The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate

by Abraham Eraly

  There was substantial expansion in the territory of the Bahmani Sultanate during Ahmad’s reign, particularly towards the east, through his annexation of Warangal. This eastward expansion prompted the sultan to shift his capital north-eastwards, from Gulbarga to Bidar. The charm of Bidar’s environment and its relatively salubrious climate also attracted the sultan.

  The last years of Ahmad were spent whirling around, engaged in several futile wars, mainly against Gujarat and Malwa, in none of which he was particularly successful, and in some cases he had to accept humiliating terms for peace. At last, in April 1436, when the sultan was around 64 years old, death relieved him of his miseries and frustrations. His son and successor, Ala-ud-din Ahmad, built, over the sultan’s grave in the outskirts of Bidar, a magnificent tomb richly adorned with elegant calligraphic inscriptions.

  THE ACCESSION OF Ala-ud-din to the throne was contested by his brother Muhammad, who demanded that he should be given an equal share in the honours and privileges of the sultan, or, alternately, that the kingdom should be divided between them. Ala-ud-din could not possibly concede those extravagant demands, so the dispute had to be settled in the battlefield. In the ensuing battle the sultan defeated his brother, but generously pardoned him, restored him to favour, and assigned to him the governorship of the critically important Raichur Doab. The brothers lived amicably thereafter.

  The war between Bahmani and Vijayanagar resumed during the reign of Ala-ud-din with the usual savagery. Typical of the brutality of these conflicts was the warning that, according to Ferishta, Ala-ud-din once issued to Devaraya II, the king of Vijayanagar, that if the raja executed the two Muslim officers whom he had captured in a battle, he (the raja) would have to pay a heavy price for it, ‘as it was a rule of the princes of his family to slay a 100,000 Hindus in revenge for the death of a single Muslim.’

  Ala-ud-din’s character was a curious mixture benevolence and tyranny, and he was cavalier and mercurial in his policies and actions. Equally, he was indifferent in observing the routine formalities expected of a sultan; he even relegated the public audience—which royal custom required him to hold every day—to just once in four or five months. And he spent a good amount of his time in the harem, where he had collected some thousand women.

  Ala-ud-din preened himself as a just ruler, and he took the title Al-adil: The Just. Yet he allowed himself to be manipulated, perhaps while in an inebriated state, by a group of Deccani nobles to cause the murder of several foreign nobles, of whose growing prominence the Deccani nobles were envious. Characteristically the sultan then swung around in contrition and summarily executed the leaders of the Deccani party.

  There were various other similar oddities in the reign of Ala-ud-din. For instance, he had to his credit the building of a large hospital in his capital where free treatment and medicines, even free food, were provided to poor patients. At the same time he was, according to Ferishta, very harsh in his treatment of vagrants, whom he punished ‘by employing them in removing filth from the streets, in dragging heavy stones, and in performing all manner of laborious work, in order that they might reform, and either earn their livelihood by industry, or quit the country altogether.’ Similarly, though Ala-ud-din presented to the public a sternly orthodox Muslim persona, his private life did not quite match that image. He drank wine himself, but severely punished others for drinking. ‘If any person, after admonition and moderate correction, was convicted of drinking wine, it was decreed that molten lead should be poured down his throat, whatever might be the rank of the offender,’ records Ferishta.

  For some mysterious reason Ala-ud-din was always reluctant to hold durbar, and he finally had an excuse for dispensing with it altogether. This was related to his execution of a number of foreigners in his service. Some of these officers were Sayyids, the presumed descendants of prophet Muhammad, and their execution greatly scandalised many. And one day an Arab trader, hearing that the sultan had taken the title Al-adil, shouted at him in the open court: ‘No, by god! Thou art not just, generous, clement, or compassionate, O tyrant and liar! Thou hast slain the pure seed of the prophet!’ The sultan is said to have wept in humiliation at the charge, and retired to his private chambers, never again to emerge from there.

  ALA-UD-DIN DIED IN 1458, and was succeeded by his eldest son Humayun, who turned out to be a vicious, sadistic monster. There were several rebellions during his brief reign of three years, but they were all suppressed by him with revolting brutality. The first of these rebellions was by Hasan Khan, one of Humayun’s brothers, who escaped from the prison where he was confined, and attempted to take over Bidar, the capital, when Humayun was away on a campaign. The kotwal (chief police officer of the city) repulsed the attack, but Hasan managed to escape. Meanwhile Humayun stormed back into the capital, where he vented his wrath on the kotwal, for allowing Hasan to escape. The officer was locked up in an iron cage in public view, and there bits of his flesh were cut off every day and offered to him to eat as the only food he could have during the few days he lived under the torture.

  Meanwhile Hasan was captured and brought to Bidar, where he, along with his family members, dependants and followers were put to death in various barbarous ways. ‘Humayun Shah, now abandoning himself to the full indulgence of his cruel propensities, and mad with rage, directed stakes to be set up on both sides of the king’s chowk (square), and caused vicious elephants and wild beasts to be placed in different parts of the square,’ writes Ferishta. ‘In other places cauldrons of scalding oil and boiling water were also prepared as instruments of torture. The king, ascending a balcony in order to glut his eyes on the spectacle, first cast his brother, Hasan Khan, before a ferocious tiger, which soon tore the wretched prince to pieces and devoured him on the spot … [Several of Hasan’s] associates were then beheaded in the king’s presence, and the women of their families, innocent and helpless, were dragged from their houses and were violated and ill-treated in the palace square by ruffians, in a manner too indecent to relate … About seven thousand persons, including women and servants, none of whom had even the most remote involvement in this rebellion, besides menials, such as cooks, scullions, and others, were put to death, some being stabbed with dagger, others hewn in pieces with hatchets, and the rest flayed by [pouring on them] scalding oil or boiling water.’

  ‘From this moment Humayun threw off all restraint, and seized at will the children of his subjects, tearing them from their parents to gratify his passions,’ continues Ferishta. ‘He would frequently stop nuptial processions in the street and seize the bride, and then send her to the groom’s house after enjoying her. He was in the habit of putting the females of his own house to death for the most trivial offences. When any of the nobles were obliged to attend him, so great was their dread that they took leave of their families, as if preparing for death.’ Fittingly, he himself was stabbed to death by one of his African maidservants when he was in a drunken stupor.

  The only commendable act of Humayun was his appointment of Mahmud Gawan as his chief minister. Gawan, an Iranian migrant of exceptional ability and prudence, had arrived in Deccan during Ala-ud-din’s reign, and he would serve the Sultanate most creditably in top administrative and military positions for well over three decades, through the reigns of four sultans, exerting a mature, stabilising influence on the turbulent politics of the Bahmani kingdom.

  HUMAYUN WAS SUCCEEDED by his son Nizam Shah, a boy just eight years old. The accession of the boy king was seen by some of Bahmani’s neighbours—Orissa, Warangal and Malwa—as an opportunity for making inroads into its territory, but they were all easily repulsed by the Bahmani army. Nizam had the advantage of being under the tutelage of his sagacious and resourceful mother, who, along with Mahmud Gawan as the chief minister of the state, efficiently managed the affairs of the state at this time.

  Nizam unexpectedly died after a reign of just two years—he died on the very day of his marriage. He was then succeeded by his nine-year-old younger brother, Muhammad Shah I
II, who ruled the kingdom for nearly two decades. During almost his entire reign Muhammad had the benefit of having Gawan as his chief minister, who introduced several essential administrative reforms in the state, and also considerably expanded its territory through effective military action against its neighbours. Unfortunately, the very success of Gawan damned him in the eyes of his envious rivals in the government, and they instigated the sultan to execute him by levelling a false charge of treason against him.

  The tragedy was the culmination of the long-festering strife between Deccani and Paradesi (foreign) officers of the kingdom, involving professional rivalry compounded by racial and sectarian hostility. This rivalry had a long history going back to the time well before the arrival of Gawan in the kingdom, and it would persist long after his death. Bahmani sultans generally tended to favour foreigners—Turks, Arabs, Mughals, and Persians—for appointment in top administrative and military positions, because they were generally more cultured and efficient than Deccanis, who were rather crude, and were often unlettered. Typically, Ala-ud-din Ahmad, the mid-fifteenth century sultan of the kingdom, had a large number of foreigners in his service, and they were assigned the place of honour in the court, on the right side of the throne, while the native officers were kept on the left side. The antagonism between the two groups was also fuelled by their sectarian differences—while most of the foreigners were Shias, Deccanis were predominantly Sunnis. The Deccani faction also had the support of Abyssinians in the royal service.

  The rivalry between the two groups often led to riots. Once, during the reign of Nizam Shah, ‘the Deccani troops, the Abyssinians, and the mob, entered the fort and put to death every foreigner they found within, amounting to nearly 300, among whom were several persons of high rank and eminent character,’ reports Ferishta. Later, during the reign of Mahmud, Muhammad III’s successor, there was a 20 day long riot in Bidar between Deccanis and Paradesis. And on a subsequent occasion, the foreigner group set about, with the Sultan’s connivance, slaughtering the Deccanis for three whole days.

  Gawan was a victim of this long-festering tussle for power between Paradesis and Deccanis, although he personally remained fair and neutral in this conflict, and occupied himself solely with the task of running the government efficiently. But his very success rankled Deccanis, who saw him as an obstacle to their rise to the top echelons of the government. Moreover, the administrative reforms that Gawan introduced, though they improved the efficiency of the government, curtailed the powers of the provincial chiefs, who were mostly Deccanis. They then forged a letter to implicate Gawan in a conspiracy against the sultan, and showed it to him. And the sultan—who himself was probably squirming under Gawan’s dominance—immediately, without any proper enquiry, summoned Gawan to him, and peremptorily asked him what the proper punishment for a traitor was. To this Gawan replied: ‘Death by the sword.’ The sultan then flung the forged letter at Gawan. On reading it, Gawan said: ‘This is manifest forgery. The seal is mine, but not the writing.’ But the sultan, angrily disregarding this protest, peremptorily ordered him to be executed right away. Gawan then knelt down and recited a short prayer, and, as the sword fell, he exclaimed: ‘Praise be to god for the blessing of martyrdom!”

  This was in April 1481. Gawan was then 78 years old, and probably did not have very many more years to live, so he could die without regrets. But his execution portended ill for the Sultanate, for several of the foreign nobles, who were the strongest pillars of the state, then left for their provinces, and so did several of the conscientious Deccani nobles, and this presaged the disintegration of the Sultanate. Muhammad himself presently realised the dreadfulness of what he had done, and, overcome with grief and remorse, soon drank himself to death, screaming in his dying moment that Gawan was rending his heart.

  MUHAMMAD DIED IN March 1482, aged just 28. After him, five of his descendants followed him on the throne of Bidar, but they were kings only in name, being mere puppets in the hands of domineering nobles. Besides, the Sultanate during this period gradually broke up into four independent kingdoms: Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Berar and Golconda. The rulers of these kingdoms continued to profess allegiance to the Sultan in Bidar, but that was only a formality, and involved no real subservience. And though the sultan continued to sit on the throne, he had virtually no power at all even in Bidar, the royal capital. The last of these titular sultans was Kalimullah, and when he died in 1528, Bidar lost even its nominal overlordship, and it became just another kingdom, like the other four kingdoms into which the Bahmani state had split.

  This splintering of the Sultanate multiplied by several times the points of friction and conflict in the peninsula, and the scene became quite chaotic, as endless wars now raged between these splinter kingdoms, as well as between them and the other peninsular kingdoms, all confusedly slithering over each other in ever-shifting alliances and hostilities, like a bunch of rat-snakes in a snake-pit. Religion played hardly any role in this—Muslim kingdoms often allied with Vijayanagar against fellow Muslim kingdoms; and sometimes Vijayanagar factions sought the help of Muslim kingdoms in their internal conflicts.

  There was however one decisive battle in this seemingly never-ending melee, when four of the successor states of the fragmented Bahmani Sultanate—Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Berar—united to give a virtual deathblow to Vijayanagar in a battle fought at Talikota in January 1565. 1 But after the Talikota battle, the Muslim states once again turned snarling on each other. And so it went on for several more decades, till the seventeenth century, when the Mughals, who had been pushing into the peninsula for some years, finally obliterated most of the kingdoms in the region.

  Such is the story of the Bahmani Sultanate. It is not an edifying tale. However, the Deccan sultanates did make some noteworthy contributions in the field of culture, by blending Indian and Persian streams in art and architecture, and by giving a strong local flavour to their rule. For instance, Ali Adil Shah, the late-sixteenth-century sultan of Bijapur, integrated his rule with the life of the local people by patronising Telugu culture, and by giving land grants to Brahmins and Hindu temples, and by not enforcing the collection of jizya. He was also an ardent patron of learning, who maintained a large library of books on various subjects, and was so avid about books that he carried several of them with him in boxes even when he travelled.

  In administration the Deccan sultanates followed the usual pattern of Muslim states, the only notable developments being the reforms introduced by Gawan. Even these were not radical reforms, but meant only to tighten the prevailing system, so as to curb the power of provincial governors who often functioned as virtual potentates. Gawan divided the existing four provinces of the Bahmani Sultanate into eight provinces so as to reduce the area under the rule of each governor, and to make the administration of the provinces more manageable. He also placed some districts in the provinces directly under central administration, which collected for itself the revenue from them. Further, Gawan sought to curtail the military power of the governors by allowing them to occupy only one fort in their territory, the other forts being kept under the direct control of the sultan. And the royal officers who were given land assignments as pay were made accountable to the sultan for their income and expenditure.

  AN EVENT OF critical historical importance of this age was the arrival of European naval fleets in the Indian seas. A Portuguese fleet under the command of Vasco-da-Gama arrived at the Kerala port city of Calicut (Kozhikode) in 1498, nearly three decades before the invasion of India by Mughals under Babur. Then gradually, over the next few decades, the Portuguese entrenched themselves in a few enclaves on the coast of peninsular India. Their main interest was in overseas trade, and this brought them into conflict with Arabs, who had till then dominated the Arabian Sea trade. In a series of naval campaigns in the early sixteenth century, the Portuguese broke the Arab sea power, and that enabled them to virtually monopolise the sea trade around India.

  This development made it imperative for the
peninsular kingdoms to maintain good relationship with the Portuguese, to ensure that the critically important overseas supply of horses from the Middle East and Central Asia for their armies was not disrupted. And this in turn enabled the Portuguese to play a role, though only a minor role, in local political affairs. They also did some missionary work at this time, converting a number of local Hindu families to Christianity, and even inducing some families of the ancient Syrian Christian community of Kerala to shift their affiliation from the Syrian Orthodox Church to the Roman Catholic Church, which the Portuguese claimed was the only true Christian church.

  None of this particularly bothered Indian kings. But when the Portuguese intruded into the Vijayanagar kingdom and took to temple looting, it became imperative for Ramaraya, the king of Vijayanagar, to chastise them. He then launched a dual attack on their settlements, in Goa (on the west coast) and in San Thome (on the east coast), plundering the residents there and exacting punitive tribute. That apparently taught the Portuguese a lesson, for they desisted from giving any more trouble to the raja. The Portuguese in any case had no future in India. Though they dominated the Indian seas for about a century, they made no notable territorial gains in the subcontinent, and in the late sixteenth century, as the Portuguese power declined in Europe, so did their politico-economic role everywhere in the world, including India.

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  The City of Victory

  The entire medieval history of India, stretching over a period of about thousand years, from the eighth to the eighteenth century, was dominated by Muslim invaders and rulers. During this period there were only two Hindu kingdoms of subcontinental prominence, that of Vijayanagar and of Marathas. No one would have foreseen this destiny for either of these kingdoms at the beginning of their history, for they were both then obscure mountain kingdoms. This was particularly so in the case of Vijayanagar, which within just a few decades of its founding rose to become one of the two dominant kingdoms of peninsular India, rivalling the Bahmani Sultanate, the other dominant peninsular kingdom.