As Muhammad Tughluq lay terminally ill, the anxiety about what the future portended for the Delhi Sultanate and all those associated with it swept through the imperial army. ‘They were a thousand kos distant from Delhi and their wives and children, and were near the enemy and in a wilderness and desert,’ reports Barani. ‘So they were sorely distressed and, looking upon the sultan’s expected death as preliminary to their own death, they quite despaired of returning home.’
Presently, as expected, the sultan died. And that left the army without a commander—and the empire without a ruler. So the entire Sultanate camp, which included a good number of women and children, swirled into utter chaos as it set out to return to Delhi. ‘Every division of the army marched in the greatest disorder, without leader, rule, or route,’ states Barani. ‘No one heeded or listened to what anyone said . . . When they had proceeded a kos or two, Mongols, eager for booty, assailed them in front, and the rebels of Tattah attacked them in the rear. Cries of dismay arose on every side. Mongols fell to plundering, and carried off women, maids, horses, camels, troopers, baggage, and whatever else had been sent on in advance. They very nearly captured even the royal harem and treasure . . . Then the villagers who had been pressed into the service of the army . . . took to flight. They pillaged various lots of baggage on the right and left of the army, and then joined the rebels of Tattah in attacking the baggage train. . . . [All this plunged the army into a whirl, for] if they advanced in front they were assailed by Mongols; if they lagged behind, they were plundered by the rebels of Tattah . . . Every man was in despair for his life and goods, his wife and children.’
These troubles went on for a few days. Then, according to Barani, the top officers in the Sultanate camp gathered together and, ‘after a long and anxious deliberation,’ decided to offer the crown to Firuz Shah, a first-cousin of Muhammad, and they went to him and ‘with one voice said, “Thou art the heir apparent and legatee of the late sultan; he had no son . . . There is no one else . . . who enjoys the confidence of the people or has the ability to reign. For god’s sake save these wretched people; ascend the throne and deliver us.”’ Firuz, apparently in a show of becoming modesty, expressed reluctance to accept the responsibility, and said that he was planning to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca at that time. But ‘all ranks, young and old, Muslims and Hindus, horse and foot, women and children, assembled, and with one acclaim declared that Firuz Shah alone was worthy of the crown.’
Then, according to Afif, the chief chronicler of Firuz’s reign, Tatar Khan, a top noble, ‘stood up, and taking the arm of Firuz Shah, forced him to sit on the throne . . . as heralds and attendants shouted in loud acclaim, and drums were beaten in exultation . . .’
This was on 23 March 1351, three days after the death of Muhammad. Firuz, 46 years old then, was the closest surviving male relative of Muhammad—who had no sons, but only two daughters—and therefore had a very strong claim for the throne. He had always been close to Muhammad, and had been at times appointed (along with a couple of other senior officers) by the sultan as his regent in Delhi when he went on military campaigns. And there was a general belief that Muhammad had intended Firuz to succeed him; indeed, according to Ferishta, Muhammad ‘proposed making him (Firuz) his successor, and accordingly recommended him as such on his deathbed to his nobles.’
Firuz’s accession was however challenged by Muhammad’s sister, Khudavand-zada, on the ground that her son, as Muhammad’s nephew, had the greater claim to the throne. This claim was however rejected by the nobles on the ground that the prince was too young to rule in those troubled times.1
Another problem that Firuz faced on his accession was that when the news of Muhammad’s death reached Delhi, Khvaja Jahan—a long time close associate of Muhammad, and whom he had apparently left in Delhi as his regent when he set out for Gujarat—raised to the throne a child who he claimed was Muhammad’s son. According to Afif, Khvaja did this with good intentions, ‘for public welfare and the safety of the country,’ to prevent the empire from disintegrating into anarchy without a sultan, for he had been told that Firuz was missing or dead. Khvaja was well over eighty years old then, and was presumably not motivated by any personal ambition in his action. Besides, he had excellent rapport with Firuz, and had always treated him like a son. He therefore had no hesitation to submit to Firuz as he approached Delhi. And Firuz in turn received him graciously, and was inclined to pardon him and retain him as the vizier. But his advisers, no doubt motivated by their own ambitions, objected to this on the ground that Khvaja’s offence was too serious to be pardoned. Firuz then left the matter to be decided by the nobles, and they had the old man executed.
FIRUZ’S FATHER, SIPAH-SALAR Rajab, was the younger brother of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq, and they together had migrated to India from Khurasan during the reign of Ala-ud-din Khalji. In India Rajab married a Jat princess, a beautiful and spirited daughter of Rana Mall Bhatti of Dipalpur in Punjab. Firuz was their only child.
Rajab died when Firuz was seven, so the boy was brought up by Ghiyasud-din. And when Ghiyas-ud-din ascended the throne of Delhi, Firuz, who was then fourteen, was given a role in government, as an aid to the sultan, a post that enabled him to gain wide experience in governance. Four years later, when Muhammad ascended the throne, Firuz was appointed as deputy of the Lord Chamberlain, and was given the command of a 12,000-strong cavalry force. ‘The sultan was exceedingly kind and generous to him, and keeping him constantly near his person he used to explain to him, with much intelligence, all the affairs of the state that came up for consideration,’ states Afif. Later Muhammad put Firuz in charge of one of the four divisions of the Sultanate, ‘so that he might acquire experience in the art of government . . . [and] become an adept in all political matters . . . [The sultan] used to keep Firuz Shah continually at work in various matters . . . to train him so that he might become thoroughly versed in the duties of royalty.’
Firuz on his accession was thus well-equipped to assume royal responsibilities. As sultan, his first task was to restore order in the army, but this was accomplished without any special effort on his part, as the mere fact that there was now a sultan on the throne immediately calmed the army and restored its discipline. Mongols and the Sind rebels were then driven away, and the army resumed its journey to Delhi in fair order. On the way the sultan received the news that Taghi, the rebel who had sorely tried Muhammad in his last days, was dead. The news was considered an auspicious portent for the success of the reign of Firuz.
As Firuz proceeded to Delhi, his followers swelled in number, and when he neared the capital, most of the chiefs there came out to greet him. On 25 August 1351 Firuz entered the capital in a triumphant procession, when ‘drums of joy were beaten, and the citizens decked themselves out in their jewels and best clothes,’ reports Afif. ‘Pavilions were erected and decorated . . . and for twenty-one days a continual festival was maintained.’
In every respect the reign of Firuz was unlike the reign of Muhammad; the contrast between them was like that of between a pitch-dark, cyclonic night and a calm and clear dawn. Though Muhammad and Firuz were close to each other, they were entirely unlike each other in character, temperament and policies—Muhammad was an egomaniac, flighty and unpredictable, ever pursuing some chimerical scheme or other; in contrast, Firuz was a stable, dependable ruler, with a good sense of what was viable and necessary. While Muhammad wanted the world to adjust to him, Firuz adjusted himself to the world. And, more than anything else, Firuz was concerned with the stability of the empire and the welfare of its people, rather than with self-fulfilment. He was the right person in the right place at the right time.
‘Sultan Firuz was a very cautious man,’ states Afif. He was also very pious. ‘Whenever he was about to make a journey for a month or two, he used to visit the shrines of holy men and famous kings, to invoke their aid and to cast himself on their protection, not trusting his own power and greatness . . . The sultan never transacted any business without referring to the Koran for an augury.’ But despite being a devout Muslim, Firuz had a weakness was for wine, in which he indulged secretly. Also, he was a sensualist, and was particularly addicted to sexual pleasures. His harem, according to Afif, was periodically restocked with the ‘beautiful slaves, dressed and ornamented in the most splendid style,’ presented to him by his provincial officers. He was also passionate about hunting, like most Delhi sultans.
IN MANY RESPECTS Firuz was a model ruler, esteemed alike by his officers and his subjects. The main task of Firuz on his accession was to rebuild the foundations of the empire, which had crumbled during the calamitous reign of Muhammad. This task involved, above all, restoring the mutual trust between the ruler and the ruled. Firuz therefore first of all sought the forgiveness of the people—and of god—for the misdeeds of Muhammad. The heirs of those who had been wantonly killed or mutilated on the orders of Muhammad were ‘appeased with gifts, so that they executed deeds declaring their satisfaction, duly attested by witnesses,’ states Firuz in his autobiography, Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi. ‘These deeds were put in a chest, which was placed . . . at the head of the tomb of the late sultan, in the hope that god in his great clemency would show mercy to my late friend and patron.’ Similarly, Firuz ordered that the properties which former sultans had unfairly confiscated from people should be restored to their owners. ‘Villages, lands, and ancient patrimonies of every kind had been wrested from the hands of their owners in former reigns, and had been brought under the exchequer. I directed that everyone who had a claim to property should bring it forward in the law court, and, upon establishing his title . . . the property . . . should be restored to him.’
He would be a humane ruler, Firuz resolved. ‘In the reigns of former kings . . . many varieties of torture were employed . . . All these things were practised so that fear and dread might fall upon the hearts of man, and that the regulations of government might be duly maintained . . . Through the mercy which god has shown to me, these severities and terrors have been exchanged [by me] for tenderness, kindness, and mercy. Fear and respect have thus taken firmer hold of the hearts of men, and there has been no need for executions, scourgings, tortures, or terrors,’ Firuz writes, and goes on to approvingly quote a poem:
Thy power is great, then mercy show:
Pardon is better than vengeance . . .
Boast not the hundreds thou hast slain,
To save one life is a nobler aim . . .
This was not just a pious pretence. Firuz had a genuine concern for the welfare of the people. He reversed the prevailing royal view that people should serve the king, and held that the king should serve the people. The Delhi Sultanate under him was the closest that any government in medieval India came to being a welfare state. Firuz was especially caring towards the lowly—he was, according to Afif, ‘very kind and generous to the poor’—and he introduced several measures to succour the poor. One such measure was the setting up of a free hospital for the public. ‘I was by god’s grace enabled to build a hospital for the benefit of everyone of high or low degree,’ he states. ‘The cost of medicines and food is defrayed from my endowments. All sick persons, residents and travellers, highborn and commoner, bond and free, resort thither.’
In the same spirit, Firuz ‘founded an establishment for the promotion of marriages,’ reports Afif. ‘Many needy Muslims were distressed at having marriageable daughters, for whom they could provide no marriage portion . . . Notice was given that any man having a marriageable daughter might apply at the diwan-i-khairat (charity bureau) and state his case . . . to the officers of that establishment . . . who, after due enquiry, might fix an allowance [for them] . . . People, small and great, flocked to the city from all parts of the country, and received grants for purchasing housekeeping requisites for their daughters.’ The charity bureau also provided succour to widows and orphans.
FIRUZ WAS ESPECIALLY concerned with the welfare of his officers and soldiers and their families, motivated as much by humane considerations as by official responsibility. Thus, on learning about the distress of the families of the soldiers who perished in the Rann of Kutch during his disastrous Sind campaign of 1362, he ordered that the children of the dead soldiers should receive the allowances of their fathers, and ‘should not be troubled in any way,’ states Afif. The sultan even ‘directed that those who had deserted him in Gujarat [because of their sufferings in the Sind campaign] . . . and had returned home were to have their livelihood and villages continued to them. He was desirous that no one should suffer on that account.’ The deserters might be reproached, but not executed, banished or amerced, the sultan ordered.
The sultan also took care to substantially increase the salaries of government officers, for their loyalty was critically important for the success of his government. Whereas the highest pay given to an officer under Muhammad was only 200,000 tankas, Firuz assigned to his officers land grants yielding between 400,000 and 800,000 tankas, depending on their rank. His vizier was even assigned villages yielding 1,300,000 tankas!
Equally, Firuz showed earnest consideration for the welfare of his common soldiers, even in small matters. For instance, when he with his army finally emerged from the wilderness in which it had got trapped for six months while returning to Delhi from Orissa after one of his campaigns, and he then sent to Delhi a message about his safety, he also solicitously ‘gave public notice that all who wished to write to their families and friends might take this opportunity,’ states Afif. ‘This gave great satisfaction, and every man of the army, from the highest to lowest, wrote [to his family] some account of his condition,’ and a camel load of letters was sent to Delhi.
Firuz was equally solicitous about the welfare of his slaves, of whom he had an incredibly large number. ‘Altogether, in the city and in the various fiefs there were 180,000 slaves, for whose maintenance and comfort the sultan took especial care,’ notes Afif. ‘None of the sultan’s predecessors had ever collected so many slaves.’
But Firuz collected slaves to serve the state, not to serve his personal vanity, and he employed them in various productive works. ‘Some were placed under craftsmen and were taught the mechanical arts, so that about 12,000 slaves became artisans of various kinds . . . There was no occupation in which the slaves of Firuz Shah were not employed,’ continues Afif. ‘A clever and qualified superintendent was appointed over every class of [slave] artisans.’ The slaves were thus turned into economic assets of the state. ‘In some places they were provided for in the army, and villages were granted to them.’ Some 40,000 slaves were employed as royal guards.
Because of the vast number of royal slaves, and the diversity of their functions, Firuz set up a separate government department to administer their affairs. ‘A separate muster-master of the slaves, a separate treasury for the payment of their allowances . . . [and a separate group of] officers for administering the affairs of the slaves’ were instituted by Firuz, reports Afif. When the royal slaves became too numerous, many of them were distributed among the amirs, ‘who treated them like [their own] children, providing them with food and raiment, lodging them and training them, and taking every care of their wants. Each year they took their slaves to court and reported about their merits and abilities.’ Firuz was a slave owner, but not a slave driver.
Even in the treatment of defeated enemies, Firuz was humane and magnanimous, and that attitude often turned his enemies into his allies. This regard for others was also evident in the care that Firuz took to preserve and cherish the memory of the former sultans of Delhi, rather than remain egomaniacally focussed on himself. ‘It had been a rule among the sultans of Delhi that the name of the reigning monarch only was mentioned in the prayers of Sabbaths and festivals, and no reference was made to the former sultans,’ states Afif. ‘When Sultan Firuz came to the throne . . . he disapproved of the omission of the names of former kings, and ordered that a khutba should be said first in the names of former kings, and then one in which his own name was mentioned.’
FIRUZ WAS WILLING even to allow some laxity in official appointments, to favour those who served him. He therefore reintroduced the system of hereditary appointments to offices, a system that was disfavoured by Ala-ud-din and Muhammad, for it made birth, instead of competence, as the qualification for government employment, and it created a hereditary aristocracy which could challenge the authority of the sultan. Firuz disregarded those risks, and, according to Afif, ruled that ‘if an officer of the army died, he was to be succeeded by his son; if he had no son, by his son-in-law; if he had no son-inlaw, by his slave; if he had no slave, by his nearest relation; and if he had no relations, by his wives.’
This policy was in a way logical—if the throne could be inherited, why not the lesser offices? The policy no doubt adversely affected the administrative and military efficiency of the Sultanate, but would have done that only marginally, as the normal mode of recruitment of officers in the Delhi Sultanate was quite haphazard and whimsical, except during the reign of Ala-ud-din Khalji. Another deliberate laxity that Firuz introduced in administration was the reversion to the old practice of assigning fiefs to royal officers in lieu of cash payment, which again was a policy disfavoured by Ala-ud-din, to prevent officers from gaining territorial power bases independent of the sultan. Firuz also discouraged the use of spies, who were extensively used by previous sulans to keep track of what was happening in the empire and what the royal officers were doing; instead, he sought to build mutual trust between him and his officers.
Firuz was very tolerant—too tolerant, perhaps—of human frailties, and he had a tendency to condone or overlook inefficiency, corruption and misdeeds among government employees. Thus when he was told that ‘many of his soldiers were old and feeble, and unfit for duty,’ and that they should be removed, he, according to Afif, refused to do so, saying, ‘If I remove the old and inefficient men . . . the poor old men will be greatly troubled and be reduced to distress in their old age. I do not approve of dismissing them and putting their sons in their places . . . Let an order therefore be promulgated that when a soldier grows old and incapable, his son shall succeed him, [but only] as his deputy. If he has no son, his son-in-law, and failing any son-in-law, his slave shall represent him. The veteran may thus remain at home at ease . . .’
Similarly, horses of little value were often taken to the registry office by soldiers, and were there passed as serviceable by conniving officers. Reports about this often reached the ears of the sultan, but he ignored them. And when soldiers failed to produce their horses on time at the registry office, and the matter was brought before the sultan, he granted the defaulters a grace time of two months to produce their horses. Reporting these and other such stories, Afif comments that ‘the kindness of the sultan for his people was such as no father or brother could show.’
ALL THIS HOWEVER did not turn Firuz into a weak ruler. Rather, they made him a sensible ruler, who had the self-confidence to leave some laxity and flexibility in administration for the play of human foibles without feeling threatened by it. There is no evidence that his liberal policies had notably weakened the Sultanate. He was doing what was necessary to rule efficiently in the prevailing circumstances of the Sultanate. Firuz was not a weak ruler, but a wise ruler.
Indeed, Firuz had to his credit the introduction—or revival—of certain measures to improve the efficiency of the administration, as in the case of the accounting procedures he enforced. ‘In this reign there were audits of the accounts of the fiefs,’ states Afif. ‘When the feudatory came up from his fief to the court, he was brought before the exchequer, where an audit of his accounts was held, and the results were reported to the throne . . . The managers of the kar-khanas also had to present the abstracts of their accounts to the exchequer at the end of every year, showing the balance of cash and the stores of goods with them.’
While thus tightening the revenue administration, Firuz also took care to abolish or reduce several taxes, as part of his policy of liberalising the government. He lists as many as twenty-three taxes that he abolished. ‘In former reigns they used to collect frivolous, unlawful and unjust cesses . . . I had all these abolished and removed from the accounts,’ he states in his autobiography, and goes on to quote a couplet expressing his principle:
Better a people’s weal than treasures vast,
Better an empty chest that hearts downcast.
‘Sultan Firuz made the laws of the Prophet his guide, acting zealously upon the principles they laid down, and prohibiting all that was inconsistent therewith,’ states Afif. ‘No demand in excess of the regular government dues was to be made, and the officer who made any such exaction had to make full reparation. . . . Such rules were made that the raiyats grew rich . . . Wealth abounded and comforts were general.’ Similarly, while former sultans used to take for themselves four-fifth of the battle spoils, and give only one-fifth to the soldiers, Firuz reversed this ratio, in conformity with Islamic law. And when fief holders during their visit to the sultan offered him various presents, Firuz had those presents appraised, and he deducted their value from the dues payable by the fief holders to the government, so that they might not suffer any deprivation.
Firuz also abolished the benevolences that the provincial governors were previously required to give to the sultan at the time of their appointment and every year thereafter, for that burden ultimately fell on the shoulders of the common people. In the same spirit, he cancelled the debts that people owed to the treasury on the advances that were given to them by Muhammad for restoring agriculture after a devastating famine in the Doab; in fact he had the records of the debts brought to him at the court, and had them publicly cancelled.
These were not impulsive acts, but carefully planned measures. Firuz was munificent, but he was not a wastrel. He made sure that state funds were not squandered or misappropriated in any way, but served the purpose for which they were allotted, and he exercised strict control over all state expenditures. Typical of this was his control over public works. Though he was a compulsive builder of forts, palaces, mosques, and so on, he looked into every detail of the execution of those projects to make sure that these structures conformed to their approved plans in all respects, and that there was no misappropriation of the funds allotted for them.
And just as he was careful about expenditure, he was also careful about revenue collection. To systematise revenue administration, he conducted, along the lines of what Muhammad had attempted, a comprehensive survey of the revenue potential of the empire and appointed a revenue assessor to supervise the project. When the group produced its report after a survey lasting six years, Firuz made certain changes in revenue administration, particularly in lowering the revenue demand and making it uniform over the years.
THESE LIBERAL AND wise policies of Firuz galvanised economic growth and led to the spread of prosperity in the Sultanate. ‘In the houses of peasants so much grain, horses and goods accumulated that one cannot describe them,’ states Afif. ‘Everyone had large amounts of gold and silver and countless goods. None of the women-folk of the peasantry remained without ornaments; in every peasant’s house, there were clean bed-sheets, excellent bed-cots, many articles and much wealth.’ According to Barani, ‘cattle, food-grains and goods’ filled the houses of village headmen during the reign of Firuz.
The economic expansion of the Sultanate was also stimulated by Firuz’s policy of undertaking various developmental works. Of these, the most important was the construction of five major irrigation canals, the longest of which was the 241 kilometre-long canal that carried the waters of the Yamuna to Hisar in western Haryana. Firuz also built a number of reservoirs, dams and wells. All these substantially increased the area under cultivation and contributed significantly to the prosperity of the people. ‘Not one village remained barren . . . nor one span of land uncultivated,’ states Afif with becoming exaggeration. The government also benefited directly from the public works, as it collected an additional levy of ten percent from the cultivators who used water from the irrigation facilities built by the state.
In addition to these promotional activities, the sultan directly participated in agricultural expansion by setting up a large number of state farms producing commercial crops. Firuz, according to Afif, ‘had a great liking for laying out gardens,’ and he set up over a thousand of them, where fruits were grown.
As in agriculture, so too in trade, the policies of Firuz, such as the abolition of several octroi duties and the introduction of small denomination coins— which broadened everyday market activities—stimulated the expansion of trade. Firuz was also a zealous builder, who founded a number of new towns and built many palaces, caravanserais, bridges, hospitals, colleges, mosques, mausoleums, public baths, wells, and so on, and these construction projects also stimulated the expansion of economy.
All these activities of Firuz served a dual purpose—while people benefited from them, the state also benefited, as the expansion of the economy led to a substantial increase in the state revenue. Equally, the prosperity and contentment of the people resulting from the progressive policies of Firuz led to peace and stability in the empire. Firuz acted on the sound principle that the prosperity of the king, if it is to endure, has to be based on the prosperity of the people, and that the best means to increase the revenue of the state was not through extortionate tax exactions but through mild taxation that would stimulate economic growth. On the whole, the economic and revenue policies of Firuz were well-suited to promote the welfare of the people as well as of the state. According to Afif, ‘no king of Delhi had ever been in receipt of such an income as Sultan Firuz.’
Gods too favoured Firuz. A good part of the prosperity of the medieval Indian state depended on agricultural prosperity, and this was as much dependent on the favour of the rain gods as on government policies. Firuz, like Ala-ud-din, was very lucky in this. ‘By the blessing of god favourable seasons and abundance of the necessaries of life prevailed in the reign of Firuz Shah, not only in the capital, but throughout his dominions,’ comments Afif. ‘During the whole forty years of his reign there was no appearance of scarcity, and the times were . . . [as] happy’ as during the reign of Ala-ud-din Khalji, which was the most prosperous period in the history of the Delhi Sultanate. And all goods and provisions at this time were as cheap as they were under Ala-ud-din. But while Ala-ud-din had to make great exertions and adopt coercive measures to achieve it, Firuz achieved it ‘through the favour of god . . . without any [great] effort on his part . . . The good fortune of the sultan prevailed . . . Perfect happiness did the kingdom enjoy in those days.’
FIRUZ WAS ESSENTIALLY a man of peace. He was content with the territories he inherited, and waged no wars of conquest. He was not tempted even when he was invited by rebels in other kingdoms to invade their lands. ‘Keep no more territory than you can manage,’ an old woman had once warned Mahmud Ghazni. This was the wise policy that Firuz followed. His religious orthodoxy was also a factor that influenced his military policy. Typically, when one of his nobles once berated him for shedding the blood of Muslims in wars, and warned him that ‘drawing the sword against the people of Islam had ten evils for every advantage . . . [the sultan’s] eyes were suffused with tears . . . and he resolved never again to make war upon [fellow] Muslims,’ states Afif.
But Firuz was not a pacifist. Though in many respects he was a gentle, cultured person, he maintained a huge army of 80–90,000 cavalry, and he had no hesitation to wage wars to repel invaders and to suppress rebellions. In this his actions were often as horrific as those of any other medieval ruler. But on the whole his reign was relatively peaceful, compared to the reigns of most other Delhi sultans, which were marked by near continuous wars. Predictably there were no major rebellions during his reign. And there were only two Mongol incursions, both of which were firmly repulsed. ‘A fierce battle ensued, and the slaughter was great, but victory inclined to the sultan, and the Mongols fled, abandoning their camp and baggage,’ records Afif about the first Mongol invasion. ‘This was the first victory of the reign of Sultan Firuz.’ The second Mongol raid was directed against Gujarat, but that too was easily routed.
Firuz also did make a couple of attempts to recover the territories lost to the Sultanate in the latter part of Muhammad’s reign, but these were halfhearted efforts, and they achieved no notable gains. The first of these campaigns was in the third year of his reign, when he led an army against Shams-ud-din Iliyas Shah, the rebel ruler of Bengal. Iliyas retreated into East Bengal on the approach of the imperial forces, but Firuz pursued and defeated him in a battle, and drove him to take refuge in the fort of Ekdala in East Bengal. Firuz then occupied the town alongside the fort, but decided not to storm the fort, deeming that it was not worth the effort required. In this decision he was also influenced by the wailing of women in the fort—as Firuz stormed into the town, ‘all the ladies and respectable women went to the top of the fort, and when they saw him, they uncovered their heads, and in their distress made great lamentations,’ reports Afif. Firuz then made peace with Iliyas, rejecting the advice of some of his officers to annex Bengal, and returned to Delhi before the dreaded onset of the monsoon.
Firuz’s Bengal campaign was however tarnished by a rare show of savagery by him. Before leaving for Delhi, he decided to leave for the people of Bengal a ghoulish reminder of the consequences of their rebellion. According to Afif, Firuz then ‘issued an order for collecting the heads of the slain Bengalis, and a silver tanka was offered for every head. The whole army then went busily to work, and brought the heads of the slain and piled them in heaps, receiving in payment silver tankas. The heads were counted, and they amounted to rather more than 180,000.’ It should be however noted that Firuz did not order the slaughter of the enemy, as sultans usually did, but only to collect the heads of those already slain in battle.
Firuz and Iliyas thereafter maintained an amicable relationship. But when Iliyas was succeeded by his son Sikandar Shah, Firuz led a second expedition into Bengal, leading an army of 70,000 cavalry, 470 elephants, and a large body of irregulars. But this was a leisurely campaign. Firuz halted for long periods at several places along the way, even founded a new city—Jaunpur, on the banks of the Gomati—on the way, so it took him several months to reach Bengal. And this campaign was no more decisive than his previous Bengal campaign. But he was able to induce Sikandar to accept his nominal suzerainty, and agree to send to him an annual tribute of forty elephants. And Firuz in turn presented Sikandar with 500 Arab and Turkish horses, and honoured him with a jewelled crown.
On the way back to Delhi from Bengal, at Jaunpur, Firuz abruptly turned southward and advanced into Orissa, a sparsely populated and densely forested region of India that had never before been subjugated by the Sultanate. His main purpose of this campaign was to hunt for elephants, as he had heard that ‘elephants were as numerous as sheep’ in Orissa.
On Firuz’s advance into Orissa, the raja there fled to an island for refuge, but from there he sent his emissaries to the sultan to plead for peace. Firuz assured them that he had entered Orissa only for hunting, and had no hostile intentions against the raja. On this assurance, the raja, according to Afif, sent to the sultan ‘twenty mighty elephants as an offering, and agreed to furnish a certain [number of] elephants yearly in payment of tribute. The sultan then sent [ceremonial] robes and an insignia to the raja.’ Apart from the elephant hunt, the only other major act of Firuz in Orissa was the sacking of the renowned temple town of Puri.
The Orissa campaign was quite rewarding for Firuz, but his return journey from there very nearly ended in total disaster, for on the journey back to Delhi his army lost its way, and for six months it wandered about despairingly through trackless plains, dense jungles, and along riverbanks, searching for a way to get out of the labyrinth and get back on the road to Delhi. ‘The army ascended and descended mountain after mountain, and passed through jungles and hills until they were quite in despair and utterly worn out with the fatigue of the arduous march,’ reports Afif. ‘No road was to be found . . . Provisions became scarce, and the army was reduced to the verge of destruction . . . At the end of six months a road was discovered . . . [and the army], after enduring great privations . . . came out into the open country.’
THE ONLY OTHER major military campaign of Firuz was against Sind, in 1362, the eleventh year of his reign. Remembering all too well the military humiliation that Muhammad had suffered in Sind in his last days, Firuz set out during this campaign with a huge army of 90,000 horse and 480 elephants. But Firuz too suffered great perils in this campaign, for a pestilence decimated his horses—‘only one-fourth of them, at the utmost, remained alive,’ notes Afif—and the soldiers too suffered greatly due to the scarcity of provisions.
Seeing the adversities of the imperial army, the ruler of Sind marshalled his forces and advanced from the fort of Tatta to give battle. Firuz too then arrayed his army. ‘He then put on his armour, and, with baton in hand, rode through the whole array, encouraging and cheering the men,’ states Afif. ‘This raised the spirits of his people and inflamed their devotion.’ A brief encounter followed, fought in the midst of a dust storm, in which the sultan’s army charged the enemy spiritedly and drove them back into their fort.
Firuz then decided to retreat to Gujarat, to rest and reequip his army. But the journey to Gujarat turned out to be calamitous. The army was harassed all along the way by the enemy, and it lost its entire fleet of boats. Then famine struck the army. ‘As no corn could be procured, carrion and raw hides were devoured; some men even were driven by extreme hunger to boil old hides, and eat them,’ writes Afif in his detailed account of the army’s travails. ‘A deadly famine reigned, and all men saw death staring them in the face. All the horses were destroyed, and the khans and maliks were compelled to pursue their weary way on foot. Not one steed remained in the army . . . All ranks were reduced to the same state of destitution.’ To make matters worse, treacherous guides led the army into the Rann of Kutch, where ‘all the land is impregnated with salt . . . When with great difficulty and exertion they escaped from that salt country, they came into a desert where no bird . . . flapped its wing, where no tree was to be seen, and where no blade of grass grew.’
Then suddenly the scene changed. ‘On every side clouds rolled up swiftly, cloud upon cloud; rain fell, and water-courses ran. All men . . . were delivered from trouble.’
On reaching Gujarat, the sultan advanced loans to his soldiers to reequip themselves, spending the entire revenue of Gujarat on it. Then he once again set out for Tatta. Fortunately for Firuz, his position relative to that of the Sind ruler was now the reverse of what it was during their previous confrontation. Though there were a good number of desertions in the sultan’s army at this time, as many of his soldiers were reluctant to once again go through the awful toils of a Sind campaign, the army was reinforced by fresh contingents sent from Delhi, and his soldiers were well-rested and well-equipped. In contrast to this, the Sind army was in a wretched state at this time, ravaged by famine and plagued with desertions. In that predicament the ruler of Sind prudently decided to surrender. He then presented himself to Firuz without the turban on his head, and with his sword hanging from his neck, ‘like a repentant criminal, and, humbly approaching the sultan, kissed his stirrup and begged for forgiveness,’ reports Afif. ‘The sultan then graciously placed his hand on his back, and said, ‘Why were you afraid of me? I did not mean to hurt anyone, especially you. Cheer up . . . and dispel your anxiety.’ Firuz then took the ruler with him to Delhi, but later restored him to the throne of Sind on he agreeing to pay an annual tribute.
These were the major military campaigns of Firuz. Though he did wage a few other wars also, they were all relatively minor operations. Notable among them was his campaign against Rohilkhand, whose raja had treacherously murdered the governor of Budaun and his two brothers. On Firuz’s approach the raja fled and escaped, so the sultan took his vengeance on the local people. He was uncharacteristically savage on this occasion—perhaps because he was inflamed by religious fervour, as the slain governor and his brothers were Sayyids, presumed descendants of the Prophet Muhammad—and he ordered the general massacre of the Hindus of Rohilkhand. Not only that, he ordered his new governor there, an Afghan, to devastate the region ‘with fire and sword’ annually for the next five years. And Firuz himself visited the region every year for the next five years to ensure that his order was carried out.
APART FROM THESE few deviant acts, the reign of Firuz was on the whole humane and civilised.
He was the most liberal of all the rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. But he was also a rigidly orthodox Muslim, who in his autobiography proudly records that he was conferred the title Saiyidu-s Sultan by the Abbasid Caliph in Egypt, who also bestowed on him ‘robes, a banner, a sword, a ring, and a foot-print as badges of honour and distinction.’ All through his life Firuz ‘paid much attention to the elders of religion,’ states Afif. ‘And towards the end of his reign he himself became a shaveling . . . Many of the khans and amirs, out of love for the sultan, [also] performed tonsure.’ Firuz was particularly careful to consult the Koran for an augury before taking any major decision, for he believed that his fate was not of his own making, but was as god decreed.
Firuz had a more serious interest in religion than most other Delhi sultans, and he was strict in enforcing Islamic prescriptions among his coreligionists, and in prohibiting their un-Islamic practices. He also made a series of changes in royal customs and practices. ‘It had been the practice of former kings to use vessels of gold and silver at the royal table, and to ornament their sword-belts and quivers with gold and jewels,’ he writes in his autobiography. ‘I forbade these things, and ordered that the fittings of my arms should be made of bone, and I commanded that only such vessels should be used as are recognised by law.’ Thereafter he used only stone and ceramic tableware. Similarly, it was a custom of the Delhi sultans to decorate their private apartments with portrait paintings, but Firuz considered this as ‘contrary to law, and directed that garden scenes should be painted instead,’ states Afif. ‘Former kings used to wear ornaments of brass and copper, silver and gold, in opposition to the Law, but these he (Firuz) interdicted . . . Pictures on banners and ensigns were also forbidden.’
It was also a custom of the former sultans to have ‘figures and devices . . . painted and displayed on saddles, bridles and collars, on censers, on goblets and cups, and flagons, on dishes and ewers, in tents, on curtains and on chairs, and upon all articles and utensils . . .,’ Firuz notes. ‘I ordered all pictures and portraits to be removed from these things, and that such articles only should be made as are approved and recognised by law. The pictures and portraits which were painted on the doors and walls of palaces I ordered to be effaced.’
Firuz required his officers too to conform to orthodox Islamic prescriptions. ‘In former times it had been the custom [of nobles] to wear ornamented garments, and men received [such] robes as token of honour from kings . . . [And] the garments of great men were generally made of silk and gold brocades, beautiful but unlawful,’ states Firuz. ‘I ordered that only such garments should be worn as are approved by the Law of the Prophet . . . [and that] trimmings of gold brocade, embroidery, or braiding should not exceed four inches in width,’ he states.
In revenue administration also Firuz followed religious injunctions; whatever taxes religious leaders declared as unlawful, that the sultan forbade, even when it meant substantial loss of revenue to the government. At the same time he strictly enforced the special taxes that Islamic law required to be imposed on non-Muslims.
One such measure of the sultan was to impose jizya on Brahmins. In an Islamic state all non-Muslims were required to pay jizya, but in India it ‘had never been levied from Brahmins,’ reports Afif. ‘They had been held excused in former reigns . . . [Firuz however held that] Brahmins were the very keys of the chamber of idolatry, and the infidels were dependent on them. They ought to be therefore taxed first . . . [When the news of the sultan’s decision spread] Brahmins of all the four cities [of Delhi] assembled and went . . . [to the sultan] and represented that Brahmins had never before been called upon to pay jizya . . . [and they threatened] to collect wood and burn themselves under the walls of the palace rather than pay the tax.’ But Firuz remained unrelenting. ‘The Brahmins remained fasting for several days at the palace until they were on the point of death. They then clearly perceived that the sultan did not intend to spare them. The Hindus of the city then assembled and told the Brahmins that it was not right for them to kill themselves on account of jizya, and that they would undertake to pay it for them . . . When Brahmins found that their case was hopeless, they went to the sultan and begged him in his mercy to reduce the amount they would have to pay.’ When Firuz agreed to this, Brahmins dispersed. In a related reform, Firuz made jizya a separate tax, while previously it was included in the land tax.
THE POLICIES AND actions of Firuz were usually guided by humane and liberal principles, but sometimes, impelled by religious fervour, he violated those principles. Thus when he invaded Orissa, he not only demolished the renowned Jagannatha temple at Puri, but also rooted up its idol and took it with him to Delhi, where, according to Afif, he ‘had it placed in an ignominious position,’ to be defiled by Muslims. Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi, an anonymous medieval work, further states, no doubt with considerable exaggeration, that Firuz slaughtered such a large number of Hindus in Puri that ‘no vestige of the infidels was left except their blood.’ Similar acts of vandalism and carnage were committed by him in a few other places also.
There is however some uncertainty about what he did at the temple of Jvalamukhi in Kangra. Ferishta states that the sultan ‘broke the idols of Jvalamukhi, mixed their fragments with the flesh of cows, and hung them in nosebags round the necks of Brahmins, and he sent the principal idol as a trophy to Medina.’ But, according Afif, ‘some infidels have reported that Sultan Firuz went specially to see this idol and held a golden umbrella over its head [in veneration] . . . Other infidels have said that Sultan Muhammad Tughluq [also] had held an umbrella over the same idol.’ Afif denies these claims.
There is no way of knowing what really happened in Kangra. It is possible that Firuz did not vandalise the Jvalamukhi temple, for he, though a rigidly orthodox Muslim, was also a highly cultured person, and he is known to have taken special care to preserve several ancient Indian monuments. Besides, while Muslim law prohibited the construction of new idol temples, it did not require old temples to be demolished. Though very many old Hindu temples were indeed vandalised and destroyed during the Sultanate period, and Firuz himself did that on a few occasions, it is possible that he treated the Jvalamukhi temple with special regard, especially as the temple was renowned for its vast library, which would have greatly appealed to the scholarly sultan.
Firuz did however strictly forbid the construction of new Hindu temples and shrines in his empire. ‘I destroyed these edifices, and I killed those leaders of infidelity . . ., and the lower order I subjected to stripes and chastisement,’ Firuz reports about one such incident. But he was careful not to go beyond what was prescribed in Islamic law. ‘I forbade the infliction of any severe punishments on Hindus in general,’ he states.
Firuz was particularly severe in dealing with Hindu holy-men. ‘A report was brought to the sultan that there was in Delhi an old Brahmin who persisted in publicly performing the worship of idols in his house, and that the people of the city, both Muslims and Hindus, used to resort to his house to worship the idol,’ reports Afif. ‘This Brahmin had constructed a wooden tablet which was covered within and without with paintings of demons and other objects . . . The sultan was informed that this Brahmin had perverted Muslim women, and had led them to become infidels. An order was accordingly given that the Brahmin with his tablet should be brought into the presence of the sultan.’ Muslim theologians then advised the sultan that the Brahmin should either become a Muslim or be burned. As the Brahmin refused to become a Muslim, ‘orders were given for raising a pile of faggots before the door of the durbar. The Brahmin was tied hand and foot and cast into it.’
IN HIS TREATMENT of Hindus, Firuz followed the dual policy of persecuting Hindu religious leaders, and of showing favours to low-caste Hindus to induce them to become Muslims. ‘I encouraged my infidel subjects to embrace the religion of the Prophet, and I proclaimed that everyone who . . . became a Muslim would be exempt from jizya,’ the sultan writes in his autobiography. ‘Information of this came to the ears of the people at large, and a great number of Hindus presented themselves and were admitted to the honour of Islam. Thus they came forward day by day from every quarter, and. . . were favoured with presents and honours.’
Firuz also sought to suppress heterodox Muslim sects. ‘I seized them all and I convicted them of their errors and perversions,’ he writes about Shias. He punished the Shia leaders and castigated their followers, ‘and so by the grace of god the influence of this sect was entirely suppressed.’ He was particularly repressive towards the various bizarre sects that flourished in India at this time, among Hindus as well as Muslims. He was especially severe towards the Tantric sect, which practised ritual sex. ‘I cut off the heads of the elders of this sect, and imprisoned and banished the rest, so that their abominable practises were put an end to,’ states Firuz.
At this time ‘there was in Delhi a man named Rukn-ud-din, who was called Mahdi, because he affirmed himself to be the Imam Mahdi, who is to appear in latter days, and [he claimed] to possess [divine] knowledge,’ notes Firuz. ‘He led people astray into mystic practices, and perverted ideas.’ Firuz publicised his condemnation of the cult, and ordered the mystic and his cult to be liquidated. People then rushed to his place, ‘tore him to pieces and broke his bones into fragments,’ Firuz reports approvingly. Firuz also suppressed a few other similar cults.
As in religion, so also in social practices, Firuz sought to enforce orthodox Islamic prescriptions. ‘A custom and practice unauthorised by the law of Islam had sprung up in Muslim cities,’ he writes. ‘On holy days women riding in palanquins or carts or litters, or mounted on horses or mules, or in large parties on foot, went out of the city to the tombs. Rakes and wild fellows of unbridled passion and loose habits took the opportunity which this practice afforded for improper, riotous actions. I commanded that no woman should go out to the tombs under pain of exemplary punishment.’
FIRUZ, THOUGH HE was rigidly orthodox in religion, was also a man of wide cultural interests, and was quite liberal in his patronage of culture. Thus when he found a library of 1300 old Sanskrit manuscript volumes in the temple of Jvalamukhi, he ordered several of them—particularly a volume on natural sciences, astrology and augury—to be translated into Persian. The translation of this book was noted by Ferishta, and was appreciated even by the hyper-orthodox Mughal chronicler Badauni, though he found that some of the other translated books were ‘unprofitable and trivial works on prosody, music and dancing.’
An accomplished scholar himself, Firuz was a liberal patron of the learned. And he had to his credit the setting up of several educational institutions. He was passionately fond of music, despite the fact that orthodox Muslims considered addiction to music to be a vice, though only a venial vice. Firuz was also an inventor. ‘Many wonderful things were invented by Sultan Firuz in the course of his reign,’ states Afif, ‘and among them the most wonderful was the tas-i-ghariyal’ for marking time and indicating the hours of prayer. And he wrote his autobiography, as Mughal emperors Babur and Jahangir would later do.
One of the passions of Firuz was to build new towns and monumental structures. ‘Among the gifts which god bestowed upon me, his humble servant, was a desire to erect public buildings,’ he writes. ‘So I built many mosques and colleges and monasteries . . . [I also] dug canals, planted trees, and endowed [religious scholars] with lands.’ Confirms Afif: ‘Sultan Firuz excelled all his predecessors on the throne of Delhi in the erection of buildings; indeed no monarch of any country surpassed him [in this]. He built cities, forts, palaces, bunds, mosques, and tombs in great numbers . . . He also built monasteries, and inns for the accommodation of travellers. One hundred and twenty monasteries were built . . . The sultan also repaired the tombs of former kings.’
Firuz, according to Afif, ‘had a remarkable fondness for history.’ This turned him into a zealous conservationist, who took care to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of India. ‘I repaired and rebuilt the edifices and structures of former kings and ancient nobles, which had fallen into decay from the lapse of time, giving the restoration of these buildings priority over my own building works,’ states Firuz.
This conservationist zeal of the sultan was not confined to the monuments of the Sultanate, but extended to ancient Indian monuments as well. His most valuable contribution in this was the preservation of two Asoka pillars—one from Meerut in UP, and the other from a village near Khizrabad in Punjab— which were transported with great and respectful care from their original sites to Delhi, where they were set up in prominent sites. Firuz of course did not know what the pillars were or who had built them and when—no one knew that till the ancient Brahmi inscriptions on them were deciphered by a British philologist in the mid-nineteenth century. But apparently Firuz had a sense that they were of very ancient—they were in fact over one and a half millenniums old—and were of very great historical value.
‘These columns had stood in those places (their original locations) from the days of the Pandavas, but had never attracted the attention of any of the kings who sat upon the throne of Delhi, till Sultan Firuz noticed them, and, with great exertion brought them away,’ notes Afif. ‘When Firuz Shah first beheld these columns, he was filled with admiration, and resolved to remove them with great care as trophies to Delhi.’
Meticulous care was taken in excavating and transporting the pillars, and this is described in detail by Afif.2 The pillars evoked the admiration of Timur when he occupied Delhi in 1398. ‘During his stay of some days in Delhi, he inspected all the monuments of former kings, and among them these two obelisks,’ writes Afif. ‘He declared that in all the countries he had traversed he had never seen any monuments comparable to these.’
WE KNOW NOTHING about Firuz’s family life, but he had a number of sons, of whom his favourite was his eldest son, Fath Khan, who was born when the sultan was marching to Delhi after his accession in Sind. He was a talented prince, and when he died in 1374 it shattered the aged sultan, who was then in his late sixties, and he rapidly slid into mental and physical decline. For a while he even withdrew from his royal duties. Later he resumed work and carried on for over a decade. Towards the end of this period, in 1387, there was a virtual civil war fought in the streets of Delhi, between the supporters of Khan Jahan, the powerful minister who had become the de facto ruler of the empire during Firuz’s debility, and the supporters of Muhammad Shah, Firuz’s eldest surviving son and heir-apparent. In this, the prince prevailed. Firuz, now over eighty years old and rather senile, then appointed Muhammad Shah as his co-ruler, and conferred on him the royal title.
Unfortunately, the prince was a sybarite; he had no serious interest in governance, but devoted himself almost entirely to sensual pleasures. And this once again led to a civil strife, a popular uprising in Delhi, which forced Muhammad to flee from the city. Firuz then appointed Ghiyas-ud-din, son of Fath Khan, as the co-ruler of the empire. Firuz died soon after, in September 1388, aged 83 and, according to contemporary chronicler Sirhindi, ‘worn out with weakness.’
The reign of Firuz was the golden age of the Delhi Sultanate, especially in terms of the contentment of the people. ‘During the reign of Firuz Shah . . . all men, high and low, bond and free, lived happily and free from care . . . Things were plentiful and cheap, and the people were well to do . . . Nothing in the least degree unpleasant or disagreeable happened during his reign . . . The sultan being beneficent, all men, high and low, were devoted to him.’ states Afif. Confirms Sirhindi: ‘There has been no king in Delhi so just and merciful, so kind and religious, or such a builder [as Sultan Firuz]. His justice won for him the hearts of his subjects . . . It was in no way possible that during the reign of this sovereign any strong man could tyrannise the weak. God Almighty took this gentle, beneficent and just king to his everlasting rest, after a reign of thirty-seven years and nine months.’
As an orthodox Muslim ruler over an alien, pagan people, Firuz obligatorily discriminated against his Hindu subjects, and was often oppressive and sanguinary towards them. But even in these matters his policies and actions were moderate compared to those of most other Delhi sultans, and were on the whole more than compensated by his general regard for the welfare of all his subjects. If Muslims had good reason to rejoice in the reign of Firuz, so had Hindus. Concludes modern historian Wolseley Haig: ‘The reign of Firuz . . . [marks] the most brilliant epoch of Muslim rule in India before the reign of Akbar.’