The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate

by Abraham Eraly

  Meanwhile Mallu Khan tried to recover some of the lost provinces of the empire, but this brought him into conflict with Khizr Khan, a former noble of the Sultanate but now the deputy of Timur in Multan. In the ensuing battle Khizr Khan defeated and killed Mallu Khan. A group of nobles headed by Daulat Khan Lodi then took charge of Delhi, and they persuaded Mahmud to reoccupy the throne of Delhi. Mahmud was not entirely without spirit and enterprise, and during this phase of his rule, which lasted seven years, he made several earnest efforts to recover some of the lost territories of the empire.

  The reign of Mahmud in all lasted eighteen years, but during a good part of it he was only a nominal ruler, under the thumb of some dominant noble, and on a couple of occasions he was even a fugitive living under the protection of provincial rulers. The sultan died in early 1412, and with his death ended the history of the Tughluq dynasty.

  Part VI

  THREE KINGDOMS

  Ahmad Shah … overran the open country, and wherever he went, he put to death men, women and children, without mercy … Wherever the number of the slain amounted to 20,000, he halted for three days, and made a festival in celebration of the bloody event.

  —FERISHTA

  {1}

  The Last Hurrah

  The Delhi Sultanate was in an appalling state of disintegration at the close of the reign of the Tughluqs, and had fragmented into a number of independent kingdoms, some of which had larger territory and greater power than the Sultanate. But the Sultanate, though considerably attenuated, endured for 114 years more, till the invasion of Babur and the establishment of the Mughal rule in India in 1526. During this period, after a chaotic interregnum of two years following the death of sultan Mahmud in 1412, the Sultanate was ruled by two successor dynasties, Sayyids for thirty-seven years under four sultans, and Lodis for seventy-five years under three sultans.

  The first of these two dynasties was founded by Khizr Khan, who bore the appellation ‘Sayyid’, which identified him as a descendant of prophet Muhammad, so the dynasty he founded came to be known as the Sayyid dynasty. The veracity of Khizr Khan’s claimed lineage is uncertain, but it is likely that his forebears were Arabs, who had migrated to India in the early Tughluq period and settled in Multan. The family prospered in India, gaining wealth and power. This advancement culminated in Malik Suleiman, Khizr Khan’s father, becoming the governor of Multan under the Tughluqs. When Suleiman died, Khizr Khan succeeded him to the post, but lost it during the political turmoil following the death of Firuz Tughluq.

  Khizr Khan was however able to regain the post by casting his lot with Timur when he invaded India, and was rewarded by Timur with the governorship of Multan. According to Mughal chronicler Ferishta, Timur in fact appointed Khizr Khan as his viceroy in Delhi, but the Khan does not seem to have assumed that office. In any case, with the retreat of Timur from India, and the return of Mahmud Tughluq to the throne of Delhi, Khizr Khan had to be contented with Multan for the time being. But his ambition now was clearly to be the ruler of Delhi, the role that Timur had assigned to him. Over the next decade and half he considerably expanded his territory and power in western India, in preparation for the campaign to seize Delhi. During this period he in fact advanced on Delhi twice, but had to retreat on both occasions, because of the lack of provisions for his army in the devastated environs of Delhi. Then his fortune turned again. On the death of Mahmud, the last sultan of the Tughluq dynasty, the nobles of Delhi raised Daulat Khan Lodi, a powerful and respected noble, to the throne of Delhi. But before Daulat Khan could consolidate his power, Khizr Khan marched against him, occupied Delhi after a siege of four months, imprisoned Daulat Khan, and ascended the throne. Daulat Khan then disappeared from history.

  THIS WAS IN June 1414. With the accession of Khizr Khan began the gradual recovery of the Sultanate from the quarter century of swirling chaos into which it had slid after the death of Firuz Tughluq. Khizr Khan had all the qualities needed to play the role of a political redeemer. ‘He was generous, brave, merciful, considerate, true to his word, and kind,’ writes Sirhindi, a medieval Indian chronicler. Adds Badauni: ‘The Sayyid was a man in whom were manifest the virtues of Muhammad … and the grace of Ali …’

  Prudence and rectitude marked all the policies and actions of Khizr Khan. And he was unswerving in his loyalty to Timur (to whom he owed his rise to power) and his descendants. Though he exercised all the powers of a sovereign, he prudently refrained from assuming the royal title, but was content to be known as the viceroy of Shah Rukh, Timur’s son, to whom he took care to send tribute throughout his reign. In the first few years of his reign the khutba in Delhi was read only in the name of Shah Rukh, and it was only later that Khizr Khan added his own name in the khutba, and that too only after obtaining Shah Rukh’s permission to do so. Nor did Khizr Khan mint coins in his own name. He was not enamoured of the trappings of power; he had the substance of power, and that was what mattered to him. ‘Although he did not take royal titles, yet he ruled and administered his territories like a king,’ comments Nurul-Haqq, a sixteenth century chronicler.

  In many respects Khizr Khan was like Firuz Tughluq, particularly in the caution, moderation, benevolence and sense of justice he displayed during his reign. Like Firuz, Khizr Khan also took care to win over his rivals and adversaries by treating them with fairness and generosity. Although he necessarily gave the key positions in government to his own trusted followers, he treated the top officers of the previous reign honourably. Equally, he showed a genuine concern for the welfare of his subjects, particularly for the poor.

  The Delhi Sultanate was no longer an empire at the time of Khizr Khan’s accession, but only one of the many kingdoms into which the subcontinent had fragmented in the closing years of the Tughluq dynasty. Khizr Khan made some cautious moves to extend its territory, but he was not particularly successful in this, though in some cases he was able to force the local rulers to pay him the tribute due to him as their overlord. He had a good sense of what was possible in the prevailing circumstances, and he trimmed his policies to suit the constraints of his situation. He therefore often overlooked the actions of refractory provincial chieftains, for he knew all too well that even if he managed to overpower them, they would turn rebellious again when his forces withdrew from their territories. He was however particular about collecting the revenues due from the provinces, for that was the absolutely essential sustenance for his very survival as sultan. Often he had to take military action to enforce revenue collection, and in some extreme cases even had to resort to plundering the fief of the defaulter to collect the dues from him, with the royal soldiers acting like brigands.

  Khizr Khan died in May 1421, after a reign of seven years. His rule was on the whole marked by positive developments, and he left the Sultanate in very much better health than how he found it.

  KHIZR KHAN WAS succeeded to the throne by his son Mubarak Shah, whom he had nominated as his successor just before his death. Sirhindi describes Mubarak as the ‘most excellent and worthy son’ of Khizr Khan, and indeed he proved to be a ruler of energy and spirit. But he too, like most other rulers of the Sultanate, had to deal with several rebellions, the hostility of nobles, as well as with the recurrence of Mongol incursions. And his life ended tragically.

  Mubarak, unlike his father, assumed all the symbols and appurtenances of a sovereign ruler, took the title Shah, and also issued coins in his own name, even though he continued to pay tribute to Shah Rukh, and took care to receive, with the respect and courtesy due from a subordinate ruler to his overlord, the robes of honour sent to him by Shah Rukh. But Mubarak’s posture of independence apparently irked Mongols. And this, according to Ferishta, was the reason for the recurrence of Mongol forays into India, though it is likely that this was only an excuse used by Mongols for launching their usual predatory raids.

  These Mongol raids were however a relatively minor problem for Mubarak, and he was able to deal with them effectively without much difficulty. A far more serious p
roblem for him was the recalcitrance of senior royal officers which, though a perennial problem in the Delhi Sultanate, had become particularly acute after the collapse of the Tughluq dynasty. Mubarak’s solution to the problem was to periodically transfer his top officers from their posts, in order to prevent them from entrenching themselves in their offices. This naturally created considerable resentment among the nobles. Matters came to a head when Mubarak clipped the wings of Sarvar-ul-Mulk, his arrogant and overweening chief minister, by bifurcating his office and assigning its crucial revenue functions to another noble. Sarvar-ul-Mulk avenged his virtual demotion by fomenting a conspiracy to assassinate Mubarak. The opportunity for the plotters came when the sultan went to inspect the progress of the work on the city of Mubarakabad that he had founded. There, while the sultan was preparing for the Friday prayers, a bunch of conspirators ‘rushed in with loud, hellish cries and dispatched that righteous sovereign,’ reports Sirhindi. ‘Mubarak Shah had reigned for thirteen years, three months, and sixteen days.’

  MUBARAK HAD NO son, so he was succeeded by his nephew, Muhammad Shah, who was, according to Sirhindi, ‘a clement and generous sovereign, full of excellent qualities.’ But he was an easygoing ruler, who ‘took no measures to secure his possessions, but gave himself up to indulgence.’ This enabled Sarvar-ul-Mulk to emerge as the de facto sultan. But he could not enjoy the fruits of his regicide for long, for his rise to supreme power was resented by other nobles, especially as he was a Hindu convert to Islam. Presently the royal court was riven into rival cabals, and began to seethe with conspiracies and counter-conspiracies. And, even as Sarvar-ul-Mulk initiated measures to eliminate his rivals, he and his cohorts were slain in a palace uprising.

  But that hardly improved matters in the Sultanate. With the sultan ever dallying in the harem and paying virtually no attention to the affairs of the state, there was now no nucleus around which the political power in the Sultanate could cohere. A group of disaffected nobles then sought the help of Mahmud Shah Khalji, the ruler of Malwa, to oust Muhammad, and Muhammad in turn sought the help of Buhlul Lodi, the governor of Sirhind, to suppress the rebels. The ensuing civil war was inconclusive, but it saved Muhammad’s crown, though the real beneficiary of the conflict was Buhlul Lodi, who, as the saviour of the throne, now emerged as the key player in the unfolding political drama. Although Buhlul returned to Sirhind after the civil war, his eyes were now very much on the throne of Delhi. And in 1443, having substantially extended his territories and acquired some strategic allies, he advanced on Delhi and besieged it. Although he failed to capture the city, on returning to Sirhind he declared himself a sovereign, and took the title Sultan Buhlul.

  Muhammad died in 1445, and was succeeded by his son Ala-ud-din, who, according to Sirhindi, turned out to be even ‘more negligent and incompetent than his father in performing the duties of government.’ Ala-ud-din on his accession assumed the grand title Alam Shah, Lord of the World, which was most ironical, for under him the Sultanate shrank to the size of a petty state, covering just the city of Delhi and its neighbouring villages. As a common satirical jingle of the time had it,

  From Delhi to Palam

  Is the realm of Shah Alam.

  Still Delhi was Delhi, and to rule from there was the ultimate goal of the politically ambitious everywhere in North India. But Alam Shah was not enamoured of the city because of its vicious, churning political environment. So in the third year of his reign he moved his residence from Delhi to Budaun, a charming little town on the banks of Ganga south-east of Delhi. And there he lived in blissful obscurity for thirty years, till his death in 1478, content with the modest revenue of his principality, enjoying the pleasures of life, free of all the cares and tribulations that harry a crowned head. Delhi was left to whoever could seize power there.

  ON THE DEPARTURE of Alam Shah to Budaun, the Sultanate, without a king on the throne, was on the verge of terminal collapse. To prevent that fatality, the nobles of Delhi headed by Hamid Khan, the chief executive of Alam Shah, invited Buhlul Lodi to ascend the throne in Delhi. This, according to Ni’matullah, an early seventeenth century chronicler, was the turn of fortune that Buhlul had been long expecting, for a dervish had several years earlier blessed him with the words, ‘May the empire of Delhi be fortunate to you!’ So, on the invitation of Hamid Khan, Buhlul rushed to Delhi with an army, and there, on 19 April 1451, ‘at the … auspicious time which astrologers … and experienced Brahmins had indicated,’ he ascended the throne. Thus began the 75 year long reign of the Lodi dynasty.

  The Lodis were Afghans, a people of uncertain racial origin, who were mostly engaged in agriculture and horse breeding, and were also highly valued as soldiers, being hardy and valiant. Afghans were divided into various tribes, among whom the Lodi tribe was one of the most prominent. Around the late tenth century a few Lodi families migrated from their homeland to north-western India, and gradually gained prominence there as horse traders and soldiers. They made their first appearance in Indian history in the mid-fourteenth century, when Malik Shahu, an ancestor of the Lodi rulers of India, raided Multan, killed its governor, and held the region under his power for a while. Though he was soon driven off from there by Muhammad Tughluq, the event marked the beginning of the involvement of the Lodis in the turbulent politics of the Delhi Sultanate.

  Later, one of Shahu’s grandsons, Malik Bahram, entered the service of Firuz Shah Tughluq’s governor of Multan. A few years later Bahram’s son Malik Lodi was appointed the governor of Sirhind by Sultan Khizr Khan, as a reward for the crucial help that Malik had given to him during his tussle with Mallu Khan. Malik Lodi was succeeded to the governorship of Sirhind by Buhlul Lodi, his nephew and son-in-law, and he, taking advantage of the debilitation of the Sultanate under the latter Sayyids, functioned as a virtually independent ruler. He was indisputably the most powerful noble in the Sultanate at this time. So it was natural that the nobles of Delhi should invite him to occupy the throne of Delhi left vacant by Alam Shah.

  Buhlul, for all his vaulting ambition, was very cautious in all that he did. Thus he on his accession took care to write to Alam Shah a dissembling, conciliatory letter, stating, according to Sirhindi, that he had acted solely in the interest of the sultan, and that he remained as ever ‘his devoted servant.’ Alam Shah could not possibly have been deceived by that profession, but he did not care. ‘As my father addressed you as his son, I look upon you as my elder brother, and resign kingship to your hands. I shall live in contentment at Budaun.’

  HAMID KHAN, UNDER whose initiative Buhlul was crowned sultan, seems to have viewed Afghans as rustic simpletons, and he expected Buhlul to leave the running of the government in his hands. And Buhlul cannily encouraged these expectations initially, by being always deferential towards him. According to Abdullah, a late medieval chronicler, Buhlul once told Hamid Khan: ‘I am a mere soldier and cannot manage even my own fief. You should be the king, and I will be the commander of your troops, and obey any injunctions you may issue.’ Comments Abdullah: ‘So long as Hamid Khan retained any power, Sultan Buhlul thought it expedient to pay him extreme marks of deference, and he went every day to pay his respects to him.’

  All that was mere pretence. And the pretence did not last long. Soon, after Buhlul became secure on the throne, he had Hamid thrown into prison, but did that with a characteristic show of courtesy. One day in the court Qutb Khan Lodi, Buhlul’s cousin, respectfully placed a chain before Hamid and told him that for political reasons it was necessary to imprison him, but that his life would be spared out of consideration for the many services that he had rendered to the sultan. Nothing more was heard of Hamid Khan thereafter.

  Buhlul’s actions were all characterised by similar deliberation and courtesy. And he was invariably fair in his dealings with his nobles as well as with his subjects, even with his adversaries. And this nobility of his character commanded the respect of all. ‘Sultan Buhlul … evinced courage and generosity. His mercy and benevolence were habitual,’ write
s Abdullah in his long paean on Buhlul. ‘He observed the rules of honesty, and had exceeding respect for the law, to the injunctions of which he strictly adhered in all his undertakings. He spent most of his time in the assemblies of the wise and in the society of holy men, and made special inquiries respecting the poor and necessitous. He never turned away any suppliant … He devoted extreme care to the administration of justice, and himself heard the petitions of his subjects …’

  ‘He was wise, experienced, considerate, kind, friendly … and just,’ continues Abdullah. ‘Whatever came into his possession, in money, goods or new parganas, he distributed it all among his troops, and reserved nothing whatever for himself. He accumulated no treasure, and executed his kingly functions without parade and ostentation … In his social meetings he never sat on a throne, and would not allow his nobles to stand. Even during public audiences he did not occupy the throne, but seated himself upon a carpet … If at any time … [his nobles] were displeased with him, he tried so hard to pacify them that he would himself go to their houses, ungird his sword from his waist, and place it before the offended party; nay, he would sometimes even take off his turban from his head, and solicit forgiveness, saying “If you think me unworthy of the station I occupy, choose someone else, and bestow on me some other office.” He maintained brotherly intercourse with all his chiefs and soldiers. If anyone was ill, he would himself go and attend on him … [But] he was exceedingly bold [in battle] … From the day that he became king, no one achieved a victory over him …’