Delhi Sultanate

Slave Dynasty
• Qutub-ud-din Aibak assumed the title of Sultān and
was acknowledged as the ruler of the Indian
territories by the Muslim officers in India.
• By extensive conquests, he brought a large part of
India under the banner of Islam.
• There were no fixed rules governing the succession to
the crown in the Turkish state.
• The next ruler was Iltutmish.
• He received the title of Sultān-i-Āzam (Great
Sultān) by the Khalifa of Baghdad.
• This added a new element of strength to
Iltutmish’s authority and gave him a status in
the Muslim world.
• On his coins, he described himself as the
lieutenant of the Caliph.
• It was during Iltutmish’s reign that the
Mongols appeared for the first time on the
banks of the Indus, under their celebrated
leader Chingīz Khan (1221 CE).
• Iltutmish consolidated the conquests of Qutub-
ud-din into a strong and compact monarchy.
• He completed the famous Qutub Minar at
Delhi in 1231-1232 CE.
• Iltutmish nominated his daughter Raziyya as his
heiress.
• Her authority was established over Punjab and the
governors of the lands of Sind and Bengal
acknowledged her sway.
• She conducted the affairs of the state with
considerable ability in open darbārs.
• The Turkish nobles could not reconcile themselves to
the rule of a woman and brought about her downfall.
• Iltutmish’s youngest son Nāsir-ud-din
Mahmūd was raised to the throne by the
Turkish nobles.
• He designated his minister Balban as his
successor.
• Balban belonged to the famous band of
Turkish slaves of Iltutmish known as “The
Forty” (Chāhelgān).
• Balban set himself to the task of reorganizing
the armed forces and restoring order in the
Doāb and the areas close to Delhi.
• Balban tried to curb the powers of the
ambitious Turkish nobles and rebel subjects.
By his constant vigil against the Mongols, he
saved the Sultanate from disintegration.
• He considered the sovereign to be the
representative of God upon earth.
• The duties of the king, according to him, were
to protect religion and fulfill the provisions of
the Shariat, to check immoral actions, to
appoint pious men to offices and to dispense
justice with equality.
 Khaljīs
• The Khaljīs took advantage of the political
disorder present during the times of the last
rulers of the Slave dynasty.
• Jalāl-ud-dīn Fīrūz was the first of the Khaljī
rulers, who proved to be too mild to hold his
power.
• His ambitious nephew Alāuddīn Khaljī was
the next ruler.
• Alāuddīn’s successful campaign in the Deccan
paved the way for later conquests over region.
• He adopted defensive measures to guard
effectively the north west frontier from the
Mongol invasions. He caused the old forts to
be repaired and new ones erected on the route
of the Mongols.
• He described himself as “the Second
Alexander” in his coins.
• According to him, there were some defects in
the existing administrative system. He
attributed it to the following four causes:
disregard for the affairs of the State by the
Sultān, the use of wine, alliances among the
nobles and abundance of money.
• He framed a code of repressive regulations.
• All pensions and endowments were
appropriated by the State.
• He established an efficient body of spies.
• The use of spirituous liquor and drugs and
dicing were strictly prohibited.
• He prohibited the social gathering of the
nobles.
• Large sections of the people had to pay to the State
half of their gross produce and heavy pasturage taxes
on cattle.
• The markets were controlled by special officers.
• Alāuddin regulated the prices of all articles from the
absolute necessities of life to things of luxury.
• These measures helped him to maintain large
standing army at a cheap cost.
• Severe punishments were provided against any
violation of the king’s orders.
• The most important defect of his system was
that it could not win for itself the willing
support of the governed. Its continuance
depended on the strong personality of the
emperor.
• An eminent scholar who flourished during his
reign was Amīr Khusrav.
• He wanted to construct a new Minār twice the
size of the old Qutub Minār. But this structure
could not be completed.
• He was succeeded by Malik Kāfūr.
• Next king was Qutub-ud-dīn Mubārak.
• He made a departure from the practice of the
preceding Sultāns of Delhi by shaking off the
allegiance to the Khalifa and proclaiming himself
“the supreme head of the religion of Islam, the
Khalifa of the Lord of the Heaven and Earth”.
• The successor of Mubārak was defeated by Ghiyās-
ud-dīn Tughluq.
 Tughluqs
• Ghiyās-ud-dīn Tughluq:
a) He restored the administrative order by ordering a strict
enquiry into all claims and jāgīrs.
b) He appointed upright governors in the provinces and
lightened the burden of revenue by reducing the taxation to
one-tenth of the gross produce.
c) Agriculture and irrigation received special attention.
d) Reforms were introduced in military, police, postal
department.
e) He devised a system of poor-relief and patronized religious
institutions and literary men.
• Muhammad bin Tughluq:
 Sources: texts in Persian; accounts of foreign
travellers like Ibn Batūtah, who came from Africa
and was made the chief Qāzī of Delhi by the Sultān.
 He was an accomplished scholar and an
experienced general.
 He tried an ill-advised financial experiment in the
Doāb. He enhanced the rate of taxation and
introduced additional cesses.
 The failure of the State to relax the demands even during the
times of famine forced the impoverished peasantry to shift to
other places. The Sultān forcibly brought them back to their
work, which produced disastrous consequences for the
Tughluqs.
 His decision to transfer the capital from Delhi to Devagiri,
renamed Daulatābād, caused immense suffering to the people.
The Sultān ordered all the people of Delhi to proceed to
Daulatābād. He realized his folly, shifted back his capital and
ordered a return march of the people, but very few of them
survived to return.
 He tried important monetary experiments. A new gold piece,
called the Dinār by Ibn Batūtah, was issued by him.
 He issued a token currency in copper coins. However, there
was no check on the authenticity of the copper coins.
 There were a number of rebellions during his reign. It was
during this period that the foundation of the Deccan kingdoms
of Vijayanagar and Bāhmanī was laid.
 He replaced his name by that of the Khalifa in his coins in
order to restore order in the kingdom,
• Firūz Shah Tughluq:
a) His military enterprises were mostly unsuccessful.
b) He caused 300 volumes of Sanskrit books on
various subjects to be translated into Persian.
c) He was the first king to style himself as the deputy
of the Khalifa of Egypt. He associated his name
with that of the Khalifa in his coins.
d) He revived the jāgīr system which had been
abolished by Alāuddīn and distributed the whole
kingdom among the nobles and officials.
e) The State did not suffer from financial
bankruptcy during his reign.
f) He renamed a number of cities and also built
a few new ones like Firuzpur and Firuzabad.
g) He removed the two inscribed monoliths of
Aśoka from Meerut and Khizrabad and
brought them to Delhi.
h) He started an employment bureau, a charity
bureau and a charitable hospital.
i) He recognized hereditary claim in military
services.
j) He tried to make the judicial system more
humane than before.
• All the successors of Firūz were incompetent
to save the Delhi Sultanate from destruction.
• Many provinces gained independence, like
Gujarat, Malwa, Gwalior etc.
• The invasion of Tīmūr completed the
dissolution of the Delhi Sultanate.
• Next dynasty: the Sayyids (1414-1451).
• The Lodīs:
a) First Afghan rulers of Delhi.
b) Important ruler: Sikander Lodi.
c) His successor took repressive measures
against the nobles, which finally led to the
collapse of the Delhi Sultanate.
 Reasons for the collapse of the Delhi
Sultanate
• The conditions for the decline began during the last days of
Muhammad bin Tughluq.
• The indiscretions of the Sultān and the measures taken by his
successor, such as the revival of the jāgīr system, the extension
of the institution of slavery, the imposition of the jizya on the
non-Muslims and the persecution of the heretical Muslim
sects, led to the downfall of the Sultanate.
• The Lodis attempted to suppress the military and official
nobility through repressive measures.
• The invasion of Tīmūr finally led to its disintegration.
• A number of independent kingdoms arose on the ruins of the
Delhi Sultanate.
 Independent kingdoms
• Vijayanagar empire and Bahmanī kingdom.
• Vijayanagar Empire:
a) Important ruler was Kṛṣṇadeva Rāya.
b) The city of Vijayanagar was fortified and
was of enormous size.
c) It was a very important commercial centre.
The most important port on the Malabar
coast was Calicut.
d) Women actively took part in political, social
and literary spheres. They were trained in
wrestling, handling swords and shields, music
and fine arts.
e) Kṛṣṇadeva Rāya wrote his magnum opus,
Āmuktamālyadā in Telugu.
 The Turko-Afghan State
• The Turko-Afghan state was a theocracy, the
existence of which was theoretically justified
by the needs of religion.
• The Sultān was an autocrat.
• The real source of his authority was military
strength.
• The highest official was the Wazīr.
• The main sources of revenue of the state
were:
a) Kharaj or land tax.
b) Land revenue from the Khālsā or crown
lands.
c) Iqtās or land granted to officials.
d) Khams or one-fifth of the spoils of war.
e) Jizya or tax levied on non-Muslims.
 Economy
• Agriculture was the chief occupation.
• Some important industries were textiles, metal work,
stone and brick work and paper industry.
• Bengal and Gujarat were well known for the
manufacture of textiles.
• There was overseas trade with distant regions of
Europe, the Malay islands, China and other countries
of the Pacific Ocean.
 Social Life
• The Sultāns and their nobles maintained
slaves, both male and female.
• The Purdah system became more elaborate.
• The practice of Sati was widely prevalent.
• The spirit of mutual toleration found expression in
the growing veneration of the Hindus for the Muslim
saints and a corresponding Muslim practice of
venerating Hindu saints, which led to the common
worship of Satyapīr (the True Saint).
• Some Muslims wrote on Hindu life and tradition in
vernaculars and Hindu writers wrote in the Persian
language on Muslim literary tradition. There were
works written in Hindi as well as Urdu.
• Bhakti cult became popular which emphasized
on the fundamental equality of all religions
and the unity of Godhead and simple devotion
as a means of salvation for everyone.
• Important Bhakti saints were Rāmānanda,
Vallabhācārya, Caitanya Mahāprabhu,
Nāmadeva, Kabīr and Nānak. Kabir was
Rāmānanda’s disciple.