Administration of the Sultanate

  State and Society

• They call themselves the lieutenant of the Caliph.
• Balban claimed - representative of god on earth.
• Ala-ud-din Khalji claimed absolute power saying he did not care for theological prescriptions, but did what was essential for the good of the state and the benefit of the people.
• iqta’s (called muqtis or walis) - troops for royal service out of the taxes collected by them.
• Khalisa - ares under direct control of Sultans.  (Revenue collected from such areas that they paid the officers and soldiers of the sultan’s own troops (hashm-i qalb).
• Tax rent (half the value of Produce) over a large area.
• Fiscal claims of hereditary intermediaries (Now Chaudhuris). Village headman (khots).
• pressure for larger tax realization provoked a severe agrarian uprising.
• Military campaigns, the dishoarding of wealth, the clearing of forests, the vitality of inter-regional trade.
• Control its increasingly diverse population through its provincial governors, muqti,
• Turko-Afghan political conquests were followed by large- scale Muslim social migrations from Central Asia.
• Personal status of an individual, once converted to Islam. Everyone was treated as equal to everyone in the society.
• Virashaiva or Lingayat sect of Karnataka founded by Basava believed in one God (Parashiva).
• Caste distinctions were denied, women given a better status, and Brahmans could no longer monopolise priesthood.
• Parallel, but less significant, movement in Tamil Nadu was in the compositions of the Siddhars.
• Northern India were namdev of Maharashtra, who opposed image worship and caste distinctions and Ramanand, a follower of Ramanuja.

Economy

• Payment of land tax to the level of rent in cash.
• Irfan Habib’s view, gold and silver mintage alongside copper from early in the thirteenth century and that indicated brisk commerce.
• External trade, both overland and oceanic, grew.

Trade and Urbanization

• Urban has many important towns & Cities.
• Mercantile activities of Jain Marwaris, Hindu Multanis and Muslim Bohras, Khurasanis, Afghans and Iranians.
• Gujaratis and Tamils dominated the sea trade.
• Hindu Multanis and Muslim Khurasanis, Afghans and Iranians dominated the overland trade with Central Asia.

Industrial Expertise

• Paper-making technology - evolved by the Chinese and learnt by the Arabs was introduced in India during the rule of the Delhi Sultans.
• Spinning wheel - by the Chinese came to India through Iran.
• Introduction of treadles in the loom similarly helped speed-up weaving.
• Sericulture in Bengal.
• Building Activity large use of brick and mortar.

Education

• Base was the maktab, where a schoolmaster taught children to read and write.
• Madrasa - more institutionalized form of higher education, establish in central asia.
• Barani’s description it would seem that teaching here was mainly confined to “Quran-commentary, the Prophet’s sayings and the Muslim Law (fiqh).”
• Sikander Lodi (1489-1517) appointed teachers in maktabs and madrasas.

Historiography

• Chachnama (thirteenth-century Persian translation of a ninth-century Arabic original).

Sufism

• 13^th & 14^th Centuries, two most influential orders emerged among the sufis: The Suhrawardi, centred at Multan, and the Chisti at Delhi and other places.
• Most famous Chishti Saint, Shaik Nizamuddin offered a classical exposition of Sufism of pre pantheistic phase in the conversations (1307– 1322).
• Sufism began to turn pantheistic only when the ideas of Ibn al-Arabi (died 1240) began to gain influence, first through the Persian poetry of Jalal-ud-din Rumi (1207-1273) and Abdur Rahman Jami (1414–1492), and, then, through the endeavours within India of Ashraf Jahangir Simnani (early fifteenth century).

Caliph/Caliphate

• The successor of Prophet Muhammad, the Caliph wielded authority over civil and religious affairs of the entire Islamic world.

Caste and Women

• Slavery, Gender inequalities remained practically untouched
• Upper class Muslim society, women had to observe purdah and were secluded in the zenana (the female quarters) without any contact with any men other than their immediate family.
• Muslim women, despite purdah, enjoyed, in certain respects, higher status and greater freedom in society than most Hindu women.
• Muslim women could inherit property from their parents and obtain divorce, privileges that Hindu women did not have.
• Hindu communities, such as among the Rajputs, the birth of a girl child was considered a misfortune. Islam was not against women being taught to read and write. But it tolerated polygamy.

Evolution of Syncretic Culture

• Interaction of the Turks with the Indians had its influence in architecture, fine arts and literature.

Architecture

• Introduced - Arch, dome, vaults and use of lime cement, striking Saracenic features.
• Use of marble, red, grey and yellow sandstones added grandeur to the buildings.
• Qutb-ud-din Aibak’s Quwwat-ul- Islam mosque situated adjacent to Qutb Minar in Delhi and the Adhai din ka Jhopra in Ajmer illustrate these examples.
• A Hindu temple built over a Jain temple was modifie into Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque.
• Adhai din ka Jhopra was earlier a Jain monastery before being converted as a mosque.
• Arch and dome show precision and perfection.
• Tomb of Balban was adorned with the first true arch.
• Alai Darwaza built by Ala-ud-din Khalji as a gateway to the Quwwat ul-Islam Mosque is adorned with the first true dome.
• Palace fortress built by hiyasuddin Tughlaq and Muhammad bin Tughlaq in Tughlaqabad.
• Creating an artificial lake around the fortress by blocking the river Yamuna.
• Tomb of Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq introduced the system of sloping walls bearing the dome on a raised platform.

Sculpture and Painting

• Orthodox Islamic theology – Decorating the building with animal & Human Figure as un-Islamic.
• Plastic exuberance of well-carved images found in the pre-Islamic buildings was replaced by floral and geometrical designs.
• Arabesque, the art of decorating the building with Quranic verses inscribed with calligraphy, emerged to provide splendor to the building.

Music and Dance

• Syncretic tendencies.
• The Sufi practice of Sama, recitation of love poetry to the accompaniment of music, was instrumental in promotion of music.
• Pir Bhodan, a Sufi saint, great musician.
• Firuz Tughlaq - translating an Indian Sanskrit musical work Rag Darpan into Persian
• Dancing also received an impetus in the official court.
• Zia-ud-din Barani lists the names of Nusrat Khatun and Mihr Afroz as musician and dancer respectively in the court of Jalaluddin Khalji.

Literature

• Amir Khusrau emerged as a major figure of Persian prose and poetry.
• Islamic Sufi saints made a deep literary impact.
• A strong school of historical writing emerged with the writings of Zia-ud-din Barani (master of Persian prose), Shams-ud-din Siraj Afif and Abdul Malik Isami (records the history of Muslim rule from Ghaznavid period to Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s reign).
• Persian literature was enriched by the translation of Sanskrit works.
• Farhang-i-Qawas by Fakhr-ud-din Qawwas and Miftah-ul-Fuazala by Muhammad Shadiabadi.
• Tuti Namah, the Book of Parrots, is a collection of Sanskrit stories translated into Persian by Zia Nakshabi.
• Mahabharata and Rajatarangini were also translated into Persian.
• Delhi Sultanate did not hamper the progress of Sanskrit Literature. (Sanskrit: language of high intellectual thoughts).
• Sanskrit school & academies establish in different parts.
• Sanskrit inscription (Pala Baoli) of 1276 in Delhi claims that due to the benign rule of Sultan Balban god Vishnu sleeps in peace in the ocean of milk without any worries.
• Influence of Arabic and Persian on Sanskrit literature.
• Bhattavatara took Firdausi’s Shah Namah as a model for composing Zainavilas, a history of the rulers of Kashmir.