The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate

by Abraham Eraly

  About 600 kilometres to the north of Vijayanagar, in Maharashtra, is Daulatabad, a fort unlike any other in the world. Originally built by Yadavas around the turn of the twelfth century, the fort was captured by Ala-ud-din Khalji towards the close of the thirteenth century. In 1327 Muhammad Tughluq shifted his capital from Delhi to it for a while, partly because of his resentment towards the truculent people of Delhi, but mainly because of the surpassing strength of the Daulatabad fort, which stands on a conical hill some 200 metres high. Daulatabad, writes Battuta, is an ‘enormous city which rivals Delhi … in importance and in the spaciousness of its planning … [Its fortress] is on a rock situated in a plain; the rock has been excavated and a castle built on its summit.’

  The most detailed medieval description of the fort is given by Abdul-Hamid Lahauri, the official chronicler of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. ‘This fortress … is on a mass of rock which raises its head towards heaven,’ he writes. The sides of the hill at the bottom were chiselled away all around to form a sheer vertical barrier of about fifty metres high from the ground. And the barrier in turn was scraped smooth and even so that, according to Lahauri, ‘not even an ant or a snake could crawl up the slippery surface.’ For additional defence, the barrier was girded at its base by a broad and deep moat—‘40 cubits broad and 30 cubits deep’—hewn into solid rock. Further, the citadel, which was at the top of the hill, was itself girded by three concentric defensive walls, with bastions on them.

  The only access to the citadel was through an iron gate at the base of the hill, which opened into a tortuous, zigzag cave passage hewn into the interior of the rock. ‘This passage,’ notes Lahauri, ‘is so dark that even on the brightest day you could not grope your way through it without lamps and torches … In order to obstruct this passage in case of emergency they have constructed some iron plates to close it up, which they can heat up with fire and thus render it utterly impossible for any living creature to pass through. From the middle to the crest of the hill, by way of additional security, strong forts have been erected of stone and quicklime.’

  All this made Daulatabad entirely impregnable. ‘Thus the usual means for the reduction of forts—such as mines, covered galleries, and batteries—are all utterly useless in besieging such an impregnable fortress as this,’ concludes Lahauri. ‘In fact, its capture is impossible except through the agency of accidental or miraculous means; hence drought, famine and pestilence became the instruments of its final overthrow.’

  THERE ARE A FEW brief descriptions of several other Indian cities in medieval chronicles. One such city is Gwalior, which Hasan Nizami, a contemporary of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, describes as ‘the pearl on the necklace of the castles of Hind.’ Adds Battuta: ‘The fort of Gwalior … is situated on the top of a high mountain, and appears … to be cut out of the rock itself … There are subterranean cisterns in it, and it contains also about twenty bricked wells … Near the gate of the fort there is the figure of an elephant with its mahout, carved in stone, which when seen from a distance seems to be a real elephant. At the base of the fortress there is a fine town, built entirely of white hewn stone, mosques and houses alike. No wood is used except for the doors.’

  Urban centres had generally become derelict in India in the late classical period, because of economic decline and the slide of India into the Dark Ages. Though there was some revival of urbanisation during the sultanate period, most of the towns in India were still in a dilapidated state at this time. This was the condition of many villages also, as Battuta in the fourteenth century found. Most medieval Indian villages were secluded settlements, surrounded by thickets or forests, which covered most regions of the subcontinent at this time. Battuta, for instance, found that the Tamil country ‘was an uninterrupted and impassable jungle of trees and reeds.’

  Villages in early medieval India were just clusters of huts, with fields and pastures alongside them. They were often temporary habitations, as the population kept shifting periodically, abandoning old villages and setting up new ones, seeking fresh lands for cultivation. ‘In Hindustan hamlets and villages, even towns, are depopulated and set up in a moment,’ noted Mughal emperor Babur in the early sixteenth century. ‘If the people of a large town, one inhabited for years even, flee from it, they do it in such a way that not a sign or trace of them remains in a day, or a day and a half.’

  The village scene in medieval India varied considerably from region to region, India being a vast and diverse country. In most parts of India villagers led an isolated, self-sufficient life in medieval times, needing hardly anything from outside the village to meet their meagre requirements. It was only the temple fairs in the neighbouring towns once a year or so that brought villagers out of their seclusion. But there were also regions in India where villages were contiguous, and villagers had a broad social life. ‘The country is but small, yet it is so full of people, that it may well be called one town,’ says Barbosa about Kerala.

  TRAVEL FACILITIES, LIKE everything else in medieval India, varied considerably from region to region. The best roads in India at this time were in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the east-west and the north-south arterial roads passing thorough Delhi. It was a laudable traditional practice of kings and chieftains in premedieval India to plant shade trees and fruit trees along roads, and this practice was continued by medieval rulers. Thus Battuta found that the nearly 1000 kilometre long road between Delhi and Daulatabad was all along the way ‘bordered with trees, such as the willow and others, so the traveller might think himself in a garden.’ Similar was the observation of the anonymous author of Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh some three centuries later: ‘On all roads shady and fruit trees are planted on both sides. Wells and tanks are dug which contain fresh and sweet water in abundance. The passengers go along the roads under the shadow of the trees, amusing themselves, eating the fruits and drinking cold water, as if they are taking a walk along the beds of a garden.’ And in faraway Kerala, Battuta found that the roads there ‘run through orchards.’

  Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh further states that ‘on all public roads and streets strong bridges are made over every river and rill, and embankments are also are raised.’ This clearly is an exaggeration. Bridges across rivers were rare in medieval India—rivers were usually crossed by boats, or waded across during the dry season. Paes found that in Vijayanagar people crossed rivers ‘by boats which are round like baskets; inside they are made of cane, and outside are covered with leather. They are able to carry fifteen or twenty persons. Even horses and oxen cross in them if necessary, but for the most part these animals swim across. Men row the boats with a sort of paddle, and the boats are always turning round, as they cannot go straight like others. In all the kingdom … there are no other boats but these.’

  There was a fair amount of long-distance river traffic in medieval India, particularly down the Ganga-Yamuna river system. But road travel was easier and faster, and had greater facilities. Pillars with travel directions were erected on all important roads. ‘All along the road [from Delhi to central India] … there are pillars, on which is engraved the number of miles from each pillar to the next,’ reports Battuta. ‘Lofty minarets are made at the distance of each kos to indicate the road,’ states Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh. There were even public transport facilities in some places. According to Afif, a courtier chronicler of Firuz Tughluq, there was in his time very heavy traffic between Delhi and Firuzabad, and ‘to accommodate this great traffic, there were public carriers who kept carriages, mules and horses, which were ready for hire at a settled rate every morning … Palanquin-bearers were also ready to convey passengers. The fare of a carriage was four silver jitals for each person; for a mule, six; for a horse, twelve; and for a palanquin, half a tanka. There were also plenty of porters ready for employment by anyone, and they earned a good livelihood.’

  There were also rest houses along the main roads. ‘At every two parasangs inns are built of strong masonry for travellers to dwell in and take rest,’ states Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh. ‘
Every kind of food and drink, all sorts of medicines, and all kinds of necessary instruments and utensils can be obtained at each inn.’ This is also reported by Battuta: ‘At each of these stations the traveller finds all that he needs, as if his … journey lay through a market.’ According to the mid-fifteenth century Russian traveller Nikitin, ‘In the land of India it is the custom of foreign traders to stop at inns; there the food is cooked for the guests by the landlady, who also makes the bed and sleeps with the stranger. Women that know you willingly concede their favours, for they like white men.’

  Similar facilities were available even in the peripheral regions of India. ‘The road over the whole distance runs beneath the shade of trees, and at every half-mile there is a wooden shed with benches on which all travellers, whether Muslims or infidels, may sit,’ reports Battuta about his experience in Kerala. ‘At each shed there is a well for drinking water and an infidel in charge of it. If the traveller is an infidel he gives him water in vessels; if he is a Muslim he pours the water into his hands, continuing to do so until he signs to him to stop … At all the halting places on this road there are houses belonging to Muslims, at which Muslim travellers alight, and where they buy all that they need.’

  In North India there were, in medieval times, several deep and elaborately constructed step-wells along the main roads, which had pavilions attached to them, providing resting places for travellers. ‘Kings and nobles of the country vie with one another in constructing them along the highroads where there is no water,’ notes Battuta.

  THESE FACILITIES WERE however available only on just a few major roads. Travel in medieval India was usually quite hazardous, especially in the sparsely populated regions, because of the menace of highwaymen and the lack of proper roads there. Even the environs of major cities, including Delhi, were not always secure, as brigands openly rampaged through the land at the slightest sign of weakness in government. And trans-regional travellers often had to pass through dense forests, which were particularly dangerous places, as they were infested with bandits and wild tribes, apart from wild animals.

  Travel security varied greatly from region to region in India. Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh is clearly utopianising medieval India when it states that ‘merchants and tradesmen and all travellers, without any fear of thieves and robbers, take their goods and loads safe to distant destinations.’ Battuta also at times indulged in similar fantasies. ‘I have never seen a safer road than this,’ he writes about his experience in Kerala, ‘for they put to death anyone who steals a single nut, and if any fruit falls no one picks it up but the owner.’

  Several regions of India in medieval times were entirely trackless, and sometimes even sultans lost their way there, as it once happened to Firuz Tughluq while returning to Delhi from Orissa. And nearly everywhere in India monkeys were a major nuisance to travellers, even to armies. ‘Several times when I encamped in these mountains great numbers of monkeys came into the camp from the jungles and woods, both night and day, and laid their claws upon whatever they could find to eat, and carried it off … At night they stole little articles and curiosities,’ writes Timur about his experience in India. Because of all these diverse perils people usually travelled in large groups, and whenever possible they accompanied trade caravans, which had armed guards.

  Indian summer was yet another hazard that travellers had to cope with. ‘The heat was so intense that my companions used to sit naked except for a cloth around the waist and another cloth soaked with water on their shoulders; this dried up in a very short time, so they had to keep wetting it constantly,’ writes Battuta about his experience in Sind. Summer was particularly brutal in 1505, the year in which a devastating earthquake struck Agra. That year, recounts Ni’matullah, ‘the heat of the air became so intense that almost all people fell grievously sick of fevers.’

  As in everything else in medieval India, the mode of travel also varied from region to region. In peninsular India, according to Nikitin, people did not travel on horses, but used ‘oxen and buffaloes … for riding, conveying goods, and every other purpose.’ And in Kerala ‘no one travels on an animal … and only the sultan possesses horses,’ states Battuta. ‘The principal vehicle of the inhabitants is a palanquin carried on the shoulders of slaves or hired porters; those who do not travel on palanquins go on foot, be they who they may. Baggage and merchandise is transported by hired carriers, and a single merchant may have a hundred such or thereabouts carrying his goods.’

  Because of these diverse modes of travel and transport, and the general difficulties of the roads, the pace of travel was very slow in medieval India. Thus, according to Battuta, it took forty days to cover the 1000 kilometres between Delhi and Daulatabad, even though the highway between these two cities was one of the best in India. Travel was considerably slower in the peninsula, because there were hardly any roads there. ‘The country of Ma’bar (the Tamil country), which is so distant from the city of Delhi that a man travelling with all expedition could reach it only after a journey of twelve months,’ states Amir Khusrav, medieval Indian poet-chronicler.

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  Polymorphic Society

  Over the millennia, from the Old Stone Age, or perhaps from an even earlier period, to well into late medieval times, many diverse races had debouched into India, as migrants or invaders, through the defiles in the Hindu Kush mountains on the north-west border of the subcontinent. These mountain passes were among the most active trans-continental migration routes of races in the premodern world. And nearly all the diverse people who entered India through these passes made India their homeland. The many different races in the subcontinent today are all migrants. None are natives.

  The invasions of Turko-Afghans and Mughals into India in medieval times were the last of the major people movements into India, and they radically altered the socio-cultural profile of the country. Though India would later, in early modern times, come under the dominance of yet another foreign power, the British, that involved no notable alteration in the population profile of India, as there was hardly any migration of Englishmen into India. In contrast to this, both the Turko-Afghan and the Mughal invasions of India resulted in radical changes in the racial makeup of India, as those invasions led to large-scale migrations into India by Central Asian and the Middle Eastern Muslims, who saw India as a land of opportunity, and were drawn to it by the prospect of gaining wealth and power. Further, India was for many of them a safe haven into which to escape from the racial and political turmoil in their homeland.

  The consequences of the invasion of India by Turko-Afghans were fundamentally different from those of all previous invaders—while all the people who previously entered India had eventually blended smoothly and indistinguishably into Indian society by adopting Indian religion, social customs, cultural values, and even local languages, this did not happen in the case of Turko-Afghans, because in all these matters the culture of Indians was totally antithetical to that of Turks.

  Unlike polytheistic Hinduism, which could absorb into it any number of new deities, beliefs and practices, and had a society divided into numerous hereditary, hierarchal and exclusive castes, each of which had its specific profession, Islam was a monotheistic religion which, though it had some sectarian divisions in it, was essentially a cohesive religion with only one god and one basic set of beliefs and practices. And its society was egalitarian, without any birth determined, caste-like social divisions in it, so anyone from any racial, social or family background could take up any vocation in it, aspire to occupy any office, and gain any social status.

  These socio-religious differences led to a sharp divergence in the attitudes of Muslims and Hindus towards each other. The Hindu attitude towards Muslims was similar to the tolerant-intolerant attitude of Hindu castes towards each other. Hindus had no objection to Muslims keeping to their beliefs and practices, just as they had no objection to the different castes and sects of Hindus keeping to their particular beliefs and practices. But they would not tolerate the inter
mixing of the two communities, just as they would not tolerate the intermixing of different castes. Similarly, though Hindus normally had no objection to serve under a Muslim employer, they would avoid all social interaction with him. Typical of this was the experience of Battuta in Kerala, about which he writes: ‘It is the custom of the infidels in the Mulaybar lands that no Muslim may enter their houses or eat from their vessels.’ For Hindus, particularly for high caste Hindus, Muslims were untouchables. Muslims had no such apartheidal prejudices. They did treat Hindus as second class citizens, but this was not an irreversible birth-determined status division, as in Hindu society, for even Hindus of the lowest of the low outcastes were, on being converted into Islam, treated as equals to everyone else in that society, and the personal status of an individual depended solely on his abilities and achievements, not on his birth. So a person who was on the bottom rung of Hindu society could rise to the highest rung of Muslim society.

  BECAUSE OF THIS antithetical character of Hinduism and Islam, there was very little socio-cultural interaction or mutual influence between the two communities, despite their several centuries long coexistence in India. In fact Muslims and Hindus mostly lived physically separated from each other—while most Muslims lived in towns (serving the government as soldiers and civil servants, or engaged in various occupations, as artisans, merchants, and so on) the vast majority of Hindus lived in villages (mostly as farmers and farm-labourers). And even in towns, where the two communities coexisted, they lived in different wards of towns, as an extension of the traditional Hindu practice of different castes living in different parts of towns and villages.