For those interested in the various versions of this grisly episode by noted historians, I suggest you refer to Husain (pp. 142–44).
7. Battuta has given the Sultan’s petty grievances against his subjects as the reason for the ill-advised move to transfer the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad, which most modern historians feel is too simplistic and reeking of bias in its assessment of Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s true motives in addition to being historically inaccurate. According to Battuta, ‘One of the gravest charges against the Sultan is his forcing of the population of Dihli to evacuate the city. The reason for this is that they used to write missives reviling and insulting him, seal them and inscribe them, “By the head of the Master of the World, none but he may read this.” Then they would throw them into the audience-hall by night, and when the Sultan broke the seal he found them full of insults and abuse of him. So he decided to lay Dihli in ruins’ (Battuta, 1971, p. 707).
He then proceeds to give a graphic and exaggerated account of the move to Daulatabad, claiming that the Sultan sent his men to search the city to see if any of the citizens remained, and they returned with a cripple and a blind man. The former, on Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s alleged orders, was hurled from a ballista, and the latter dragged to Daulatabad. Over the course of the journey, the poor man was supposedly torn to pieces and only his leg reached the new capital. None of this has been sufficiently corroborated and is taken with a dash of salt by contemporary scholars.
8. Malik Isami, a historian from Muhammad’s times who served the Bahmani Sultanate and authored the Futuh-uh-Salatin, seemed to have an axe to grind with the Sultan and is scathing in his condemnation of the decision to transfer the capital; he narrates the ordeal suffered by his grandfather, who did not survive the harrowing journey.
‘Much is in common between Isami and Ibn Battuta; and the latter’s story of the cripple and the blind man, which remains unconfirmed, appears to have been a concoction based on the hardships to which Isami’s grandfather, A’izz-ud-din Isami, was supposed to have been subjected. Again, Ibn Battuta’s version that Muhammad bin Tughlaq was pleased when, on mounting the roof of his palace, he saw no trace of fire and light in any house, seems to have arisen from Isami’s report that the Sultan ordered the city to be set on fire’ (Husain, p. 122). The version presented here about the fate of Isami’s grandfather is fictional.
9. Ibn Battuta has dwelt at length on the gruesome treatment meted out by the Sultan to those among his subjects he believed were guilty of a host of offences, ranging from the trivial to the grave. The Moroccan seems to have been particularly galled by his treatment of the Muslim clergy, who were humiliated by having their beards plucked out one strand at a time, being force-fed ordure, tortured, having urine poured over their wounds, flayed or executed. While some of it may have been exaggerated, the Sultan did have a proven record of punishing the members of the Ulama, the Sayyids, Mashaikhs and Sufis most cruelly for he believed not without sound reason that they sought to undermine his authority and cause trouble. For a detailed account of ‘This Sultan’s murders and other reprehensible actions’ please refer to Battuta (1971, pp. 695–708).
10. Ibid.
11. Ibn Battuta alone describes the execution of the Sultan’s half-brother, Masud Khan. He seems to have believed that his rebellion was triggered by his mother’s sentence to death by stoning for the crime of adultery.
‘He had a [half] brother named Mas’ud Khan, whose mother was the daughter of the Sultan Ala-al-din, and who was one of the most beautiful persons I have seen on earth. The Sultan accused him of rebellion against him and questioned him on the matter. Mas’ud Khan confessed to the fact through fear of torture, and people consider execution a lighter affliction than torture. The Sultan gave orders for his execution, and he was beheaded in the midst of the bazaar and remained exposed there for three days, according to their usage. The mother of the executed prince had been stoned to death in that same place two years before, on her confession of adultery. Her stoning was by [decree of] the qadi Kamal al-din’ (Battuta, p. 696).
It is a pity not much is known of this daughter of Alauddin Khalji. My version of her story is entirely fictionalized.
12. Barani’s account of the Doab rebellion does not show the Sultan in a favourable light. He has levelled grave charges against the emperor, accusing him of rashly implementing administrative policies that forced the officials to harass the people and force them to pay taxes they simply could not afford, prompting them to rise in rebellion against the administrators which led to the emperor leading ‘man-hunting expeditions’ and murdering the inhabitants of the Doab.
Husain, however, is of the opinion that the accepted theory of the Doab rebellion, attributed to the Sultan’s incompetence and gross hiking of taxes, is not supported by facts. His thorough assessment of the events leading up to the hotbed of conflict in the Doab and the Sultan’s handling of it makes for interesting reading (pp. 148–57).
13. ‘The discontent was fomented by the Ulama, the Sayyids, Mashaikhs and Sufis, who had personal differences with the emperor on account of (1) his peculiar views with regard to religion and administration, (2) his disregard of the time-honoured sanctity and privileges that the Sayyids and saints enjoyed, and (3) his cold-blooded murder of the Sunnis, Sayyids and Sufis, all supposed to be sacrosanct’ (Husain, p. 131). They went one step further, and the kazis are believed to have declared war on the emperor, calling for his execution and actively encouraging rebellion. Muhammad bin Tughlaq retaliated by having them ruthlessly killed. This turned public opinion against him and led to venomous condemnation by Barani, Isami and Battuta.
References
Batuta, Ibn. The Travels of Ibn Batuta. The Rev. S. Lee B.D, tr. (London: Oriental Translation Committee, 1829).
Batuta, Ibn. The Travels of Ibn Batuta: AD. 1325–1354, Volume 3. H.A.R. Gibb, tr. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).
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Chaurasia, Radhey Shyam. History of Medieval India: From 1000 A.D. to 1707 A.D. (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2002).
Husain, Agha Mahdi. The Rise and Fall of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq (Bristol: Burleigh Press, 1938), https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282325
Karnad, Girish. Tughlaq (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Kumar, Raj, ed. Essays on Medieval India (New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House, 2003).
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Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Jayapalan, N. History of India from 1206 to 1773, Volume 2. (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2001).
Keay, John. India: A History (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2000).
Mehta, Jaswant Lal. Advanced Studies in the History of Medieval India, Vol 1: 1000–1526 A.D. (New Delhi: Sterling, 1986).
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Sharma, Sudha. The Status of Muslim Women in Medieval India. (New Delhi: Sage, 2016).
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