The Medieval History Journal

http://mhj.sagepub.com/

Ziya Barani's Vision of the State

Irfan Habib
The Medieval History Journal 1999 2: 19
DOI: 10.1177/097194589900200102

The online version of this article can be found at:

http://mhj.sagepub.com/content/2/1/19

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for The Medieval History Journal can be found at:

Email Alerts: http://mhj.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

Subscriptions: http://mhj.sagepub.com/subscriptions

Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

>> Version of Record - Apr 1, 1999

What is This?

Downloaded from mhj.sagepub.com at University of Texas Libraries on October 1, 2013

 Ziyā Baranī’s Vision of the State

Irfan Habib*

ā Barani, born in a family of scholars and petty officials, had risen to
Ziy
be confidant of Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq of Delhi (r. A.D. 1324-
1351), only to spend the last few years of life in abject poverty. In these
years he wrote his most important historical texts, with a clear perspec-
tive of what the state should do: it should govern through the exercise
of pomp, preserve the exclusiveness of the ruling class by barring admit-
tance to any low-born persons, Muslim or Hindu, and avoid the com-
pany of rationalists. Within the ruling class, Baran
advocates restraint
ī
in the use of violence, aware that it results in cyclic displacement of
noble families and dynasties, and undermines the stability of the state.
He was sad that real history often defied his perspective.

Barani has been much studied and commented upon as a historian,

and since the work of Mohammad Habib and Afsar Khan in the
1950s, his position as a political theorist has also been recognised.1
The following pages, therefore, represent the re-visiting of explored
ground; but such verification always performs a service, even when it
merely confirms what was previously known, and therefore, one may
proceed to one’s task without a long apology. I begin with a brief
reconstruction of Barani’s life, and then go on to analyse his political
ideas.
1 Mohammad Habib and Afsar Khan
(eds), The Political Theory of the Delhi Sul-
tanate, Allahabad, n.d.
*
Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202 002, India.
20

Ziya Barani2 was born in 1285, presumably at Baran (modern

Bulandshahr, south-east of Delhi), in a family of scholars and offi-
cials. Until his father’s time he could claim for his father Mu’aiyadu’l
Mulk no more than a respectable status (shari!).3 But Mu’aiyadu’l
Mulk married the daughter of an official of some importance, Sipah-
sdldr Husdmu’ddin, who rose to be the wakii-i dar (chamberlain) of
Malik Bektars, the Bdrbak (court master) of Sultan Balban (r. 1266-
86), and subsequently the police chief (shahna) of Lakhnauti during
Balban’s expedition to Bengal.4 Mu’aiyadu’l Mulk himself became
nd’ib (deputy) to Prince Arkali _Khan, son of Sultan jaldlu’ddin Khalji
(r. 1290-1296),5 and, under ’Ald’u’ddin Khalji (r. 1296-1316), the
officer-in-charge (n£’ib-o-khw3ja) of Baran.6Barani’s paternal uncle,
’Ald’u’l Mulk occupied a high position in the counsels of Sultan
’Ald’u’ddin, having taken part in his plot to assassinate jaldlu’ddin
and seize the throne. Upon the success of the plot, ’Ala’u’l Mulk was
rewarded with the governorship of Kara and Awadh, and then the
office of police chief (kotwdl) of Delhi, but he died early in the new
Sultan’s reign.’7
2 I write
Ziyā Barani because he uniformly calls himself thus. But Ziyā’uddīn Baranī
would be equally legitimate; this is how he would have been called by others. Amīr
wurd accordingly styles him Ziyāu’l Millat wu’ddīn; cf. ā
Kh Siyaru’l Auliy Delhi, A.H.
’,
1302: 312-13. Apparently, the custom of the time inhibited one from using the full
name, which would sound pretentious from one’s own lips (Ziyā’u’ddīn meaning
’Light of the Faith’). Baranī’s own precursor in the narration of the history of the Delhi
Sultanate, the author of the Tabaq t-i sir
ā ā ed. ’Abdu’l Hai Habibi, vol. 1, Kabul,
N
,
ī
1963: 6, 64, 127, etc., calls himself Minhāj [-i] Sirāj, but Baranī, ’ri
ā ,
T
-i
kh F
&
h
ā
roz-sh
imacr;
ed. Saiyid Ahmad Khan, W Nassau Lees and Kabir al-Din, Bib. Ind., Calcutta, 1860-
62, pp. 20-21, calls him Minhāju’ddīn Sirāj, as did, much earlier (A.D. 1320), Shai kh
Nizāmu’ddīn in his conversations recorded by Amīr Hasan Sijzi, Faw ’idu’l Fu’
ā d, ed.
ā
Muhammad Latif Malik, Lahore, 1966: 396). My insistence on Ziyā Baranā being the
only correct form in my’Barani’s Theory of the Delhi Sultanate’, The Indian Historical
vol. 7 (1-2), 1980-81: 99, fn. 1, was therefore a piece of misplaced pedantry.
Review,
3 Baranī’s date of birth is established
by his statements in ’rā 573. On p. 350,
T
:
kh
ī
Barani says his ’father was sharif’, being a daughter’s son of Saiyid Jalālu’ddīn, one of
’the leading and eminent Saiyids of Kaithal’.
Ibid.: 42, 60-61, 87, 119, for Baranī’s ’maternal grandfather,’ Husāmu’ddīn’s
4
position as wakil-i dar, p. 87, also for his appointment at Lakhnauti.
5 Ibid.:
209; at that time, Barani, who was in his boyhood, used to visit the mystic
Saiyidi Maulā, later executed on suspicion of having engaged in a conspiracy against
the Sultan (pp. 209-12).
Ibid.: 248, where Barani also comes round to giving the name (or title?) of his
6
father (Mu’aiyadu’l Mulk).
7 Ibid.:
222, 236-37, 248, 250. ’Alā’u’l Mulk is represented by Barani as an important
aljī (especially pp. 264-71). He was among those
and honest counsellor of ’Alā’uddīn Kh
officers of the Sultan who died within the first three or four years of the reign (p. 336).
 21

Barani himself, as we can see from his writings, received a very

extensive education in Arabic and Persian; he was well-trained in
Muslim theology and deeply read in history. He had begun writing
’out-of-the common’ (g_harib) tracts which he used to show to
Khwaja Karimu’ddin at Ghiytxplir in Delhi, in Shaikh N*zdm’uddin’s
lifetime (i.e., before 1325).8 Barani, in his (later?) work Hasrat-
ndma, claimed that he had obtained such proximity to Shaikh Nlzd-
mu’ddin, the most influential mystic of the time, that he was one of
the three to be summoned by the Shaikh after his humiliation at a
debate (mahzar) organised by Sultan _Ghiyasu’ddin Tughluq (r.1320-
1324), the other two being Muhyiu’ddin Kashani and the famous
poet Amir _Khusrau.9 Barani also asserts in his Td’rikh that he had
such close relations ’for years’ with the two leading poets of
’Ala’u’ddin Khalji’s time, Amir _Khusrau and Amir Hasan, that the
three were inseparable, he himself being the instrument in drawing
the two ’masters’ together.10 All this indicates that by the time of
Muhammad Tu~luq’s accession (A.D. 1324), Barani had acquired a
certain position in the scholarly and theological circles of Delhi.
However, despite such status and his own family’s links with the
bureaucracy, a government appointment yet eluded him. This delay
in achieving a suitable office could be one of the reasons for Barani’s
deep sense of bitterness against low-born upstarts competing for
office with men from established families. At last, in 1334-1335,
when he must have been nearly fifty, he caught the eye of Sultan
Muhammad Tughluq (r.1324-1351), so that he now became ’a
servant of the court’ (muldzim-1 dargäh), serving the Sultan as an aide
or companion (mu9arrab) continuously, till the end of his reign.’1

8Amir Kh ’: 315. The author’s father knew Barani

wurd, Siyaru’l Auliy
ā and is
given the credit of introducing him to Shai
kh Nizāmu’ddīn (pp. 312-13).
9 The Hasrat-nama is not extant, but it is cited for the information here given in the
Siyaru’l Auliyd’, pp. 313, 531-32. A passage from the Hasrat-nma, narrating a con-
ā
versation with Shai
kh Nizāmu’ddīn is quoted in extenso in ’Abdu’l Haqq, ru’l
k
&A
b
amacr;
h
k
&A
y
r, h ed. ’Abdu’l Ahad, Delhi, A.H. 1332: 103-5; it is professedly derived from the
amacr;
, where, however, at least in the printed edition, it is not found.
Siyaru’l Auliy
ā
10
Barani, r’r
ā 360.
T
:
kh
ī
11 Ibid.:
466-67, 497, 504, 516-17. According to Amir Kh wurd, he became the
nadim (companion, confidant) of the Sultan ā Siyaru’l Auliy 313). It was apparently
(
’:
in this capacity that he was deputed, along with Prince Fīroz, to deliver 100,000 -
tankas to kh
Shai Qutbu’ddīn Munawwar (
ibid.: 251-55).
22

Seventeen years as a courtier gave Barani an unrivalled proximity to

that brilliant and despotic sovereign, and an opportunity to learn
how monarchy functioned, though he was to mourn later that, as one
of a set of scholar-courtiers, he remained a pliant yes-man. 12
Muhammad Tughluq’s death and the enthronement of his cousin
Firoz brought about an irredeemable fall in Barani’s fortunes. He
was dismissed, and ’fell among a host of perils’, barely escaping exe-

cution.13 He was imprisoned in the fort of Bhatnair for five months. 14

Upon his release he was left penniless, and fell into abject poverty,15 a
condition which engendered in him not spiritual contentment (as
alleged in the Siyaru’lAuliy d’), 16 but a sentiment of inner resentment.
He had failed in the realm of religion, as also the world: nothing but
regret (~asrat) remained. 17
It was in this phase that Barani appears to have written his major
works. They fall into two obvious categories: the first of a purely reli-
gious character-the Sahifa-i Na’t-i Muhammadi, in devotion to
the Prophet, was composed when, according to the preface, the
author had completed 70 years of age (1353-1354), and had an
anxious urge to do something to face the reckoning at the Day of

12
Being one of those ’who had learnt to distinguish black and white, had a share of
sharaf comes, (but) had committed hypocrisy out
learning from which respectability )
(
of worldly greed and ambition, and had become close ) muqarrab to the Sultan’; ibid.:
(
466.
.
557
Ibid.:
13
14
Baranī in Sah
fa-i ’t-i
ī , Riza Library, Rampur, mss; Baranī, ’ri
ā Muhammad
N ī ā
T
:
kh
vol.
127,
Medieval quoted 3(3-4),India
by Mohammad Quarterly,1958: Habib, 242.
ā 544, where Barani refers to his presence in the fort of Bhatnair
Cf. Baranī, ’r
T
:
kh
ī
after Firoz’s accession. In the light of these facts, Amir Kh wurd’s statement that
Barani voluntarily vacated his position upon the death of Sultan Muhammad, in
lieu of a pension yaht
ā from Sultan Firoz (
m
(
)
j
ā Siyaru’l Auliy
’: 313) is hardly to
ā
be credited; cf. Mohammad Habib, Medieval India Quarterly, vol. 3 (3-4), 1958:
243.
15 His own statements in the
ā 165, 204-5, 466-67, 548—how he was old,
T
:
kh
ī
’r
toothless, he had nothing left, no one would give him even a loan, etc. Amir Khwurd,
who might have witnessed the event, says that at the time of his death, ’he did not have
ā on him; he did not even have clothes for his body; on his bier
a penny m-o-d
d
(
)
ng
ā
there was just one coverlet above, and one mat [below]’; Siyaru’l Auliy
’: 313.
ā
16 Ibid.
17
ā 200-201; also, practically all the statements on the pages of this
Barani, ’r
T
:
kh
ī
work cited in fn. 14, supra.
 23

Judgement From what we know from references to it by Amir

Khwurd and ’Abdu’l Haqq, Barani’s Hasrat-ndma dealt with jlific
matters, including reminiscences of Shaikh Nizdmu’ddin Auliya’9
(unluckily, it is not extant). To this class also belonged, to judge
by their titles, the Saldt-I Kabir, ’Indyat-ndma-Z Ildhi, and Maiisir-I
Sdddt, mentioned by Amir Khwurd, as having been written after
Barani’s retirement from worldly affairs. 20
But Barani wrote prolifically in another sphere too: the worldly
one. What was possibly his first work after retirement was frankly

designed to win back Sultan Firoz’s favour. This was the Akbbdr-I
Barmakiydn. Professedly translated from Arabic writings of Abu’1
Qdsim Tdlfi and Abu Muhammad ‘Abdu’llah about the famous fam-
ily of ’Abbdsid viziers, the work was dedicated to Sultan Firoz. 21
Apparently with the same intention, Barani began writing his great
history, the Td’rikb-I Firoz-shdhi. Simon Digby was the first to iden-
tify an earlier version of this work ;22 the existence of this version may
well explain a statement that Barani makes at the end of his long
chapter on Balban: the present Sultan (Firoz) was well-versed in his-
tory, but, though Barani had named his history after him, he could
not even obtain the felicity of presenting it to him.23 Barani must be
referring here to the earlier version. By the time that he completed
the final version (758/1357),24 the hope of reaching Firoz and getting
his attention had definitely been lost. It is therefore likely-though
this needs to be confirmed by careful collation of the two versions-
that, at least for the period before Firoz Tughluq’s accession, the final
version is more free and frank, and less concerned with what Firoz’s

18 S. Nurul Hasan ’Sahifa-i-Nat-i-Muhammadi of Zia-ud-din

Barani’, Medieval
India Quarterly, vol. 1 (3-4), 1950: 100. This work is probably identical with the
i-i Muhammadi mentioned in Siy
ā
San ā ’, p. 313.
ru’l Auliy
ā
19
ru’l Auliy
ā
Siy ’: 313, 531-32; r:
ā k
A
b
ru’l
&
y
khamacr; h A 103-5.
20
ā
Siy ’: 313.
ru’l Auliy
ā
21 The work is described
by Charles Rieu in his Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in
the British Museum, I, p. 333b, and Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish,
Hindustani and Pushtu Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Cols. 161-62. C.A.
Storey, Persian Literature, a Bio-bibliographical Survey, vol. 1, ii, London, 1953,
p. 1082, & n., treats the work as undated, pointing out that Ethé’s date for it is based
on error. It has been printed, Bombay, 1889 (also other and earlier editions).
22 War-horse and
Flephant in the Delhi Sultanate, London, 1971: 83 (’BTFS’,
’BTFSA’ and ’BTFSB’).
23
Barani, ’ri
ā 125.
T
:
kh
24 Ibid.: 23.
24

court-circle would approve, than was the earlier one.25 Since the
Ti’rikh-I Firoz-shdhi is a major vehicle for the expression of Barani’s
political thought, it is important to remember that whatever Barani
says in the Ti’rikh (except in the last short portion) is probably with-
out any mental reference to the issue of pleasing or displeasing the
current regime.
Finally, among the mass of Barani’s worldly writings is the large,
repetitive and verbose work, the Fatdwd-i Jahdnddri (Opinions on
Government).26 Neither in the short preface nor in the Epilogue
(defective at the end), does Barani explicitly indicate the date. He
calls himself a ’well-wisher of the Sultan’s Court’ (du’ä-goy’i dargib-i
Sultdni), 27 but does not mention the Sultan’s name. If the reference to
his having become ’extremely indigent, helpless and perplexed’ (in
an impassioned prayer to God)z8 is to be treated literally, the work

should be taken to belong to the last phase of Barani’s life. And if the
absence of any reference to Sultan Firoz by name is to be taken to
mean that no hope of any relief from the throne now remained, one

may suppose it to have been composed after the Td’rikb-I Firoz-shdhi

had been completed-a conclusion, which Mohammad Habib also
drew from the impression of the author’s declining powers that the
work gave him
For what Barani says about polity and society, his biography may
well set much of the context. He was a theologian and man of culture

25
ā 16, has probably this in mind when he says that though the histo-
Baranī, ’r
T
:
kh
ī
rian ’out of fear and dread’ might not be able to speak the truth about contemporary
times even in an apologetic form )’, ma’zirate he should be free and truthful about the
(
past.
26 This work survives
only in a single MS (1.0 1149=Ethe, i, 2563) in the Oriental
and India Office Collections, London. I have used a rotograph copy of this MS, in the
Centre of Advanced Study in History Library, Aligarh Muslim University.
An abridged translation of this work by Afsar Begam (Afsar Umar Salim Khan)
was published in Medieval India Quarterly, vol. 3 (1-2), 1957: 13-87, and vol. 3 (3-

4), 1958: 151-96, and then, combined with an introduction and epilogue by
Mohammad Habib ’Life and Thought of Ziāuddīn Baranī’, Medieval India Quarterly,
vol. 3 (1-2), 1957: 1-12 and vol. 3 (3-4), 1958: 197-252, it was issued as The Politi-
cal Theory of the Delhi Sultanate, Allahabad, n.d. The translation is a pioneering work
and, despite its large omissions and some inaccuracies and unevenness in annotation,
has done good service in bringing Baranī’s ā
w
Fat
-i
&
r
ndamacr;
imacr; Jah to public attention.
27 F. 1b. Not
goy-i ,
ā
du’ ī ’royal chaplain’, as in Ethé’s Catalogue, vol. I,
n
ā
Sult
Col. 1377 (No. 2563).
28
F. 246a.
29 Medieval
India Quarterly, vol. 3 (1-2), 1957: 11 (’probably his last work’).
 25

in the Perso-Islamic mould; he had known a Sultan closely for 17

years; he had moved in circles where political events and administra-
tive matters formed the fabric of daily discourse; and now, all of a
sudden, in his old age, he had been removed from his position of
dignity and status. He had known the system first-hand; his personal
tragedy not only embittered him (despite the solace sought through
pious works) but also incited him to locate the defects in the system
in which this could occur. He constructed a theory of the history of
the Delhi Sultanate in the Td’rikh-I Firoz-shdhi to show how internal
contradictions dogged the Sultanate’s course, bringing about in
recurring cycles, the fall of established ruling groups.3° In the
Fatiiwii-i jahiindiirï, which is constructed in the style of the ’Mirror-
for-Princes’ books in Arabic literature,3’ Barani clearly seeks to
advise rulers (in the guise of Mahmid addressing the fictitious ’sons
of Mahmud’) how they should act to prevent, confront or resolve the
essential problems of the polity he had lived under.
Here a word of caution may be in order. Barani makes certain
statements explicitly or implicitly as embodying his own opinions; he
is here, by and large, fairly consistent. But most often, he makes his
historical characters discourse on political questions: they speak, 12
mostly in terms suitable to their reputations. The particular opinions
ascribed to such figures are probably, but need not in every case be
those of Barani himself. In the Fatdwd-i Jahdnddri, Mabmid of
Ghaznin gives opinions such as a great crusader of the faith might be
expected to offer.;3 Sultan Balban, a sovereign of a totally different
stamp, becomes (in the Td’rikh-I Firoz-shdhi) the vehicle for a series
of statements on similar matters that are not always identical in

30 I have attempted to reconstruct the theory in my ’Barani’s Theory’: 99-115.

31 On this genre of literature see Erwin I.J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval
Islam: An Introductory Outline, Cambridge, 1962, pp. 67-83.
32 As
especially Mahmud in , ā passim, or Balban in ’ri
w
ā
Fat ā 31-58, 82-97.
T
:
kh
33
Baranī, of course, never intended it to be understood that he had obtained the
actual texts of Mahmud’s conversations. The picture he had of Mahmud, and which
he expected the reader to share, might not be historically justifiable in many particu-
lars. Cf. Mohammad Habib, in Medieval India Quarterly, vol. 2 (1-2), 1957: 3,
indeed, pronounces Baranī’s ignorance of the real Mahmud as ’appalling’, the picture
that he offers of Mahmud is certainly consonant with the one his contemporary ’Isāmī
(A.D.1350), draws in his metrical history, the Futhu-s Salat n, ed. A.S. Usha, Madras,
ī
1948: 34-61.
26

thrust or emphasis with those ascribed to Mahmud.34 Barani does not

cite any earlier text on political institutions or law, and he implies no
knowledge or reading of either al-Mdwardi (974-1058) or Nlzdmu’l
Mulk Tusi (1018-92), or of the opinions they offers
As the title of Barani’s tract Fatäwä-i jahändärï shows, his concern
is with the entire matter of jahdnddri (world-keeping), that is, state or
government. The scope of his treatment is not thus confined to roy-
alty alone, though the king is the central element of the polity he
treats.36 In the preface to the Fatdwd, Barani tells the reader: ’The
King (pddshdh) is one of the wonderful creations of God; and God is
the Creator of things, both good and bad’. 37 In other words, kingship
in itself could be good or evil according to the character of the king;
there was no ordained goodness in the institution. This is a position
far more neutral than the assertions that Barani puts in the mouths
of Mahmud and Balban. Mahmud is represented as saying in the
Fatdwd that ’royalty implies the position of a representative of God
(khiläfat-i Khudä’î) or viceregency of God (niydbat-i Khudäî)’. 38 Sim-
ilarly, in the Td’rikh, Balban is made to claim that ’in the wordly
aspect, royalty is (the same as) the viceregency of God’.39 Elsewhere,

34 On Balban’s discourses, see Peter Hardy’s ’The Oratio Recta of Barani’s kh

&T
r
-i
amacr;
imacr;
F
z
u
r
&
h
ā
Fact
—
imacr;
-sh or Fiction’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,

vol. 20, 1957:315-21.

any reference to Nizāmu’l Mulk Tusī’s Siy
35 Baranī’s omission of
ma (writ-
sat-n
ā
ten, A.D.1091) is certainly surprising, since it must have been well-known in his time
and much of it consists of ancedotes, using a technique not very dissimilar to the one
adopted by Baranī in the . ā Some of the stories used by Nizāmu’l Mulk are also
w
ā
Fat
used by Barani, but to drive a different point and generally differing in detail. Thus,
though like Barani in the , ā MS. I.O.1149, ff. 3a-6b, Nizāmu’l Mulk, also gives
w
ā
Fat
ma,
sat-n
ā
Siy
the story of ’Amr Lais and the Sāmānid amir Ismā’īl (Tusī, ed. Ja’far
Shu’ār, Teheran, 1348 Shamsi: 21-27); yet Nizāmu’l Mulk does not refer to ’Amr Lais
in the very hostile terms that Barani does. The only element in common is that
Nizāmu’l Mulk also says that Ismā’īl declined to accept ’Amr’s offer of his treasures,
since these were unlawfully acquired. Baranī cites his sources for anecdotes occasion-
ally, but where the authors’ names are provided: Ibn Ishāq, ff. 26b, 111b; Asma’ī,
possibly
f. 62a; Wāqidī, f. 62a; and Sa’ālibā, f. 63b, they are quoted from either mem-
ory or simply for effect. Only one author of a Persian source, Mu’īn ’Asm (and his son),
for the history of the Seljuqid Sanjar is mentioned (f. 203b), but I cannot locate this
author, or even be sure of the person’s historicity.
36 F. 160a: ’The substance
sarm of jah
(
)
ya
ā ī is that the positive and prohibitive
r
nd
ā
commands of the dsh ā are imposed and enforced on the people’.
P
h
ā
37 Ibid.: F. 2a.

Ibid.: F. 167a-b.
38
39 Barani’s ’r ā 34.
T
:
kh
ī
 27

Balban tells his son, Muhammad: ’The heart of the King is the object
of the sight of God (manzar-i Rabbänï); this is a very wonderful
object to be viewed, and has no relationship with other objects of
sight that the other sons of Adam offer. For until God casts His eye
over this object and does not impart to this object instructions for the

generality of His servants, the affairs of godly people, which depend

on the heart and speech of the King, will not be properly managed. 140

But, though Barani writes here as if Balban was putting forward a

legitimate claim, he knew that, in fact, such pretensions were spuri-
ous. This appears from an admission he ascribes to another Sultan.
When Jalalu’ddin Khalji became King ( 1290) after a long career as an
officer and commander, he found no divine light illuminating the
throne: ’Royalty (padshdhat)’, he is alleged to have declared in his
disillusionment, ’is all deception and display. Although externally it
has ornamentation and trappings, inside it is weak and contemptible
(zär zär). ’41 It seems almost as if Baran! sympathises with the resentful
response he attributes to ’the vain upstartish young (nobles)’ who
were then present in that court. They told each other, ’Royalty (salta-

nat) is all terror, power and claim to unshared authority; the task
does not suit this man.’42 Here, then, force is recognised in all its
nakedness as the real source of royal power; and one can see that
Barani uses the device of introducing jalalu’ddin _Khalji’s disillusion-
ment and the young nobles’ realism to tell us of this sordid fact.
It is to be noted that nowhere does Barani even remotely hint at
any social contract, which might originally have given rise to monar-
chy and so placed the king and his subjects in a relationship of mutual
obligation. Force is the only source of royalty and the ruler’s self-
interest, custom and religion the only constraints upon (or guides to)
his action. It is with these compulsions or influences that Barani
largely deals, especially in his Fatdwd-i Jahanddri.
In a passage in which he introduces one of the imaginary counsels
of Mahmud, Barani considers the problems that the sheer reliance on
violence poses for royalty. If anyone acquires some power, he seizes a
territory by destroying its existing possessor and declaring himself
king; thereafter, he obtains nobles, supporters and courtiers, ’fifty or
sixty thousand men and women, young and old, slaves and children
becoming dependent on him and loyal to him’; and, on their support
40 Ibid.: 70.
41 Ibid.: 179.
42 Ibid.: 180.
 28

he maintains his rule. But if he dies or is assassinated, another person

becomes king; he thereupon destroys ’the establishments and fam-
ilies’ of the former ruler’s nobility and dependents, to ensure his own
firm position by bringing in a ’new’ nobility; for were he to continue
the older one, neither could he trust them, nor they him.43 Thus there
could be no stability in either kingly power or in the ruling groups.
The one way to avoid this could be a firm espousal of the dynastic
.

principle. ’In ancient times, in Iran, Rome, Yemen, Syria and Egypt’
this prevailed universally and rigorously, so that no one thought of
overthrowing the established dynasty. This enabled the kings to con-
tinue with an established hereditary nobility, without any danger to
their own position.44 Unfortunately, this salutary system could not
survive in Islam. First, the Umayyads (’Mu’dwlya, Yazid and the Mar-
wdnids’) destroyed the followers and supporters of the Hdshimite
house, without which they could not have ruled for 80 (actually, 90)
years. The ’Abbasids similarly destroyed the house of the Umayyads
and its adherents to establish their own Caliphate .41 Barani had him-
self seen three dynasties rule (the Balbanids, 1266-1290; Khaljis,
1290-1320; Tughluqs, 1320-1416), and one can appreciate his anx-
iety on this score, especially since each dynastic change at Delhi had
led to the wholesale overthrow of older elements in the nobility-
episodes which he chronicles in his Td’rikh with great pathos.46
Another means of establishing the position of the monarchy was
through a dazzling display of pomp and splendour, which could
establish the ruler’s prestige among his subjects. The King therefore
needed to follow the practices of the emperors of ancient Iran, which
involved such deeds as the construction of ’high palaces’, holding
courts, making people offer prostration (sijda), accumulating trea-
sures, seizing properties and grants of (previous) kings, wearing jew-
els and silk and making others wear them, imposing punishments,

43 ā f. 223b.
Barani, :w
ā
Fat
44 Ibid.: f. 223a. The necessity of dynastic succession in a strict manner is urged
through a different argument attributed to Balban in the ’r
ā Since the King is the
T
.
kh
ī
viceregent of God, such ’viceregency of God cannot consort with the meanness of the
mean and the worthless [i.e., the low-born]’; moreover, a King by inheritance (’from

grandfather and father’) commands prestige, which leads to habitual obedience by

subjects without the necessary recourse to force ’r
ā 34-35).
T
(
:
kh
ī
45 ā f. 224a.
Baranī, :
w
ā
Fat
46 Cf.
my ’Barani’s Theory’: 107-10.
 29

and gathering large harems. Such practices, Mahmud is represented

assaying, were repugnant to Islam, and yet expedient for the ruler .47
Similar statements are attributed to Balban, who offers them without
the apologetic air with which Mahmud does: unless a king followed
the customs of the Iranian Emperors (Akdsira, Khusroes) in holding
court and in instituting strict ceremonial, he would not excite the

necessary awe (haibat) among his subjects, so necessary for obedi-

ence. 48
If monarchy must imbibe practices which are un-Islamic, the insti-
tution as such does not owe its existence to Islam; indeed, as we have
seen, Barani speaks appreciatively of pre-Islamic monarchies where
the institution of dynastic succession was rigorously (and happily)
observed. To him Nausherwan, the Iranian emperor, was an ideal,
’just’ (‘ddil) ruler, so that it could be said of Caliph ’Umar that ’he had
followed Nausherwan’s practices (Nausherwdni karda ast)’, though
Nausherwan could not anticipate him in his personal modesty and
probity.49 Similarly, Alexander is quoted (through Mahmud) for set-
ting limits to royal projects (’azmu’l muluk): only rulers like the Pha-
raohs claiming to be divinities could pursue projects irrespective of
consequences. 50
It follows, then, that there could be various functions common
between rulers, whether pre-Islamic or Islamic. The initial one, in
consonance with general belief, was justice (’adl). This involves, says

Barani through Mahmud, two kinds of ’equality-seeking’ conduct

(musdwdt talabi). In the first (kbds), the ruler (and any judicial
authority) tenders justice between contending parties, high or low, by
treating them strictly as equals. In the second (’dm), the ruler also
seeks equality in his life with his indigent subjects. This latter was,
however, achieved only by the early Caliphs of Islam. Clearly, what
could be expected from ordinary rulers, both non-Muslim like Nau-
sherwan, or Muslim rulers after the early Caliphs, was justice based
on the ’equality-seeking’ of the first kind.51

It is to be understood-though Barani is not explicit on the

point-that such impartiality between two litigating parties was not
47
Barani, :
ā ff. 99a-100a.
w
ā
Fat
48
Barani, ’r
ā 31-32.
T
:
kh
ī
49 ā ff. 136b-137a.
Barani, :
w
ā
Fat
50
Ibid.: ff. 34a-35b.
51
Ibid.: ff. 135a-137a. Baranī attributes the distinction between the two kinds of
’equality-seeking’ to Hanafite theorists.
30

to be confounded with seeking equality in general. On the contrary,

the essential function of all states was to enforce such laws or regula-
tions as established and strengthen an unequal hierarchical order.
Barani (speaking again through Mahmud) concedes that ’all sons of
Adam are the same in regard to their creation and the same in appear-
ance and body; whatever diversity takes place in the matter of good-
ness and badness among the sons of Adam is because of the influence

of personal qualities and the doing of deeds.’ But he goes on to say

that ’the higher and the lowly qualities among men were [in fact]
marked out at the beginning and accompanies their spirits’. Even
what ’callings ($an’at-hä), noble or ignoble, from that of scribe and
horseman to barber and tanner, which people take’ is predetermined.
The higher moral qualities are only possessed by those belonging to
the nobler professions, and the Kings should ensure that they alone
should comprise the ruling class, not ’the lowly and the ignoble’.52
Here Barani is not speaking of a caste system with hereditary profes-
sions, but of a preordained hierarchy in society ’to protect’, which
has been a cardinal function of the state under all good regimes of the
pasts
Barani narrates how the famous Bahrain Gor forgot this principle,
and appointed a low-born vizier. This vizier soon overthrew the
older nobility and replaced them by cruel upstarts. Injustice reigned,
and, everything collapsing, Bahrain Gor had to take refuge with the
Indian King (Rdi) of Kanauj. The Rai asked him to draw his nobles
only from the high-born; and, when with his assistance, Bahrain
reinstated himself, he followed the advice to the letter, duly punish-
ing the low-born vizier and his associates.54

52
ā ff. 216a-219a. Even the Prophet is quoted in support of these
Baranī, ,
w
ā
Fat
propositions (f. 218b).
53 I find it hard to share Professor Mohammad Habib’s view that Baranī, while mak-
ing these statements, was influenced by ’Popular Hindusim’, or that he was ’very
deeply imbued with the traditions of the Hindu caste system’; cf. Medieval India Quar-
terly, vol. 3 (3-4), 1958: 224. Baranī nowhere argues that one must adopt one’s
father’s profession; he had objection only to upward vertical mobility, not to a hori-
zontal one. Besides, Barani’s argument is throughout steeped in the framework of
Islamic thought, which was by no means hostile to hierarchical divisions in society.
54 ā ff. 211a-213a. It is interesting that though the story of Bahrām
Baranī, :
w
ā
Fat
Gor’s dishonest minister ī waz kh
(
r-i ) occurs in Nizāmu’l Mulk (Tusī, Siy
’in
ā sat-
ā
ā 30-41) as well, the minister is not said to be of low birth, there is no mention of
n
ma:
the iā of Kanauj, and other particulars are also different.
R
 31

The ancient Iranian monarchy performed its true function once

again when it was confronted by Mazdak, who preached a doctrine
of communism extending to both property and women, and ordered
that ’the poor should seize the wealth of the rich’. Nausherwan se-
cured the suppression of this dangerous sect.55
The Islamic rulers had, according to Barani, no less a duty to per-
form than the ancient kings to keep the hierarchical order in place.
After describing how the low-born have negative qualities assigned
to them by predestination, Mahmud is quoted as warning that no

king should give place in his court to ’the low-born, the market-men
(bäzäriän), the base, the vile, the worthless (ndkasdn), the mean, the
shameless, those of illegitimate birth’, since such a course would
bring ’ignominy’ ( fazihat) to the royalty. 56 But the work in which
Barani returns again and again to this matter is his Td’rikh.
In the Td’rikh-I Firoz-shdhi Barani makes Balban speak forthrightly
of the duty of the Sultan to keep the low-born away from all offices of
government. ’He did not look (merely) to claims of old service and
loyalty and did not give any one poor, unskilled, miserly, greedy, or
low-born a position of command (sari o sarwari). ’57 (The range of the
definition of ’low-born’ extended from a minister whose grandfather
was descended of a weaver to the son of a Hindu slave.58) Such a state
of affairs where the low-born were kept in their place, however, did
not last, as despotic monarchs, in order to command total obedience,
brought up nobles from lower, plebeian elements. This was seen
when ‘Ala’u’ddin Khalji, the most powerful of the Delhi Sultans, in
his last years put into high positions ’worthless persons (?), clerks,
low-born revenue collectors (shiqddrdn) and foolish slaves. ’59

55 Ibid.: ff. 77a-78a. On

Mazdak, Baranī’s ultimate source was probably Bal’amī
T]
[ arjuma-i ’r ā Tabari, pub. Nawal Kishor, Kanpur, n.d., vol. 3: 312-17. Barani,
T
-i
kh
ī
however, does not cite Bal’amī anywhere in his . ā The story is given at length in
w
ā
Fat
ma: 294-318, but none of its special details are present in Baranī’s
Tusī, Siy
sat-n
ā
summary account. Moreover, Nizāmu’l Mulk links Mazdak with heterodox sects
which need to be suppressed, while Baranī lays stress more on the hateful equality and
immorality that Mazdak preached.
56 ā f. 217a.
Baranī, :
w
ā
Fat
57
ā 29. On p. 38, Sultan Iltutmish is said to have warned that the low-
Baranī, ’r
T
:
kh
ī
born were not to be appointed just on account of their skill ī) hunarmand
(
.
58 Ibid.:
36, 39. The definition of the ’low-born’ certainly posed a problem. Balban
himself was a Turkish slave, and Baranī scornfully regarded him and his group of
’Forty Slaves of Iltutmish’ as ’contemptible men and purchased slaves’. Ibid.: 27.
59 Ibid.: 337.I cannot make
anything of the first word, yalafla
n.
ā
kh
32

It almost seemed as if the Sultans were driven to taking recourse to

such acts. Muhammad Tughluq recounted to Barani ’stories full of
scorn and contempt for the low-born, base, mean and ignoble’, and
stressed that he ’held the base-born crew to be a greater enemy of his
than the false gods’.6° And yet he went on to fill offices of govern-
ment with the low-born, giving them to a musician’s son, three wine-
distillers, a cook, a gardener, a weaver’s son, a low-caste mdli {gar-
dener), a lowly ’market man’, and a slave (’the shame of all slaves in
appearance and conduct’), all named, and including both Muslims
and Hindus.6i
Barani thus sees that the state in its most powerful moments for-
gets one of its primary functions-the closure of gates of the ruling
class to outsiders. His narrative provides a seemingly cogent explana-
tion for this: the Sultan’s need to curb and replace the established
nobility by introducing new elements, but he himself never puts for-
ward this solution.
If the state should maintain stability in the social sphere by confin-
ing power to men of high birth, it has a similar duty to ensure a stabil-
ity of prices in the economic sphere. The rulers of ancient Iran are
said to have collected grain by way of taxes and kept it in reserve to
keep down prices and avoid scarcities.62 Mahmud is stated to have
held that engrossing (ihtikdr) needed to be suppressed and prices
fixed to prevent profiteering.63 In these observations, Barani is surely
inspired by his memory of ’Ald’u’ddin Khalji’s price-control mea-
sures, which he has described in his Tä’rikh with exceptional lucidity
and sophistication.64 This is one clear case where Barani could well
be reading a recent experience into the past and defining a function
of the state which could have occurred to few others.
We may finally consider those functions of government which
belonged to states headed by Muslim rulers. Here, an obviously sim-
ple proposition was that such rulers must enforce the shari‘a (Islamic
law). Barani is aware of this, but is realistic enough to see the distinc-
tion between the desirability of the enforcement of the shari‘a in all
its rigour and the impracticability of such an enforcement.
60 Ibid.: 404-5.
61 Ibid.: 405.
62 ā f. 103a-b.
Barani, :
w
ā
Fat
63 Ibid.: f. 92a ff.
64
Barani, ’ri ā 303-16. I have analysed this account in ’The Price Regulations of
T
:
kh
Alā’u’ddīn Kh
aljī—a defence of Ziā Barani’, The Indian Economic and Social History
Review, vol. 21 (4), 1984: 393-414.
 33

Significantly, he does not regard the office of the Khalifa as central

to Islamic polity. The destruction of the Caliphate of Baghdad by the

Mongols in 1258 delivered the coup de grace to an already defunct

institution, and Barani sees the early caliphates as mere episodes in
the history of monarchy, not at all a parallel institution.65 The sparta
is now to be enforced not under the aegis of a caliph, about whose
qualifications for office theologians might argue,66 but by kings who
take office on the strength of military prowess or dynastic succession.
When Barani makes Mahmud speak, then, in consonance with his
reputation as an upholder of the faith, Mahmud presses his sons to
have the right faith and fulfil their obligations under it. ’The sign of
firmness of the faith of a King (Pddshdh) is that he keeps himself and
his subjects on the high road of the shari’a. ’67
In order to ensure such a desirable situation to come about,
Mahmud advised his sons to ensure that muhtdsibs or censors are
appointed to oversee shari’a enforcement, the making of liquor sup-
pressed, and prostitutes, minstrels, etc., banished. 61 One may think
here that there was little room for compromise. But in the Tod’rich
Balban is made to suggest that it might be better to stay the righteous
hand in such matters. The public display of the prohibited profes-
sions was to be strongly suppressed. But if the practitioners of the sin-
ful trades ’retire to mean corners [and] their sins are not visible, such
people should not be banned, because otherwise many wicked per-
sons, out, of lust, would make inroads into men’s harems.’69
Barani is more insistent, on the other hand, on the suppression of
the enemies of Islam. The enemies he targets are two: external (Hin-
dus) and internal (the philosophers). Mahmud was naturally a suit-
able spokesman for an uncompromising stance here. Owing to the
obscurity of the position of Hindus in the eyes of Muslim law (in
regard to whether they were to be treated as zimmis, and so protected,
65 ā f. 224a. Baranī here speaks of the Umayyads as Sultans n-i
Baranī, :
w
ā
Fat S
&(
t
ā
imacr;
al
.
)
-Umayya
ī
ban
66 Cf. the well-known qualifications laid down by al-Māwardī, for which see

Rosenthal, Political Thought: 29.

67 ā f. 7a.
Barani, :
w
ā
Fat
68 Ibid.: ff. 8a-9a.
69
ā 43. At other places, Baranī does not conceal his personal admira-
Barani, ’r
T
:
kh
ī
tion for many practitioners of the sinful arts (pp. 165-66; 199), where he gives the
names of the women singers and dancers, with enthusiastic praise of their beauty and
art.
34

or kd firs, infidels, and, therefore, unprotected),’° Barani shows Mah-

mud to have been ’an adherent of the Shafi’i mazhab’, and to say that
’Imäm Shafi’i has said of the Hindus that they are either to be killed,
or converted to Islam; it is not permissible to [let them live and] take

jizyd (poll tax) from them.’&dquo; Subsequently, he is shown regretting

that owing to the wrong advice of his minister Ahmad Hasan Mai-
mandi, he had not been able to attempt a ’killing of all Brahmans and
converting all Hindus to Islam.’72 When the scholars advised Iltut-
mish (r.1210-1236) to slaughter or convert all Hindus, the advice
was not accepted on the intervention of his minister Nizamu’l Mulk

Junaidi-as Barani relates in another tract of his.73 In both cases, one

must infer that expediency was the reason for the rulers’ failing to
enforce the dictates of the shari‘a.
In the Td’rikh, as in the Fatdwd, Baran! admits that due to what is
judged to be the interests of state itself, Hindus had to be tolerated.
Jaldlu’ddin Khalji is made to point out how in his dominions Hindus
were wealthy and prosperous and freely enjoyed the right to worship
idols and beat drums and celebrate their festivals. 74 In the Fatdwd,
Barani mourns how in his own days, ’the Kings of Islam’ showed
respect to ’Hindus, Mongols, ploytheists and infidels’, by making
them sit on the masnad (cushion), and in other ways.75 The Hindus,
merely by paying the poll and land tax (jizyd o khardj) have their tem-
ples and celebrations, ride horses, employ Muslim servants, flaunt
their titles (rdi, rdnd, thdkur, sdh, mahta, pandit), etc., right in the
capital seats of Muslim rulers. 76 It is, however, singular that in his
Td’rikh, Baran! himself seems to consider concessions given to the
70 Reuben
Levy, The Social Structure of Islam, Cambridge, 1957: 254-55, 405-6.
There seems no historical justification for Levy’s statement on p. 255, as for Baranī’s,
that Mahmud refused to treat Hindus as z immis in his dominions. Baranī alleges that
Mahmud did not allow even Jews or Christians to live in his dominions! Cf. : ā
w
ā
Fat
f. 10b.
71 Barani, : ā f. 12a.
w
ā
Fat
72 Ibid.: f. 166b.
73 Extract from
fa-i Na’t-i Muhammad
ī
Sah ī printed in Medieval India Quarterly,
vol. 1 (3-4), 104-5 byS. Nurul Hasan, for whose own comments see pp. 100-103.
The result of Iltutmish’s decision was, says Barani, that ’infidelity ),
kufr polytheism
(
and image-worship took seed amidst Muslims and people of the faith’.
74
Barani, ’r
ā
T
:
kh
ī 217.
75
F. 203a.
Ibid.: ff. 118b-120b. Barani is
76 obviously painting the picture of contemporary
Delhi.
 35

Hindu rural aristocracy or the employment of Hindu officers in high

positions in the Sultanate as reasonable, and such measures call forth
no protest from him.&dquo;
Barani could have claimed greater success for his second target:
the ’philosophers’ (faldsifa) or rationalists within the fold of Islam.
He makes Mahmud put them at par with the Brahmans as enemies of
°

Islam and so fit for slaughter.78 Mahmud claimed to have exiled the
Mu’tazilites from Khwärizm and regretted that Ibn Sind (Avicenna),
’the reviver of the Greek sciences and the chief of the philosophers of
Islamic countries’, had not fallen into his hands, to be killed and torn
to pieces by him.79 The animosity to secular sciences and rationalism
was by now quite widespread, especially after Ghazälï (d.1111), and
was fully shared by the su fis.8°
Rationalism nevertheless survived under the patronage of the Sul-
tans, whose interest in medicine and astronomy (the latter quite pos-
sibly promoted for astrological motives) kept the sciences alive in at
least a limited sphere. To Barani’s consternation, his own patron,
Muhammad Tughluq was an unashamed believer in ma’qfildt (appli-
cation of reason), and allegedly preferred them to the dictates of
manquldt (the received texts). Baran! freay attributed the cruelties
suffered by the religious scholars at this Sultan’s hand to this fatal
’

weakness in his view.&dquo;

I have attempted above an analysis of what seems to me to be

Barani’s major ideas on the nature, objectives and functions of the
state. His earlier interpreters, Mohammad Habib and Afsar Khan
have been obviously irritated by his ’fanatical attitude’, notably his
hostility to Hindus.82 This element tends to be absent or subdued in
writings in countries where, by Barani’s time, the state was not called
upon to deal with non-Muslim majorities. The Siydsat-ndma, for
example, is more concerned with the suppression of non-orthodox
77 This has been dealt with by me in ’Barani’s Theory’: pp. 112-13, where the
numerous (relevant) references to the ’r
ā are given.
T
kh
ī
78 ā f. 9b.
Baranī, :
w
ā
Fat
Ibid.: f. 10b.
79
80 See the remarks of the
Chishti saint, Nizāmuddin of Delhi, in Sijzi, Faw
’idu’l
ā
d: 84-86; 283-84. Baranī was a great admirer of his, as may be seen from Barani,
ā
Fu’
ā pp. 172-77.
T
,
kh
ri
81
Baranī, ’r
ā 265-66.
T
:
kh
ī
82 Medieval India
Quarterly, vol. 3 (1-2), 1957: 5, 21, etc.
36

sects within Islam than with any non-Muslim sects. The result is that
the contradiction between theory and reality in the relationship
between the Sultanate and Hindus (or, for that matter, any large
body of non-Muslim subjects not identified as ’People of the Book’ in
the shari‘a) is brought up by Barani in a manner not to be found in
any other leading Muslim writer on the subject.
But Barani’s major contributions could lie in a field altogether
different. As far as I know, no precursor of his appears to have been
concerned with the great anxieties that he has over the consequences
of violence or force that underlies the state, which makes every pos-
sessor of power, individual or dynasty, extremely vulnerable. This
would not have concerned Barani so much, but for the fact that such
a situation promotes a lack of trust between the ruler and the estab-
lished ruling class, and, under any powerful despot, bring about the
latter’s destruction. There is thus an unending cycle of dynastic
change and replacement of ruling groups by new, inevitably lower
class, entrants. It is such history that the Delhi Sultanate had wit-
nessed, as presented in his Td’rikh, and Barani has little to offer by
way of solution other than proposing a strong dynastic principle, the
maintenance of monarchical pomp, and pursuit of religious preten-
sions. The efficacy of such devices in retarding the movement of the
cycle may however be doubted, each turn of it inevitably leading to a
tragic denouement.
It would be interesting to compare Barani’s narrow perceptions of
such cycles with those of Ibn Khaldun (1332-1408), his famous
younger African contemporary. Blessed with a much larger vision
and more analytical mind, Ibn Khaldun too is conscious of the
cyclical nature of political regimes, but he attributes the decay of
the regimes to social and psychological causes, expressed through the
waning of the ‘usabiyya, the spirit of solidarity in the ruling class.83
Barani hardly ever discerns such a sense of solidarity, and is not
apparently conscious of it; but he still shares one thing in common
with Ibn _Khaldun: the great African theorist too had no convincing
prescription for avoiding the inevitable downward swing in a state’s
fortunes.

83 See Muhsin Mahdi, Ibn Khaldun’s Philosophy of History, Chicago, 1964: 193-
224 ; and Rosenthal, Political Thought: 84-92.