Muhammad ibn Tughluq Quotes

The king of India, Sultan Muhammad Shah, makes a practice of honouring strangers and distinguishing them by governorships or high dignities of State. The majority of his courtiers, palace officials, ministers of state, judges, and relatives by marriage are foreigners, and he has issued a decree that foreigners are to be given in his country the title of ’Aziz [Honourable], so that this has become a proper name for them.

Writing about the days of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-51), Shihabuddin Al-Umari writes: “The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon the infidels… Every day thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners… (that) the value at Delhi of a young slave girl, for domestic service, does not exceed eight tankahs. Those who are deemed fit to fill the parts of domestic and concubine sell for about fifteen tankahs. In other cities prices are still lower…” Probably it was so because Ibn Battuta while in Bengal says that a pretty Kaniz (slave girl) could be had there for one gold dinar (or 10 silver tankahs). “I purchased at this price a very beautiful slave girl whose name was Ashura. A friend of mine also bought a young slave named Lulu for two gold coins.”32...Umari continues, “but still, in spite of low price of slaves, 20000 tankahs, and even more, are paid for young Indian girls. I inquired the reason… and was told that these young girls are remarkable for their beauty, and the grace of their manners.”

The Sultan who is ruling at present has achieved that which had not been achieved so far by any king. He has achieved victory, supremacy, conquest of countries, destruction of the forts of the infidels, and exposure of magicians. He has destroyed idols by which the people of Hindustan were deceived in vain.

During Muslim rule in India, foreign and Indian Muslims were freely bestowed jobs and gifts. Foreign Muslims were most welcome here. They came in large numbers and were well provided for. Muhammad Tughlaq was specially kind to them, as averred by Ibn Battutah. He writes that "the countries contiguous to India like Yemen, Khurasan and Fars are filled with anecdotes about... his generosity to the foreigners in so far as he prefers them to the Indians, honours them, confers on them great favours and makes them rich presents and appoints them to high offices and awards them great benefits". He calls them aziz or dear ones and has instructed his courtiers not to address them as foreigners. 'The sultan ordered for me," writes Ibn Battutah, "a sum of six thousand tankahs, and ordered a sum of ten thousand for Ibn Qazi Misr. Similarly, he ordered sums to be given to all foreigners (a'izza) who were to stay at Delhi, but nothing was given to the metropolitans."... There are scores of instances of Muhammad Tughlaq's generosity to foreigners.... The point to note here is that under Sultan Muhammad so much wealth was awarded to so many deserving and undeserving foreign Muslims that at the close of his reign the Delhi treasury had become bankrupt. There was also the loss of popularity because "the people of India hate the foreigners (Persians, Turks, Khurasanis) because of the favour the sultan shows them."

The first place which was conquered was the country of Tilink [the Kakatiya kingdom of Telengana, was conquered by Muhammad bin Tughluq before his accession]. It is an extensive province with many villages, the number of which is nine hundred thousand and nine hundred. Then the province of Jajnagar [capital of Orissa] was conquered. In it there are 70 fine cities all ports on the sea, the revenue of which consists of pearls, elephants, different kinds of cloth, perfumes and aromatics. Then the province of Lakhnauti [Bengal, it was conquered by the Sultan’s father] was conquered which has been the seat of nine kings. Then the province of Devagir [the northern most Hindu kingdom of the south] was conquered. It has 84 strong hill forts. Sheikh Burhanuddin Abu Bakr bin al-Khallal aI-Bazzi related that there are one crore and two lakh villages in it. Then the province of Dursamand [Dwarasamudra] was conquered where Sultan Bilal Deo [Vira Ballala III, the Hoysala king of Dwarasamudra] and five infidel kings reigned. Then the province of Mabar was conquered.
It is a big country having ninety ports on the seacoast the revenue of which is derived from perfumes, muslin (lains), various kinds of cloth and other beautiful things.…
The Sufi Shaikh Burhanuddin Abu Bakr bin al-Khallalh Muhammad al-Bizzi has related to me the following: This Sultan sent his army to the province of…[ name cannot be deciphered, Telingana?] and it is in the neighbourhood of Dewogir, in the extremity of its frontiers. The people were infidels and every king was called ‘rai’. When the troops of the Sultan took the field against him he sent a messenger saying: Say to the Sultan that he should refrain from us and whatever he wishes in the form of wealth it will be given to him, he should send as many beasts of burden as he likes to carry away. The commander of the army sent information to the Sultan as to what he (the rai) had said. His answer came back that he should refrain from fighting them and give quarter to the Rai. When he presented himself before the Sultan, he honoured him very much and said to him: I have never heard the like of what you have said. What is the amount of wealth you have got that you have told me to send you as many beasts of burden as I like to carry that. The Rai replied: Seven rais have preceded me in this country and everyone of them collected 70,000 Babin and all of them are still with me. He said: A bobin is very wide cistern from the four sides of which one descends into it with ladders. The Sultan was surprised at his speech and ordered the sealing of the babins with his name (to preserve them). So they were sealed with the name of the Sultan. Then he ordered the Rai to nominate a viceroy in his country and that he himself should reside in Delhi and he offered him Islam, but he refused. So he let him act freely in the matter of his religion and he stayed in his court appointing a regent for him in his country and the Sultan assigned attendants for him, suitable for one like him and sent to that country great sums to be distributed to his people as alms saying that they were counted amongst the number of his subjects. The Sultan did not interfere with the babins, but only put on them the seal and left them in the same condition under his seal. I have related this according to what al-Bazzi related and he is known for his veracity. The responsibility is with him. He who wants further information should turn to him.

Muhammad ibn Tughlaq “led forth his army to ravage Hindostan. He laid the country waste from Kanauj to Dalmau [on the Ganges, in the Rai Baréli District, Oudh], and every person that fell into his hands he slew. Many of the inhabitants fled and took refuge in the jungles, but the Sultan had the jungles surrounded, and every individual that was captured was killed.”

Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlak acquired the throne by murdering his father, became a great scholar and an elegant writer, dabbled in mathematics, physics and Greek philosophy, surpassed his predecessors in bloodshed and brutality, fed the flesh of a rebel nephew to the rebel’s wife and children, ruined the country with reckless inflation, and laid it waste with pillage and murder till the inhabitants fled to the jungle. He killed so many Hindus that, in the words of a Moslem historian, “there was constantly in front of his royal pavilion and his Civil Court a mound of dead bodies and a heap of corpses, while the sweepers and executioners were wearied out by their work of dragging” the victims “and putting them to death in crowds.”76 In order to found a new capital at Daulatabad he drove every inhabitant from Delhi and left it a desert; and hearing that a blind man had stayed behind in Delhi, he ordered him to be dragged from the old to the new capital, so that only a leg remained of the wretch when his last journey was finished. The Sultan complained that the people did not love him, or recognize his undeviating justice. He ruled India for a quarter of a century, and died in bed.

At the end of the tenth century Turks from Afghanistan began raiding India, a country of enormous wealth, ripe for conquest and incorporation into the Islamic world. In 1206 the Turks established the Sultanate of Delhi, which dominated the subcontinent for 300 years. The Sultans reached the height of their power in the reign of Muhammad bin Tughlak. His expansionist policies, which brought most of India under his control, reflected an uncontrollable and erratic ambition that eventually impoverished the country, and provoked a series of devastating revolts. He was famed for his learning, piety—and cruelty.

The Sultan has 3000 elephants which are covered in battle with iron trappings inlaid with gold. In times of peace they are covered with housing of silk brocade and different kinds of silk adorned with figures. They are adorned with canopy and seats overlaid with plates; and wooden towers are fixed on them with nails and the Indians construct their seats for fighting. On an elephant are from 10 to 6 men according to the strength of the elephant. The Sultan has 20,000 Turkish slaves. Al-Bazzi says: 10,000 eunuchs, 1,000 treasurers, 1,000 Bashmaqdars, 2,00,000 attendants, who wear weapons and march with the Sultan in front of him.

The jurist Abul Fadhail Omar bin Ishaq ash-Shibli narrated to me that this Sultan does not leave the company of learned men whether in travel or in residence. He says: We were with him in one of his conquests. When we were on the way news of the victory reached him from the advance guard while we were in his presence. Then a joy befell him and he said: This is due to the blessing of those Ulama. Then he ordered them to enter the public treasury and they carried away as much wealth as they could. Those who were weak amongst them appointed a substitute who carried this wealth for them. The narrator continues, “They entered the treasury, but I did not enter, not did many of my peers because we did not belong to that group. Every one of those carried away two purses, each one containing 10,000 dirhams. But one of them carried three purses, two beneath his armpit, the other one on his head. When the Sultan saw them, he laughed in astonishment at the avarice of him who carried three. He (Sultan) asked about the rest of the persons and those who had not entered like me. It was said to him that these were below those because those were professors and these were assistants. He then ordered 10,000 dirhams to be given to everyone of them, and they were distributed among us. The narrator continues: the beacon of shariat, (Muslim Law) is standing on account of him and love for men of letters is found with him. They are shown honour and veneration. They exert to the highest to preserve that by which their reputation is established, by improving their mind and their appearance and in persevering in studying and in imparting knowledge, and right deliberation in all matters and moderation in all their affairs.

All sultans were keen on making slaves, but Muhammad Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving people. He appears to have outstripped even Alauddin Khalji and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide. Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas writes about him thus: “The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon infidels… Everyday thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners”. Muhammad Tughlaq did not only enslave people during campaigns, he was also very fond of purchasing and collecting foreign and Indian slaves. According to Ibn Battuta one of the reasons of estrangement between Muhammad Tughlaq and his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, when Muhammad was still a prince, was his extravagance in purchasing slaves. Even as Sultan, he made extensive conquests. He subjugated the country as far as Dwarsamudra, Malabar, Kampil, Warangal, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sonargaon, Nagarkot and Sambhal to give only few prominent place-names. There were sixteen major rebellions in his reign which were ruthlessly suppressed. In all these conquests and rebellions, slaves were taken with great gusto. For example, in the year 1342 Halajun rose in rebellion in Lahore. He was aided by the Khokhar chief Kulchand. They were defeated. “About three hundred women of the rebels were taken captive, and sent to the fort of Gwalior where they were seen by Ibn Battutah.” Such was their influx that Ibn Battutah writes: “At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Vazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.” Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India. .... Ibn Battutah’s eye-witness account of the Sultan’s gifting captured slave girls to nobles or arranging their marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids, corroborates the statement of Abbas. Ibn Battutah writes that during the celebrations in connection with the two Ids in the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, daughters of Hindu Rajas and those of commoners, captured during the course of the year were distributed among nobles, officers and important foreign slaves. “On the fourth day men slaves are married and on the fifth slave-girls. On the sixth day men and women slaves are married off.” This was all in accordance with the Islamic law. According to it, slaves cannot many on their own without the consent of their proprietors. The marriage of an infidel couple is not dissolved by their jointly embracing the faith. In the present case the slaves were probably already converted and their marriages performed with the initiative and permission the Sultan himself were valid. Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured by the Muslims in the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor. In short, under the Tughlaqs the inflow of women captives never ceased.

So great was the faith of the Sultan in the Abbasid Khalifas," says he, "that he would have sent all his treasures in Delhi to Egypt, had it not been for the fear of robbers.

…It is said that the star-shaped Jaina Temple built in the Chalukya style at Bodhan in the 9th or 10th century was, also, transformed into a Mosque during the reign of Muhammad Tughlaq (AH 726-52/AD 1325-51).

Muhammad Tughlaq always preferred foreign Muslims to Indians for appointment as officers. The rebellion of Ain-ul-mulk Multani (1339) during his reign was a symptom of the resentment felt by the India-born nobles against this policy of prejudice.... Foreign nobles looked down upon Indian Muslim nobles, and considered them as ‘lowborn’, although not all foreign Muslims were of high lineage.

Under Muhammad Tughlaq, wars and rebellions knew no end. Even an enhancement of land-tax ended in massacres in the Doab. Many more perished on the way when the capital was shifted to Daulatabad. His Qarachal expedition cost him a whole army. His expeditions to Bengal, Sind and the Deccan, as well as ruthless suppression of twenty-two rebellions, meant only depopulation.15 From all accounts it is certain that in the thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth century the loss of population was immense.