The Sultan was ambling his way towards death in one fit T of helpless fury at a time. In all probability, the sultan merely suspected that the illness that had seized him this time would pass, too. He was, after all, the Shah, the Upholder of the Deen, The Only True Faith in the world, the sultan who had known no defeat, who had 'conquered the east and protect[ed] the west', who had been honoured by none less than the mighty Chief of the Abbasids, and more importantly, he was the One who had 'destroyed the country of the sun-worshippers'. Wherever his sword had been raised, such far-flung, powerful kingdoms like those at Kara², Ujjain, Ranthambhor, Chittorgarh, Deogiri³, Dhur Samundar and Madura met the same fate as that of the 'garden of Behar', whose soil was 'dyed with blood as red as a tulip', and everywhere the ravaging sultan went, the 'Hindus, in alarm, descended into the earth like ants."
There was really no cause for alarm.
After all, just three years ago, the sultan's realm had witnessed grand regal celebrations on two occasions befitting this grandeur. His eldest son had been married within the family, and then he was declared the sultan's successor. His vassals had dutifully signed on a royal bond signalling their assent. More joy followed. His favourite general and intimate consort of at least two decades had brutally crushed the infernal infidel rebel at Deogiri and dispatched a massive booty of elephants, gold and slaves.
It appeared that the sultan's sweeping dominions remained intact and firmly in his iron-like thrall. The succession plan was in place. The rebels were thoroughly vanquished recently. And this accursed illness would be fleeting as before: indeed, what malady would dare touch this Shah destined for explicit immortality??
But something else had also occurred in the last three or four years. The sultan's razor-sharp instinct and innate capacity for near-infallible decision-making had deserted him, a fact that his fast-depleting faculties made him unaware of. His decisions began to culminate in blunders-again, something that he was unaware of. He had fired from service almost all his trusted advisors and officials who had stood unflinchingly by his side throughout his career. When a subversive plot hatched by the wretched neo-Muslims was discovered, he instantly ordered their merciless slaughter: twenty or thirty thousand were massacred in a single day, the majority of them innocent of the plot. His unpopularity soared. His once-formidable court was now completely transformed into a wanton den of debauchery; it had become the butt of jokes, and his vast empire was sitting on a powder keg of ceaseless intrigue among those closest to him. Increasingly, his commands were merely listened to, not obeyed. In those sporadic moments of mental clarity, the sultan, for a fleeting moment, would realize what was happening around him. His favourite queen had at last revealed her true colours, indifferent to his horrible suffering. Three years after the pomp, three years too late, he realised that he had appointed a thorough weakling as his successor. And so, as it must, his empire began to splinter and disintegrate, his entire life's work coming apart before his own eyes like a majestic royal brocade slowly coming apart one thread at a time, even as he lay on his imperial bed exhausted and frail and descending slowly into furious insanity.
For succor he turned, as he had always done, to his most loyal Vazir Hazardinari, constantly whining to him about the ingratitude of his queen and his sons and everybody he had nourished and made powerful and prosperous. A sultan whose entire life had been characterised and driven by an insatiable ambition, to attain which he had committed unprecedented savagery backed by religious sanction, had now become a fatalist. And a feeble puppet in the hands of this same Vazir Hazardinari who patiently ministered his every intimate need in that sprawling palace and fort at Siri.
Everybody except the sultan himself knew that he was dying and with him, an extraordinarily savage political career of an unlettered mercenary. A career which had, in a way, begun when he had pulled down a chieftain of Turkish descent from his horse and beheaded him.
The Great Mughal is a foreigner in Hindustan. To maintain himself in such a country he is under the necessity of keeping up numerous armies, even in the time of peace.
François Bernier
In the late 18th century, Tipu Sultan, one of the last Muslim Ind Irulers to command a significant kingdom in southern India, wrote frequent, anxious letters to the Caliph, inviting him to invade India and aid him in his fight against the infidel Christians, the British. The underlying significance of all such correspondences is a historical theme that has remained constant from the day the alien invading forces of Islam began their forays into Bharatavarsha, looking for favour, approval and endorsement of their authority in this country from a transnational religious imperialism. With the extinction of the Caliphate in the early years of the 20th century, this religio-imperialist power centre eventually shifted to Saudi Arabia. The most recent, prominent and proximate evidence of this historical phenomenon is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which has been consistent in currying favour with and seeking the approval of Saudi Arabia over the last four decades. As the saying goes, the more history changes, the more it remains the same. Sindh, the region where the first Islamic incursions into Bharatavarsha began, wholly belongs to Pakistan today.
The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.... The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India's boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years India invited conquest; and at last it came.'
This work deals primarily with some major themes in the political and military history of the period that begins when the conquest mentioned by Will Durant actually came to Bharatavarsha and ends with Babur's invasion of Hindustan, covering the period of the Delhi Sultanate that was in power for three hundred and twenty years. It is spread over five volumes offering a contiguous narrative. However, each volume can also be read as a standalone work.
Hindu (935)
Agriculture (118)
Ancient (1086)
Archaeology (753)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (910)
Biography (702)
Buddhist (544)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (565)
Islam (242)
Jainism (307)
Literary (896)
Mahatma Gandhi (372)
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