The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (26 page)

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.