The low-born, who have been enrolled for practising the baser arts and the meaner professions, are capable only of vices… - Ziauddin Barani

[Slaves, for instance, made good soldiers but] “they are of one group and one mind and there can be no permanent security against their revolt.”

Zia-ud-Din Barani is one of the most widely read authors of pre-Mughal India.

The Muslim king will not be able to establish the honour of theism (tauhid) and the supremacy of the Islam unless he strives with all his courage to overthrow infidelity and to slaughter its leaders (imams), who in India are the Brahmans. He should make a firm resolve to overpower, capture, enslave an degrade the infidels. All the strength and power of the king and of the holy warriors of Islam should be concentrated in holy campaigns and holy wars; and they should risk themselves in the enterprise so that the true Faith may uproot the false creeds, and then it will look as if these false creeds had never existed because they have been deprived of all their glamour. On the other hand, if the Muslim king, in spite of the power and position which God has given him, is merely content to take the poll-tax (jizya) and tribute (kharaj) from the Hindus and preserves both infidels and infidelity and refuses to risk his power in attempting to overthrow them, what differences will there be in this respect between the kings of Islam and the Rais of the infidels? For the Rais of the infidels also exact the poll-tax (jizya) and the tribute (kharaj) from the Hindus, who belong to their own false creed, and fill their treasuries with money so obtained; in fact, they collect a hundred times more taxes.