Muhammad-bin-Tughluq

Muhammad bin Tughlaq, was born in 1290 and passed away on March 20, 1351, ruled from February 1325 until his death. He was Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq’s (the Tughlaq dynasty’s founder) eldest son. To wage war against Prataparudra of the Kakatiya dynasty, whose capital was located at Warangal in 1321 and 1323, Ghiyasuddin despatched the young Muhammad to the Deccan. Visitors’ tales of Muhammad during his reign have depicted him as an “inhuman eccentric” with a weird personality; he is alleged to have given the order to murder all the residents of the Hindu city of Kannauj. He’s also renowned for making radical policy changes. After his father’s passing, Muhammad took the throne of Delhi. He was fluent in Persian, Hindavi Arabic, Sanskrit, and Turkish and had a keen interest in medicine. The well-known Moroccan lawyer and traveller Ibn Battuta visited his court while a guest wrote about his suzerainty in his book.

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About Muhammad-bin-Tughluq

Muhammad bin Tughluq was the son of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq (Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq), who established the Tughlaq dynasty after conquering the Delhi Sultanate. Prince Fakhr Malik Jauna Khan and Ulugh Khan are further names for him. Tughluq was a devout Muslim who observed Ramadan fasts and observed his five daily prayers. According to British historian Stanley Lane-Poole, who lived in the 19th century CE, courtesans praised Tughluq as a “man of knowledge” who was interested in Persian, Urdu/Hindustani, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, and religion. He was “perfect in the humanities of his day, a keen student of Persian poetry… a master of style, supremely eloquent in an age of rhetoric, a philosopher trained in Logic and Greek metaphysics, with whom scholars feared to argue, a mathematician and lover of science,” according to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his “Medieval India.” According to Barani, Tughluq wished for his kingdom to uphold the nubuwwah customs.

Despite not holding mystical beliefs, he is regarded as being reverent of the Sufi saints, as shown by the fact that he constructed the mausoleum of the saint Nizamuddin Auliya in Nizamuddin Dargah. Due to the fact that the majority of his experiments failed due to a lack of planning, some have criticised him for being impulsive. Ibn Battuta also chastised him for his excessive gift-giving and “severe penalties,” writing that he relied on his own judgement and infrequently sought other people’s opinions. He became well-known because, anytime he received a present, he would match it three times over to demonstrate his status.

Death of Muhammad-bin-Tughluq

While conducting a war in Sindh against the Taghi, a Turkic slave clan, Muhammad Bin Tughlaq passed away in 1351 while travelling to Thatta, Sindh. The Sultanate of Delhi was overthrown by two-fold resistance during his rule. One was from a group of Rajputs in Mewar led by Hammir Singh, while the other was from South Indian tribes Harihara and Bukka. After winning the Battle of Singoli in 1336, Rana Hammir Singh liberated the strategically important Rajputana, but Harihara and Bukka went on to found the Vijayanagara Empire by first subduing and then overthrowing the Madurai Sultanate, which had been governing a significant portion of South India on behalf of the Delhi Sultanate. The Islamic Sultanate of Delhi was overthrown by a number of other south Indian kings, including Musunuri Kaapaaneedu and others. Tughluq’s problems were made worse when his own generals turned against him. In the Deccan, one of his generals would go on to find the Bahmani Sultanate. Rajputs overcame the Sultan dynasties that emerged after Tughluq notwithstanding their campaigns outside of Delhi.

Ascending to the Throne

Muhammad-bin-Tughluq was Delhi Sultanate‘s eighteenth ruler. In February 1325 CE, Muhammad ibn Tughlaq succeeded to the throne of the Delhi-based Tughlaq dynasty following the passing of his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq. Warangal (in modern-day Telangana), Kayalpatnam, and Madurai (in Tamil Nadu), as well as territories up to the southernmost point of the Indian state of Karnataka, were all subjugated during his rule. Tughluq appointed new revenue officers to examine the economic conditions of the captured areas. Their financial records aided wazir’s office audit.

Robert Sewell cites reports of atrocities committed under Muhammad bin Tughluq’s authority from visitors. According to reports, Muhammad bin Tughluq gave the order to execute all the citizens of the Hindu city of Kanauj. Additionally, he made the 600-mile decision to shift his capital from Delhi to Devagiri before ordering everyone to return to Delhi. Thousands of people perished on the voyage, including women and children. Muhammad bin Tughluq was renowned for his tolerance of various faiths, though. The Jain monk Jinaprabha Suri was honoured by the Sultan in the year 1328, according to several historians. According to Peter Jackson, Muhammad was the only Sultan to take part in Hindu celebrations.

Capital Shift

Tughluq gave the order to relocate his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad, also known as Devagiri, in the Deccan area of India, which is now Maharashtra. During his father’s rule, Muhammad bin Tughlaq himself had spent a number of years as a prince on a campaign in the southern states. Additionally, Daulatabad was strategically located to allow for the administration of both the north and the south. For individuals who had to move to Daulatabad, every amenity was available. It is thought that the majority of Delhi residents opposed moving the base to Daulatabad. The road was made wide for ease of movement.

On both sides of the route, shady trees were planted, and he established rest stops every two miles. Water and food supplies were also provided at the stations. At each of the sites where at least one sufi saint was stationed, Tughluq built a khanqah. There is now a regular mail service between Delhi and Daulatabad. Along with the nobles, his mother travelled to Daulatabad in 1329. Around the same time, Tughluq summoned everyone to the new capital, including slaves, lords, servants, ulema, and sufis. The new capital was divided into mohalla, or wards, with individual quarters for different classes of people, such as soldiers, judges, poets, and nobles. Tughluq also provided the immigrants with grants. The residents expressed discontent despite moving. Many people lost their lives as a result of exhaustion and hunger while travelling. Additionally, coins produced in Daulatabad in 1333 indicated that the city was “the second capital”.

Mabar experienced an uprising in 1334. Tughluq became ill and lost many of his warriors as a result of a bubonic plague outbreak that occurred at Bidar when he was travelling to put an end to the revolt. Tughluq withdrew to Daulatabad, while Mabar and Dwarsamudra eluded his grip. Bengal experienced an uprising after that. In 1335, he made the decision to move the capital back to Delhi, allowing the populace to revert to their own city, out of concern that the sultanate’s northern borders were vulnerable to invasions.

Impact of Capital Shift

While the majority of mediaeval historians, such as Barani and Ibn Battuta, often implied that Delhi had been completely abandoned (Barani is renowned for stating that not a dog or cat remained), it is generally accepted that this is simply an exaggeration. Such inflated accounts just imply that Delhi’s reputation and trade experienced a decline. In addition, it is thought that the only people who experienced troubles were the wealthy and noble. two Sanskrit tablets with dates of 1327 and 1328 C.E. substantiate this viewpoint and demonstrate the affluence of the Hindus in Delhi and the surrounding area at the time.

The Islamic dominance in the Deccan lasted centuries longer than Delhi’s own erratic control over the south, despite the fact that this move was unpopular with the Muslim elite. There wouldn’t have been a stable Muslim authority like the Bahmani empire to restrain the ascent of the Hindu Vijayanagaris if Tughlaq hadn’t established a Muslim elite at Daulatabad.

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Expeditions of Muhammad-bin-Tughluq

Following Genghis Khan’s demise, one line of his ancestors—the Chagatai Khanate—took control of Turkistan and Transoxiana, while another line of Hulagu Khan’s descendants—the Hulagu Khanate—conquered modern-day Iran and Iraq. However, both dynasties were in disarray at the time of Tughlaq, with Transoxiana experiencing unrest with the passing of Tarmashirin. He had grand plans to annexe these kingdoms. He granted them grants and welcomed nobles and rulers from these areas. Tughluq gathered an army of perhaps as many as 370,000 warriors in 1329, with some assistance from them and some from his own realm. According to Barani, Tughluq did not take any action to verify the soldiers’ prowess or the quality of the horses. After keeping them idle for a year, they were paid in advance, and Tughluq found it impossible to pay them.

So in the year 1329 he made the decision to scatter and disband the army. The Qarachil expedition to the Kullu-Kangra region of present-day Himachal Pradesh in India was led by Muhammad Bin Tughlaq in 1333. Tughluq’s original plan, according to historians like Badauni and Ferishta, was to attack China by way of the Himalayas. He encountered opposition in Himachal, though. The army of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq was defeated by Prithvi Chand II of the Hindu Rajput kingdom of the Katoch clan of Kangra because it was unable to battle in the hills. His 100,000 soldiers were nearly all killed, and they were forced to flee.

Token Currency of Muhammad-bin-Tughluq

His mints produced several coins of various sizes and forms, but they lacked the artistic excellence of design and polish, according to historian Ishwari Prasad. Following the failure of his expedition to Deogiri, in 1330, he produced token money in the form of brass and copper coins with a par value with gold and silver coins. Ziauddin Barani, a historian, believed that Tughluq took this action because he planned to acquire every inhabited region in the world, which required a treasury to fund the army. Barani had also claimed that the sultan’s gold-based incentives and gifts had depleted his coffers.

In rural areas, officials like the muqaddams used brass and copper coins to pay taxes and to buy horses and weapons with the same coinage. Because of this, coins lost value and, in Satish Chandra’s words, “were as worthless as stones.” Additionally, it affected trade and business. The use of new coins was marked by inscriptions in Persian and Arabic rather than the royal seal in the token currency, making it impossible for the populace to tell the difference between genuine and counterfeit coins. Records indicate that token currency was no longer in use by 1333 since Ibn Battuta, who arrived in Delhi in 1334 and published a diary, made no mention of it.

Religious Policies of Muhammad-bin-Tughluq

His religious tolerance has been the subject of differing opinions from historians. Peter Jackson notes that Muhammad was the sole Sultan to take part in Hindu celebrations, in contrast to visitors Ibn Battuta, Nunez, and Firistha who claim that Muhammad Bin Tughlaq displayed hostility toward other religions. Ibn Battuta relates that the Yuan Emperor, the monarch of China, sent Muhammad an envoy to arrange for the rebuilding of a temple that had been looted at Sambhal. However, the envoys’ request was rejected with the caveat that only people who resided in Muslim land and had paid the jizya would be allowed to restore a temple. Prior to his administration, idol temples were allegedly permitted to be rebuilt in violation of Sharia law, according to Firuz Shah Tughlaq. The Jain authorities of the time testified to Muhammad’s friendly relationships with the Jains and his continued favouring of the Jain scholars.

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