The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (61 page)
Read The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate Online
Authors: Abraham Eraly
Tags: #History, #Non-Fiction, #India, #Middle Ages
1
Nine centuries later, an invading British Indian army was confounded by a similar snowstorm in Afghanistan.
1
That thwarted the princess, but only for a while. Some years later she would make yet another attempt to seize power for her son, this time by plotting to assassinate Firuz, but that conspiracy too failed. She was then imprisoned, her husband banished, and their vast wealth confiscated by the state.
2
See Part IX, Chapter 2
1
For the details of Babur’s invasion of India, see
The Last Spring
, Chapter 2.
1
More on Begarha in Part VII, Chapter 1
1
For details of the battle, see the next chapter
1
See Part 5, Chapter 5
1
For Indian dietary practices, see
The First Spring
, Part VII, Chapter 3
2
See Part VII, Chapter 3
3
See
The First Spring
Part VI, Chapter 3 for Battuta’s description of sati.
1
For more on Indian music, see
The First Spring
, Part XI, Chapter 1
2
This is a Gupta age iron pillar, which the builders of the mosque had the good sense not to tamper with. Most remarkably, the pillar has not rusted even after the passage of some sixteen centuries of exposure to weather.
The height of the pillar is 7.21 metres, of which 1.12 metre is below ground; its diameter at the bottom is 420 millimetres, and it tapers to 306 millimetres at the top. Its weight is estimated to be over six tons.
There is a common belief that anyone who can encircle the pillar with his arms while standing with his back to it and makes a wish, will have that wish granted.
3
See Part VIII, Chapter 1, for Mughal chronicler Lahauri’s description of the fort.
4
See also Part V, Chapter 4
1
For Upanishadic Hinduism, see
Gem in the Lotus
, Part III; for Puranic Hinduism, see
The First Spring
, Part XII.
2
For a detailed account of the Bhakti movement, see
The First Spring
, Part XII, Chapter 7.
Part II: Prelude
The Arabic word
islam
means ‘submission’, which, as applied to religion, means ‘submission to god’. An adherent of Islam is called Muslim, meaning ‘one who is submissive’ to god.
Orthodox Indians, according to
Chach-nama
, scorned Arabs as ‘outcaste cow-eaters’.
Buddhism was the dominant religion of Afghanistan before the region became Islamised.
Mahmud Ghazni was a ruthless military adventurer, but he had, according to medieval chronicler Khondamir, a weakness for fair-skinned young boys. At one time he became enamoured of the ‘beauty of a boy of Turkistan … who was as white as silver … [and] looked as beautiful as a virgin of paradise.’ Mahmud demanded the boy from the amir who owned him, and on the amir refusing, the sultan had him plundered and tortured to death.
Mahmud Ghazni, according to medieval chronicler Siraj, ‘was the first Muhammadan king who received the title of sultan from the Caliph.’
Ibrahim, a grandson of Mahmud Ghazni and one of his successors, was physically rather frail, but had ‘36 sons and 40 daughters,’ reports Siraj. He was ‘a great king—wise, just, good, god-fearing and kind, a patron of letters, a supporter of religion, and a pious man.’ He ‘reigned happily for 42 years, and died in 1098, at the age of 60.’
Aibak’s lavish generosity earned him the epithet Lakh-bakhsh: Giver of Lakhs. But he could not stand presumptuous fools. Thus when a court poet recited to him a poem full of obscenities, expecting to be rewarded with a gold coin for each line, all the sultan is said to have given him was a bowl of donkey’s urine.
The term ‘Forty’, used to describe the clique of top nobles of the Delhi Sultanate at one time, was merely a conventional term. The actual number of the members of the group varied from time to time.
Part of the reason for the opposition of nobles to the reign of Raziya was that she seemed to be intimate with Yaqut, an Ethiopian slave. According to Isami, a fourteenth century chronicler, Yaqut ‘used to stand by her side when she mounted her horse. With one hand he used to hold her arm and help her to mount her horse … When the grandees of the state noticed the liberties he took openly, they felt scandalised and said to one another privately, “From the way this demon has made himself more powerful in the State than all other servants, it would be no wonder if he found his way to seize the royal seal.”’
The nobles opposing Raziya, according to Isami, grumbled: ‘All women are in the snare of the devil; in privacy, all of them do Satan’s work. No confidence should be placed in women … At no time can faithfulness be expected of women. Faithfulness is masculine; expect it only from men … When passions of a pious woman are inflamed, she concedes to intimacy even with a dog. If a man places confidence in a woman, she makes him a laughing stock. A woman is a source of danger wherever she be, since she is of devilish disposition … A woman cannot acquit herself well as a ruler, for she is essentially deficient in intellect … A woman who seeks pleasure and is at the same time ambitious, can be hardly free from the sway of passion.’
Barani: Balban was a man of ‘fierce temper and implacable resolution.’
According to Cambridge historian Wolseley Haig’s calculation, Ala-ud-din in his Devagiri campaign seized ‘17,250 pounds of gold, 200 pounds of pearls, 58 pounds of other gems, 28,250 pounds of silver, and 1000 pieces of silk.’
