0670087181 (N) by Abraham Eraly

Author:Abraham Eraly [Eraly, Abraham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, historical
ISBN: 9789351186588
Google: vyEoAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2014-04-14T18:30:00+00:00

Unfortunately, this humane undertaking was not kept up by Muhammad’s successors, or by the Vijayanagar rajas. Pillaging and slaughtering the common people wantonly was the routine rather than the exception in medieval Indian wars, and neither Bahmani nor Vijayanagar would ever altogether cease committing such excesses.

Muhammad himself however maintained peace in the latter years of his reign. His focus during this period was on improving the administration of the Sultanate and on promoting culture. He made several changes in the administrative system of the Sultanate, and gave his provincial governors a great amount of autonomy, but ensured their discipline and subordination by regularly touring through the provinces. He also took care to improve the law and order in the state, and is said to have secured its roads by executing some 20,000 brigands. In the field of culture, Muhammad’s patronage turned Gulbarga into a major centre of culture and learning in India. And it was under his patronage that Deccani architecture acquired its distinctive style, as in the great mosque he built in Gulbarga.

Muhammad died in 1375, and was buried beside his father. ‘He was,’ comments Ferishta, ‘respected in his life, and after his death remembered on account of his virtues.’ And on his tomb was engraved this solacing aphorism: ‘All is vanity!’

MUHAMMAD WAS SUCCEEDED by his son Ala-ud-din Mujahid, a handsome man of awesome physical prowess. But he was ill-fated, for after a brief reign of three years he was assassinated by his cousin Daud, who then ascended the throne. But Daud himself was assassinated within a few weeks by Ala-ud-din’s partisans, who then raised Daud’s brother, Muhammad, to the throne. The reign of Muhammad II was largely peaceful and lasted nineteen years. He was a rather unusual ruler for that age and place, for he was a learned man—lauded as an Aristotle by his courtiers—and a man of peace and culture, who showed a genuine concern for the welfare of his subjects, such as providing famine relief—though only for Muslims—and by establishing several orphanages and free schools.

Muhammad II was succeeded by his eldest son Ghiyas-ud-din, a seventeen-year-old youth, but he was blinded and overthrown within two months by Tughalchin, the chief of the Turkish slaves in the royal service, who then raised the sultan’s younger brother Shams-ud-din to the throne. But the arrangement lasted only five months, as the new sultan in turn was blinded and overthrown by his cousin Firuz Shah, who then ascended the throne.

The quarter-century-long reign of Firuz was the most engaging period in the history of the Bahmani Sultanate. Firuz, like his uncle Muhammad II, was a highly cultured, talented and liberal monarch. He was a linguist and a gifted calligrapher, and a keen and knowledgeable patron of literature, art and music, who delighted in the company of writers and intellectuals. A keen student of astronomy, he had to his credit the building of a major observatory near Daulatabad.

According to medieval chronicler Tabataba, Firuz was ‘a good, just, generous king, who supported himself by

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