Medieval Sultan With A Healing Touch: How Firoz Shah Tughlaq Worked For A Benevolent Form Of Rule

We often hear of Muslim Sultans of India who performed great deeds for the welfare of their subjects. Alauddin Khilji (reigned 1296 - 1316) introduced reforms around land, tax, market, military and social practices. Sher Shah Suri (reigned 1538 - 1545) is remembered for building roads and caravanserais, introducing currency and preparing land records; and creating security for travelers and traders. However, in between the above mentioned two, there came a Sultan whose name has not been mentioned much in the category of reformist rulers of India, but who, in the words of historian Shyam Churasia was “indiscriminately benevolent and lenient as a sultan.” Sir H. M. Elliot, a British civil servant of 19th-century India and a renowned historian, has labeled him as "(Emperor) Akbar of his time for the benevolence of his character." Indian writers, who are often critical of the Muslim presence in the Subcontinent, tend to write favourably about this Sultan.

This was Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1309-1388) whose career will be traced in this write up.

In writing this piece, the author has relied on three contemporary writers: namely Shams-i-Siraj Afif, Ziauddin Barani and Yahya Sirhindi. The Sultan himself penned a brief account of his reign titled Futuhat-i-Firoz Shahi. All these books were originally written in Persian. They have been translated into English by East India Company functionaries and are available online.

Some historians have even seen him as militarily weak because excepting a few instances, he didn't attempt to regain the areas lost in rebellions, especially in South India and Bengal

Many Turkic slaves had made India their home during the reign of the Slave Dynasty (1206-1290). Firoz Shah was a descendant of one of those slave-rulers. The Tughlaq dynasty was an Indo-Turkic family: many of their scions married Indian women. The founder of the dynasty, Ghiasuddin, married a Jat woman. His younger brother, Malik Rajab, married a Kayasath woman from Dipalpur and this union gave birth to Firoz Shah.

Now, it must be mentioned that Firoz Shah was a reluctant Sultan. At the death of his cousin Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq, who was campaigning in Thatta at the time, the court nobles chose Firoz Shah to take the throne. The Sultan was already 45 years of age and refused to accept this responsibility. He desired to go on a pilgrimage to Makkah, but finally had to relent to save the Sultanate from anarchy.

Firoz Shah ruled India for 37 long years: from May 1351 to September 1388. The actions of his insane predecessor Muhammad bin Tughluq were marked by cruelty and atrocities. Yet Firoz Shah reversed those excesses, to rule in a humane and forward-looking manner. Some historians have even seen him as militarily weak because excepting a few instances, he didn't attempt to regain the areas lost in rebellions, especially in South India and Bengal. He perhaps understood that the causes of these rebellions were unsustainable aggression against other states, unfair taxes on their subjects and barbarous punishments on slight misconduct. Instead he expended his energies and wealth in providing for a better life for his subjects.

Firoz Shah built four cities during his reign. He established a new city, now called Hisar, that was originally named Hisar-e-Firoz or the Citadel of Firoz. The city was built on the ancient road between Dipalpur and Delhi. The road skirted the Rajputana desert and Dipalpur was an important transit point to Bhakkar in the north-west and Multan and Thatta to the south. Firoz Shah first built the citadel surrounding by a ditch. According to the chronicler Afif, the work continued - as would be expected for a large city - for many years. He states that hard stone for construction was brought from the hills of Narsai in Rajputana and was used with quicklime and burnt bricks. Inside the fort, he built a grand palace and some other buildings. Its ruins are now called the Firoz Shah Palace Complex.

Within this Complex lies Lat ki Masjid with a tall obelisk. This pillar is the upper portion of one of ancient emperor Asoka's pillars, whose lower portion still lies at Fatahabad in Haryana. The pillar has few lines inscribed on its upper and lower portions in Mauryan Brahmani script.

To provide water to the city, the Sultan built two canals, one from the Jumna called Rajiva, and the other from the Sutlej called Alagkhani. They discharged their water in the vicinity of the town. He planted trees and fruit orchards in the area. Before the canal were built , the wheat crop in the region has been uncertain, but with the canal waters, a bumper crop was harvested.

Firoz Shah built many other canals. Indian website jagranjosh.com lists four such canals, which are Yamuna to the city of Hissar, Sutlej to Ghaggar, Ghaggar to Firozabad and Mandvi Hills to Hansi in Haryana.
Firoz Shah built a 'new Delhi' - then called Firozabad but now known as Firoz Shah Kotla, after the large fort built by the Sultan. The city was built north of Tughlaqabad, the Delhi of his time and between the Connaught Place built by the British and the Yamuna River. Afif writes that the town had a fort called Firoz Shah Kotla with a mosque and a large baoli or a stepped water well. So many buildings were constructed here that along a stretch of some 8-10 km, no land was left unused. The town had eight public mosques and one private mosque, each with a capacity of ten thousand worshipers. In the fort still stands a tall Asokan pillar that the Sultan found in Haryana. Transportation of the giant pillar and its erection were engineering feats. The pillars carried inscriptions in Brahmani language that was deciphered in 1837.

He wrote the following couplet on the subject:
"Better a people's wealth than treasures vast,
Better an empty chest than hearts downcast."

The list of buildings that he repaired or recovered from deterioration is long and has been meticulously recorded by the Sultan in his autobiography. He wrote that he built many mosques, madrassahs and monasteries. He repaired the tombs of Sultans Muhammad Ghauri, Iltamash, Mu'izzuddin and Rukun'uddin of the Slave dynasty, Jalaluddin, Alau'ddin and Kutub'uddin of Khilji dynasty, as well as the great mystic Shaikh Nizam'uddin Aulia, and many more. The madrassah of Sultan Iltutmish was rebuilt and furnished with sandal-wood. Water storages built by sultans Iltutmish and Alauddin had deteriorated and were restored. The fortifications of Delhi were repaired. He granted endowments for establishing suitable buildings for the travelers and holy men. He established a Dar-ul-Shifa (hospital) where every sick person was treated without any distinction.

Firoz Shah abolished a number of cruel and inhuman punishments. In this process, he forbade such punishments as the amputation of hands and feet, ears and noses; tearing out of the eyes, pouring molten lead into the throat, crushing the bones of the hands and feet with mallets, burning the body with fire, driving iron nails into the hands, feet and bosom, cutting the sinews and sawing men into pieces. Sultan discontinued all these punishments and replaced them with, in his words, "tenderness, kindness and mercy."
This was done at a time when neither Europe nor Asia had models of governance known for mercy: from medieval Europe to the Mongol domains.

Firoz Shah discontinued many unfair taxes. He wrote, "In former reigns they used to collect frivolous, unlawful, and unjust cesses at the public treasury. [...] I had all these abolished and removed from the accounts."

He wrote the following couplet on the subject:
"Better a people's wealth than treasures vast,
Better an empty chest than hearts downcast."

He declared that only kharaj or one tenth of crops, zakat or alms on Muslims, jizya or poll tax on Hindus and khums or one fifth of the produce of mines be collected. Besides these he levied irrigation tax for the water supplies that he constructed, and octroi tax for the internal trade. No other tax was received in the public treasury. In cases where property or land had been wrested by previous rulers from lawful owners, Firoz Shah allowed such persons to seek redress from courts.

Firoz Shah ended his autobiography with this sentence:

"Men will be judged according to their works, and rewarded for the good that they have done."

He certainly had his eyes on history. And history has judged him kindly for the good he did. Therein lies a lesson for all those who are trusted with power, in whatever capacity.

 

The author retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on social and historical issues. He can be reached at: parvezmahmood53@gmail.com