Tughlaq Quotes

The foundations built by Akbar and those after him were still strong but Aurangzeb committed the ultimate sin—he stayed on the throne too long. He was ninety by the time he died in 1707! Just as it happened with Ashoka and Feroze Shah Tughlaq

No, young man, I don't envy you or your youth. All that you have to face and suffer is still ahead of you.

But do you know, you can love a city like a woman? My old father had lived in Delhi all his life. He died of a broken heart.

Conversions One important mission of Islam was to spread throughout the world. The Quran, the Hadis, the Hidaya and the Sirat-un-Nabi, the four all important works of Islam, direct the faithful to fulfill the above task. Therefore, ‘there was never any doubt in the minds of the Muslims of their right to spread over the earth  The Hidayah is quite explicit about the legality of jihad (holy war) against infidels even when they have not taken the offensive  The Muslim Turks found the moral justification for their advance into India in the induction to propagate Islam. As this could not, in the opinion of kings and warriors, be achieved without the subjugation of non-Muslims and occupation of their territory, the propagation of Islam became identical with war and conquest.’[85] In simple language, conquerors and rulers converted people by force. It has been seen that during the Arab invasion of Sind and the expeditions of Mahmud of Ghazni, defeated rulers, garrisons of captured forts, and civilian population were often forced to accept Islam. Turkish rule in Hindustan was established in the teeth of Rajput opposition and the process of war and conversion never ceased. Malik Kafur, the general of Alauddin Khalji, gave the Raja of Dwarsamudra a choice between Islam, death or payment of a huge idemnity.[86] But under Muhammad bin Tughlaq there is greater insistence on the vanquished Hindu princes to embrace Islam. The most glaring example of this is that during the Warangal campaign all the eleven sons of the Raja of Kampila were made Muslims. Muhammad bin Tughlaq converted many people in this fashion. When Firoz Tughlaq invaded Jajnagar (Orissa), he captured the son of the Rai of Sikhar, converted him to Islam, and gave him the name of Shakr Khan.[87]

The process of enslavement during war went on under the Khaljis and the Tughlaqs. Alauddin had 50,000 slaves[98] some of whom were mere boys,[99] and surely many captured during war. Firoz Tughlaq had issued an order that whichever places were sacked, in them the captives should be sorted out and the best ones (fit for service with the Sultan) should be forwarded to the court.[100] Soon he was enabled to collect 180,000 slaves.[101] Ziyauddin Barani’s description of the Slave Market in Delhi (such markets were there in other places also) during the reign of Alauddin Khalji, shows that fresh batches of slaves were constantly replenishing them.[102] Muhammad bin Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving women, and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide, so that Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas writes about him thus: ‘The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon the infidels  Everyday thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners.’[103] Ibn Battuta’s eyewitness account of the Sultan’s arranging the enslaved girls’ marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids, confirms the statement of Abbas.[104] Such was their influx that Ibn Battuta writes: ‘At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Vazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.’[105] Thousands of non-Muslim women[106] were captured in the minor yearly campaigns[107][108] of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the Id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor.[109] In short the inflow of such captives never ceased, and it need hardly be stated that in the hands of their Muslim masters the slaves, whether captured or purchased, became Musalman sooner or later.

The numbers thus captured and converted during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries cannot be ascertained. But from the details given by the chroniclers, it appears that enslavement during war brought the largest number of converts and, as years passed by, they and their progency seem to have formed the bulk of the Muslim population. Only two instances may suffice to show how this agency contributed to the rapid rise of Muslim numbers. Bashir Sultani was originally a Hindu slave. He converted to Islam and became an important nobleman (Imadul Mulk) under Firoz Tughlaq. He purchased 4,000 slaves.[110] Later on they were all manumitted and married, and could have produced other thousands of Muslims in a single generation. Khan-i-Jahan Maqbul too was originally a Hindu. He converted, became Prime Minister, and collected 2,000 women in his harem. How many slaves he had is not known, but for such a high dignitary’s household of two thousand, at least a few thousand slaves would have been required. The point to note is that all these women and slaves, if not originally Muslim, would have embraced Islam in course of time.