Society, Culture and Economy under the Sultanate — UPSC History Optional Notes

1. Background: the Sultanate state and its society

Time frame: The Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526) was ruled by five dynasties: the Ilbaris or 'Slave' rulers (1206–90), Khaljis (1290–1320), Tughluqs (1320–1414), Sayyids (1414–51) and Lodis (1451–1526); this chapter deals mainly with the 13th and 14th centuries.

A conquest state: A small immigrant ruling group of Turks, Persians (Tajiks), Afghans and later Indian Muslims drew the surplus of a large, mostly Hindu peasant society through land revenue (kharaj).

The iqta: The key institution linking rulers and countryside was the iqta, a territorial assignment of revenue to an officer (muqti or iqtadar) in return for maintaining troops and keeping order; Iltutmish (1210–36) used it widely to pay his commanders.

Transferable, not hereditary: In theory the iqta could be transferred at will; Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughluq tightened the audit of muqtis, while Firuz Shah Tughluq (1351–88) let assignments become hereditary in practice.

2. The ruling classes

Sultan and nobility: The Sultan stood at the top; below him were the nobles (amirs, maliks, khans), who commanded troops, held iqtas and filled high offices such as wazir, ariz-i-mumalik and naib.

Military slaves (bandagan): Many early nobles were purchased Turkish slaves trained as soldiers and bound to their master by personal loyalty; Qutbuddin Aibak, Iltutmish and Balban all began as slaves.

The Forty (Turkan-i-Chihalgani): Barani describes a group of forty Turkish slave-nobles of Iltutmish who dominated the throne after his death (1236–66) until Balban broke their power.

Balban's kingship (1266–87): He presented the Sultan as the 'shadow of God' (zill-i-ilahi), imposed court rituals such as sijda and paibos, and held that only men of high birth should hold office.

Khalji revolution (1290): The accession of the Khaljis ended the monopoly of the Turkish slave-nobility and opened high office to Khaljis, Afghans and Indian Muslims; historians describe this as a widening of the social base of the state.

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1325–51): He recruited many foreigners (Ibn Battuta became a qazi of Delhi) and, as Barani complains, raised men of humble birth such as a vintner, a barber, a cook and gardeners to office; a few Hindus also received posts.

The ulama: Religious scholars (qazis, muftis, sadrs) were part of the ruling elite, received grants (idrar, inam, waqf) and claimed to guide the Sultan on sharia, though Alauddin openly put reasons of state above their advice.

3. Rural society

Rural intermediaries: Between the state and the peasant stood the khots, muqaddams and chaudhuris (village headmen and pargana-level chiefs) and, above them, hereditary chiefs called rais, ranas and rautas.

Barani's portrait: Before Alauddin's reforms, says Barani, the khots and muqaddams rode fine horses, wore fine clothes, shot with Persian bows and paid no tax on their own lands; after the reforms their wives had to work for wages in Muslim houses, a picture coloured by his rhetoric.

Peasants: The cultivators (raaya, kisan) paid kharaj; below them were landless labourers and menial groups, whom Barani calls balahar, the lowest stratum of the village.

Alauddin Khalji's agrarian measures: Revenue in the Doab and nearby regions was raised to half the produce, assessed by measurement (masahat) per unit of area, plus a grazing tax (charai) and a house tax (ghari); the same rate applied to khots and muqaddams, whose perquisites were cut.

Ghiyasuddin Tughluq (1320–25): He eased the burden, restored some privileges of the headmen and, according to Barani, advised against raising revenue sharply in one go.

Muhammad bin Tughluq: His enhanced taxation in the Doab (c. 1330s) coincided with famine and led to peasant flight and revolt; he then set up a department of agriculture (diwan-i-amir-i-kohi) and gave loans (sondhar) to extend cultivation.

Firuz Shah Tughluq: He abolished many cesses not sanctioned by sharia, kept the four Islamic taxes (kharaj, jizya, khams, zakat), built canals from the Yamuna and Sutlej and levied an irrigation cess (haqq-i-sharb).

The village: Villages had caste-based artisans and servants paid by shares of the harvest; the old picture of a closed, self-sufficient village is now qualified, because revenue demanded in cash pushed grain into markets.

4. Town dwellers

Growth of towns: Delhi, Lahore, Multan, Lakhnauti, Kara, Daulatabad, Cambay and Broach grew as political, military and trading centres; Ibn Battuta called Delhi the largest city of Islam in the East.

Groups in towns: Nobles and their households, soldiers, ulama and Sufis, merchants (Multanis, Khurasanis, Hindu sahs and baniyas), brokers (dallals), artisans, slaves and labourers.

Market control: Alauddin's price regulations in Delhi, with a shahna-i-mandi in charge of the grain market and the sarai-i-adl for cloth, show the state's concern to feed the capital and its army cheaply.

Artisans: Weavers, dyers, metal-workers, paper-makers and builders worked both in royal karkhanas and for the open market; Afif says the karkhanas of Firuz Shah employed large numbers of slaves.

5. Sources and evidence

Persian chronicles: Minhaj-us-Siraj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri (c. 1260) on the early nobility; Ziauddin Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi (1357) and Fatawa-i-Jahandari on nobles, peasants and Alauddin's measures; Isami's Futuh-us-Salatin (1350).

Later chronicles: Shams Siraj Afif's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi and Firuz's own Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi on his reign; Yahya Sirhindi's Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi (15th century).

Travellers: Ibn Battuta's Rihla (he was in India c. 1333–42) on Delhi, the court, the postal system and markets.

Sanskrit and other evidence: The Palam baoli inscription (1276) praising Balban and the Sarban inscription (1328) of Muhammad bin Tughluq's time; Thakkura Pheru's treatises on coins and mathematics for prices and minting.

Caution: Barani writes as a moralist with an aristocratic bias against the 'low-born', so his figures and social portraits must be read critically.

6. Analysis: change and continuity

Nature of the ruling class: At first narrow, foreign and slave-based, it broadened in the 13th–14th centuries to include Khaljis, Afghans, Indian converts and some Hindus, which helped the state put down local roots.

Surplus extraction: The Sultanate replaced many older chiefly levies with a centrally assessed revenue, much of it in cash, which drew a larger share of the rural surplus to towns and the army.

Continuity: Hindu chiefs and headmen survived as intermediaries; the state could curb but never abolish them, a pattern that carried into the Mughal zamindari system.

Change: Cash revenue, monetisation (the silver tanka and copper jital introduced under Iltutmish) and the growth of Delhi created a more market-linked rural economy.

7. Historiography and debates

Mohammad Habib: In his introduction to the reprint of Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II (1952), he argued that the Turkish conquest brought an 'urban revolution' and a 'rural revolution', freeing artisans from caste restrictions and replacing old chiefs with a uniform revenue system.

Irfan Habib: In The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I (1982) he linked urban growth to new techniques (paper, the spinning wheel, the cotton-carder's bow, the true arch and lime mortar) and to the large revenue surplus spent in towns.

Moreland: W.H. Moreland's The Agrarian System of Moslem India (1929) traced the revenue system mainly from Persian administrative sources and saw Alauddin as a strong centraliser.

Peter Jackson and Sunil Kumar: Jackson's The Delhi Sultanate (1999) analyses slave-elite politics; Sunil Kumar's The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate (2007) argues that the 'Forty' was not a formal body and that Barani, writing a century later, projected his own concerns onto the 13th century.

Nizami: K.A. Nizami stressed the role of the ulama and Sufis in shaping state and society in Some Aspects of Religion and Politics in India during the Thirteenth Century (1961).

8. Using it in the exam

10 marks (150 words): Define the group asked (for example the 'Forty' or the khots and muqaddams), give two or three features with a source, and end with one line on significance.

15 marks (200 words): Introduction with dates; body on composition and the changes from Balban to Firuz; one historiographical line (Sunil Kumar or Mohammad Habib); short conclusion.

20 marks (250 words): State a thesis (for example, 'the ruling class became steadily more broad-based'), treat the ruling class, rural intermediaries and town groups in turn, use Barani critically and close with continuity into the Mughal period.

Keywords: iqta, muqti, bandagan, Turkan-i-Chihalgani, khots and muqaddams, kharaj, masahat, urban revolution.

Source line: Barani reports that after Alauddin's measures the khots and muqaddams could no longer ride horses or wear fine clothes (a paraphrase of the Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi).

1. Women in Sultanate society

Purdah: Seclusion of women spread among the Muslim elite and upper-caste Hindu families; peasant and artisan women worked in the fields and workshops and could not be secluded.

Razia Sultan (1236–40): Iltutmish nominated his daughter over his sons; Minhaj-us-Siraj records that she gave up the veil, wore the qaba (tunic) and kulah (cap) and rode on an elephant in public, but Turkish nobles overthrew her.

Hindu women: Smriti commentaries of the 12th century, Vijnaneshwara's Mitakshara and Jimutavahana's Dayabhaga, defined stridhana and women's limited rights of inheritance; child marriage and the ban on widow remarriage were the norm among upper castes.

Sati: Ibn Battuta describes witnessing sati in central India and notes that permission had to be obtained from the Sultan; Muhammad bin Tughluq is said to have tried to regulate it.

Jauhar: Amir Khusrau's Khazain-ul-Futuh describes the jauhar of Rajput women at Ranthambhor (1301) during Alauddin's siege.

Muslim women: Islamic law gave women a share in inheritance, the mahr (dower) and some rights of divorce, though elite practice limited their public role.

Firuz Shah's restriction: In his Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi, Firuz states that he stopped women from visiting tombs and shrines outside Delhi, showing growing orthodoxy.

Women in religion: Lal Ded (Lalleshwari) of Kashmir (14th century) composed Shaiva vakhs; in Maharashtra Janabai and Muktabai belonged to the Varkari tradition.

2. The religious classes

Ulama: Qazis administered sharia justice, muftis gave legal opinions (fatwas) and the sadr-us-sudur managed grants; madrasas such as the Muizzi and Nasiri madrasas of Delhi and Firuz Shah's madrasa at Hauz Khas (1352) trained them.

Ulama and state: Barani's Fatawa-i-Jahandari argues that the Sultan needed zawabit (state-made regulations) besides sharia; the ulama's influence rose under Firuz and fell under Alauddin and Muhammad bin Tughluq.

Sufis: Shaikhs of the Chishti and Suhrawardi orders formed a separate religious elite whose authority came from spiritual prestige rather than learning in law.

Brahmanas: Brahmanas kept their role as priests, teachers and keepers of dharmashastra; Afif records that Firuz Shah imposed jizya on Brahmanas, who had been exempt earlier, and that they protested.

Jain monks: Jinaprabha Suri, a Jain scholar, met Muhammad bin Tughluq and secured favours for Jain pilgrimage centres, which he records in his Vividhatirthakalpa.

Jogis and Naths: Nath yogis were widely respected; Ibn Battuta describes the jogis and their feats, and Sufi texts record debates between shaikhs and yogis.

3. Caste

Continuity: The varna-jati order survived; Brahmanical texts and commentaries continued to define purity and occupation, and groups such as chandalas stayed outside the village.

New occupational castes: Growth of crafts and towns gave weavers, dyers, oil-pressers and others more economic weight, which later found voice in bhakti.

Caste-like divisions among Muslims: Muslims divided into ashraf (of foreign descent) and ajlaf (Indian converts, often artisans); Barani in the Fatawa-i-Jahandari advises that the low-born should not be taught or given office.

Hindu converts: Converts often kept their caste occupation, marriage rules and local customs, so caste reappeared within Muslim society.

4. Conversion: how and why

Four older explanations: conversion by the sword; for patronage and office; for 'social liberation' from caste; and through Sufi influence.

Eaton's critique: Richard Eaton, in 'Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India' (1985) and The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (1993), argues that mass conversion was weakest near the centres of Muslim power and strongest in frontier zones such as east Bengal and west Punjab.

Gradual process: Eaton sees it as slow acculturation of peasant communities linked to land clearing and shrine cults, not a sudden event.

Population: Estimates of Muslim population in this period, such as K.S. Lal's, are speculative and contested, and should be cited only as such.

5. Slavery

Indian background: Slavery existed in India earlier; the Naradasmriti lists fifteen kinds of slaves (dasa), including those born in the house, bought, or enslaved for debt.

Sources of slaves: War captives, purchase in markets, debt and famine; Central Asian Turkish slaves were imported for the army, and Indian captives were sold within India and beyond.

Military slaves: The bandagan were the backbone of the early Sultanate; Aibak, Iltutmish and Balban rose from slavery, which is why the early Sultans are called the 'Slave dynasty'.

Alauddin's markets: Barani says Alauddin fixed prices for slaves, horses and cattle along with grain and cloth.

Firuz Shah Tughluq: According to Afif, Firuz collected about 1,80,000 slaves and set up a separate department (diwan-i-bandagan); many were trained as artisans in the karkhanas.

Domestic and female slaves: Slave girls served in elite households as maids, musicians and concubines; Ibn Battuta notes how cheap slave girls were after campaigns.

Mobility: Slaves of powerful masters could rise to high office, so slavery in this period mixed degradation with chances of advancement.

6. Sources and evidence

Chronicles: Minhaj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri on Razia; Barani on caste and the ulama; Afif's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi on slaves and jizya; Firuz's Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi.

Poetry and travel: Amir Khusrau on jauhar; Ibn Battuta's Rihla on sati, slaves and jogis.

Sanskrit and Jain texts: Dharmashastra commentaries and Jain pilgrimage literature such as the Vividhatirthakalpa.

7. Historiography and debates

Ashraf: K.M. Ashraf's Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan, 1200–1550 (1935) was the pioneering social history of the period, using Persian and Hindavi sources on food, dress, festivals and women.

Slavery studies: Indrani Chatterjee and Richard Eaton, eds., Slavery and South Asian History (2006), stress that South Asian slavery was mostly domestic and military and tied to kinship and household, unlike Atlantic plantation slavery.

Sunil Kumar: He reads the bandagan as a household institution in which loyalty to the master shaped politics.

Women's history: Recent work questions both the 'golden age' image of ancient Indian women and the idea that purdah came only with Islam, since seclusion of upper-caste women predated the Sultanate.

8. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Razia' or 'slavery under the Sultanate', give context, two or three features with a source (Minhaj, Afif) and a line of assessment.

15 marks: For 'position of women', cover elite and common women, Hindu and Muslim, practices (purdah, sati, jauhar) and exceptions (Razia, Lal Ded).

20 marks: For 'caste and slavery' or 'conversion', state the debate, bring in Eaton's frontier thesis and Chatterjee–Eaton on slavery, and conclude on social mobility versus hierarchy.

Keywords: purdah, jauhar, ashraf–ajlaf, ulama, bandagan, diwan-i-bandagan, acculturation.

Source line: Minhaj-us-Siraj praises Razia as wise, just and a patron of the learned, but adds that she was not born of the right sex, which counted for nothing in the eyes of men (a paraphrase).

1. Sufism: ideas and institutions

Meaning: Sufism (tasawwuf) is the mystical path in Islam that seeks direct experience of God through love, discipline and remembrance (zikr); it grew from the 8th–9th centuries in West Asia.

Silsila: A chain of spiritual descent from master (pir, shaikh) to disciple (murid); the successor (khalifa) received the master's robe (khirqa) and permission to teach.

Khanqah: The hospice where the shaikh lived, taught and received visitors; it had a community kitchen (langar) and depended on unsolicited gifts (futuh).

Practices: Zikr, sama (devotional music), chilla (forty days of seclusion) and visits to tombs (ziyarat); the tomb (dargah) of a saint later became a pilgrimage centre with the annual urs.

Doctrine: Many Indian Sufis drew on Ibn Arabi's idea of wahdat-ul-wujud (unity of being); the rival idea of wahdat-ul-shuhud (unity of appearance) became prominent only with Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi in the 17th century.

Early figure: Ali bin Usman al-Hujwiri (Data Ganj Bakhsh, d. c. 1072) of Lahore wrote Kashf-ul-Mahjub, the earliest Persian treatise on Sufism.

Number of orders: Abul Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari lists fourteen silsilas in India; the two leading ones of the Sultanate period were the Chishti and the Suhrawardi.

2. The Chishti silsila

Muinuddin Chishti (died 1236): He settled at Ajmer after the Ghurid conquest; his dargah became the most important Sufi shrine in India.

Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (died 1235): He made Delhi a Chishti centre under Iltutmish; Hamiduddin Nagauri lived like a peasant at Nagaur and was a vegetarian.

Fariduddin Ganj-i-Shakar (Baba Farid, died 1265): He lived at Ajodhan (Pakpattan, Punjab); verses in Punjabi attributed to him are included in the Guru Granth Sahib.

Nizamuddin Auliya (died 1325): The greatest Chishti of Delhi, he saw seven Sultans; his khanqah at Ghiyaspur drew nobles, poets such as Amir Khusrau and Amir Hasan Sijzi, and common people.

Distance from the state: Chishtis refused land grants and court service; Nizamuddin is reported to have declined to meet Sultans, and his tradition held that a saint's hospice had two doors so that he could leave by one if the Sultan entered by the other.

Tension with Sultans: His relations with Ghiyasuddin Tughluq were strained; the saying 'Hanuz Dilli dur ast' (Delhi is still far off) attributed to him belongs to later legend.

Nasiruddin Chiragh-i-Dilli (died 1356): His successor in Delhi, who faced pressure from Muhammad bin Tughluq to serve the state.

Spread to the Deccan: When Muhammad bin Tughluq shifted people to Daulatabad, Chishti disciples went too; Burhanuddin Gharib's tomb at Khuldabad became a centre, and later Gesudaraz settled at Gulbarga.

3. The Suhrawardi and other silsilas

Bahauddin Zakariya (died 1262): Founder of the Suhrawardi order in India at Multan; unlike the Chishtis he accepted state patronage, held wealth and the office of Shaikh-ul-Islam.

Suhrawardi attitude: They held that wealth and contact with rulers could serve religion, and they insisted more on the sharia; Jalaluddin Tabrizi carried the order to Bengal.

Firdausi order: Sharafuddin Yahya Maneri (died 1381) of Bihar wrote letters (Maktubat-i-Sadi) that are a major source on Sufi thought.

Qalandars: Wandering dervishes who rejected the khanqah's discipline; Sufi texts treat them with caution.

4. Bhakti in the 13th–14th centuries

Southern roots: Bhakti began with the Tamil Alvars (Vishnu) and Nayanars (Shiva) of c. 6th–9th centuries; Ramanuja (vishishtadvaita, 11th–12th c.) and Madhva (dvaita, 13th c.) gave it philosophical form; Basavanna's Virashaiva movement (12th c., Karnataka) attacked caste and ritual.

Maharashtra – the Varkaris: Devotees of Vithoba of Pandharpur; Jnaneshwar (Jnanadev) wrote the Jnaneshwari (1290), a Marathi commentary on the Gita.

Namdev (about 1270–1350): A tailor (shimpi) by caste; his abhangs spread the faith and some of his verses are in the Guru Granth Sahib.

Chokhamela (14th c.): A saint of the 'untouchable' Mahar caste whose abhangs protest exclusion from the temple; Janabai, a maidservant, also composed abhangs.

Mahanubhava sect: Founded by Chakradhar (13th c.), it rejected caste and idol worship; its Lilacharitra is among the earliest Marathi prose works.

Kashmir: Lal Ded (14th c.) composed Shaiva vakhs in Kashmiri; Shaikh Nuruddin (Nund Rishi, 1377–1438) founded the Rishi order, a local Sufi tradition close to her ideas.

North India: The Nath panth of Gorakhnath, with its hatha yoga and rejection of caste and ritual, prepared the ground for the nirguna saints of the 15th century.

5. Sources and evidence

Malfuzat (recorded conversations): Amir Hasan Sijzi's Fawaid-ul-Fuad (1307–22) on Nizamuddin; Hamid Qalandar's Khair-ul-Majalis on Nasiruddin Chiragh.

Hagiography: Amir Khurd's Siyar-ul-Auliya (14th c.) gives biographies of Chishti saints; letters (maktubat) such as Maneri's.

Bhakti texts: The Jnaneshwari, Varkari abhangs, Lal Ded's vakhs (preserved mainly in oral tradition, written down later) and verses in the Guru Granth Sahib (compiled 1604).

6. Analysis

Common ground: Both stressed love of God, the guru or pir, the inner path over ritual, music and the local language.

Differences: Sufis worked within Islam and the sharia; bhakti saints worked within Hindu traditions, and most did not reject their religion.

Social base: Sufi khanqahs drew townsfolk and peasants; Varkari saints came from tailors, Mahars and maids, giving voice to lower groups.

Political role: The Chishti refusal of patronage gave them moral authority over the Sultans; the Suhrawardis legitimised rulers.

7. Historiography and debates

Islamic influence: Tara Chand, Influence of Islam on Indian Culture (1936), argued that Islam, especially Sufism, shaped bhakti's monotheism and egalitarianism; Yusuf Husain made a similar case.

Indigenous roots: Others note that bhakti began in the south long before Islam came, so 'influence' is better described as interaction.

Rizvi and Nizami: S.A.A. Rizvi's A History of Sufism in India (2 vols, 1978–83) and K.A. Nizami's work describe Chishti independence from the state; scholars such as Simon Digby and Richard Eaton (Sufis of Bijapur, 1978) show that Sufis were also part of political life.

Carl Ernst: Eternal Garden (1992) studies the Chishti centre at Khuldabad and shows how the Deccan was linked to Delhi by Sufi networks.

Social readings: Marxist historians link the spread of bhakti to the growth of crafts and towns; others see it mainly as a religious and literary movement.

8. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Chishti attitude towards the state', state their refusal of grants and court service, contrast with the Suhrawardis, and cite Fawaid-ul-Fuad.

15 marks: For 'Sufism and bhakti', show common ideas, differences and the shared social impact.

20 marks: For 'Sufis as a bridge between communities', cover practices (sama, langar, vernacular), the khanqah as social space, debates (Tara Chand vs. critics) and limits.

Keywords: silsila, khanqah, pir–murid, sama, futuh, wahdat-ul-wujud, malfuzat, Varkari, abhang, vakh.

Source line: In Fawaid-ul-Fuad Nizamuddin is recorded as teaching that the highest devotion is to relieve the distress of the needy and feed the hungry (a paraphrase).

1. Persian at the Sultanate court

Status: Persian, already the literary language of the eastern Islamic world, became the language of the Sultanate's administration, diplomacy, poetry and history; Arabic remained the language of theology and law.

Patronage: Iltutmish and Balban drew poets and scholars fleeing the Mongol invasions of Central Asia and Iran, which made Delhi a refuge of Persian learning.

Amir Khusrau (1253–1325): Poet of several Sultans from Balban's son to Ghiyasuddin Tughluq and disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya; he is known by the title Tuti-i-Hind (Parrot of India).

His historical masnavis: Qiran-us-Sadain (1289) on the meeting of Bughra Khan and his son Kaiqubad; Miftah-ul-Futuh on Jalaluddin Khalji's campaigns; Khazain-ul-Futuh (prose) on Alauddin's conquests; Nuh Sipihr (1318) in praise of India; Tughluq Nama on the rise of the Tughluqs.

Romance: Ashiqa (Deval Rani Khizr Khan) tells the love of Alauddin's son Khizr Khan and the Gujarat princess Deval Rani.

Love of India: In Nuh Sipihr Khusrau praises India's climate, learning, languages and Brahmanas, and claims India is superior to Khurasan and Rum (a paraphrase).

Hindavi and music: Riddles (paheliyan), mukarnis and Hindavi verses are attributed to him, though many attributions are later; he is linked with qaul and tarana in Sufi music, while the popular claim that he invented the sitar and tabla is not supported by contemporary evidence.

Amir Hasan Sijzi (Dehlavi): Poet called the 'Sadi of Hindustan' and compiler of Fawaid-ul-Fuad.

2. Persian historiography

Minhaj-us-Siraj: Tabaqat-i-Nasiri (c. 1260), dedicated to Nasiruddin Mahmud, a general history ending with the early Delhi Sultans.

Ziauddin Barani: Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi (1357) from Balban to the early years of Firuz, and the Fatawa-i-Jahandari, a mirror for princes on kingship and the role of zawabit.

Isami: Futuh-us-Salatin (1350), a verse history written at the Bahmani court and hostile to Muhammad bin Tughluq.

Shams Siraj Afif: Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, an admiring account of Firuz's reign.

Nature of these texts: Court histories with moral and religious aims; they record politics and the elite in detail but say little directly about peasants, so they must be read against the grain.

3. Translations and learning

Sanskrit into Persian: Ziauddin Nakhshabi rendered the Sanskrit Shukasaptati into Persian as the Tuti Nama (c. 1330).

Under Firuz Shah: Sanskrit works found at Nagarkot (Jwalamukhi) were translated, among them a work later known as Dalail-i-Firuz Shahi on astronomy and divination.

Sufi literature: Malfuzat, letters and biographies became a major Persian prose genre.

4. Regional languages of north India

Hindavi and Awadhi: Mulla Daud's Chandayan (1379), written in Awadhi under Firuz's minister Khan-i-Jahan Junan Shah, is the first known Sufi premakhyan (romance of love); it tells the story of Lorik and Chanda.

Rajasthani: Heroic poetry (raso) developed; the Prithviraj Raso, attributed to Chand Bardai, survives in much later versions and its date and authenticity are debated.

Maithili: Jyotirishwara's Varna Ratnakara (14th c.) is an early Maithili prose work; Vidyapati (c. 1352–1448) wrote Krishna love songs (padavali) in Maithili and the Kirtilata in Avahattha.

Bengali: The Srikrishna Kirtana attributed to Baru Chandidas is an early Bengali work; the identity and date of Chandidas are debated.

Assamese: Madhava Kandali rendered the Ramayana into Assamese in the 14th century.

Marathi: Jnaneshwar's Jnaneshwari (1290), Namdev's abhangs and the Mahanubhava Lilacharitra mark the rise of Marathi.

Kashmiri and Punjabi: Lal Ded's vakhs and Nund Rishi's shrukhs in Kashmiri; Baba Farid's verses in early Punjabi.

5. Literature in the languages of south India

Telugu: The Andhra Mahabharatamu, begun by Nannaya (11th c.), was continued by Tikkana (13th c.) and completed by Errana (14th c.); Palkuriki Somanatha's Basava Puranamu and Gona Budda Reddy's Ranganatha Ramayanamu (13th c.).

Kannada: Virashaiva vachanas and poets such as Harihara and Raghavanka (12th–13th c.); Keshiraja's grammar Shabdamanidarpana (13th c.).

Tamil: After Kamban's Ramavataram and Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam (12th c.), the period saw learned commentaries on classics and Vaishnava texts in Manipravala.

Malayalam: Manipravalam, a mix of Malayalam and Sanskrit, produced works such as the Unniyachi Charitam; the Ramacharitam shows the older Pattu style.

Sanskrit in the south: Vedanta Deshika (1268–1369) wrote on Vaishnava philosophy; Sayana's commentaries on the Vedas were written under early Vijayanagara patronage.

6. Sources and evidence

Texts themselves: Manuscripts of Khusrau's works and the chronicles; dated works such as the Jnaneshwari (1290) and Chandayan (1379) fix the chronology.

Illustrated copies: Later illustrated manuscripts of the Chandayan (15th–16th c.) show how these texts circulated.

Inscriptions: Telugu and Kannada inscriptions of the Kakatiyas, Hoysalas and early Vijayanagara record patronage of poets.

7. Analysis

Two worlds that met: Persian served power; regional languages served devotion and regional courts, but the two met in Sufi circles, Hindavi and the premakhyan.

Vernacularisation: Religious movements (bhakti, Sufism, Mahanubhava, Virashaiva) and regional states drove the use of the spoken language in literature.

Composite forms: Sufi premakhyans used Indian stories and settings to express Sufi ideas of love, a clear example of cultural synthesis.

8. Historiography and debates

Pollock: Sheldon Pollock's The Language of the Gods in the World of Men (2006) describes a 'vernacular millennium' from about 1000 CE in which regional languages replaced Sanskrit as the medium of literature and political expression.

Alam: Muzaffar Alam's The Languages of Political Islam (2004) explains how Persian became the shared language of power and adab in India.

Sunil Sharma: Amir Khusraw: The Poet of Sultans and Sufis (2005) places Khusrau between court and khanqah.

Behl: Aditya Behl's Love's Subtle Magic (2012) reads the Hindavi Sufi romances, beginning with the Chandayan, as a genre that blended Sufi and Indian aesthetics.

9. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Amir Khusrau', give dates, major works, his Indian identity and his role in music and Hindavi, flagging doubtful attributions.

15 marks: For 'Persian chronicles as sources', describe two or three historians, their aims and biases.

20 marks: For 'growth of regional literature', organise region by region, link it to bhakti and regional courts, and end with the vernacularisation thesis.

Keywords: masnavi, Tuti-i-Hind, Hindavi, premakhyan, abhang, padavali, Manipravalam, vernacularisation.

1. New structural forms

Trabeate to arcuate: Indian temples used the trabeate system (beams across pillars) and corbelled arches; the Sultanate introduced the arcuate system of true arches made of wedge-shaped voussoirs with a keystone.

Dome: A round dome was raised over a square room using squinches or pendentives to make the transition; the true dome needed lime mortar, which became common.

Decoration: Figural images were avoided in religious buildings; ornament came from Arabic calligraphy (Quranic verses in Naskh and Kufic), arabesque (scrolling vegetal patterns) and geometric designs.

Materials: Red and buff sandstone, later combined with white marble; rubble masonry with plaster in the Tughluq period.

Indian workmanship: Local masons carved lotus, bell-and-chain and kalasha motifs into the new buildings, so the style is called Indo-Islamic.

2. The early Sultans (Ilbari period)

Mosque at Delhi (begun about 1192–93): Built by Qutbuddin Aibak beside the Qila Rai Pithora; its inscription says it used material from 27 temples; Indian masons made the arched screen with corbelled, not true, arches.

Arhai Din ka Jhonpra, Ajmer (about 1199): A mosque built on the site of a Sanskrit college, also using spolia, with a fine calligraphic screen.

Qutb Minar: Begun by Aibak c. 1199 and completed by Iltutmish; after a lightning strike Firuz Shah Tughluq rebuilt the top storeys (1368) in marble and sandstone.

Tombs: Sultan Ghari (1231), built by Iltutmish for his son Nasiruddin Mahmud, is the first monumental Islamic tomb in Delhi; Iltutmish's own tomb (c. 1235) has richly carved interiors and squinches.

Balban's tomb (about 1287): Usually cited as the earliest building in India with true arches; its dome has collapsed.

3. The Khaljis

Alai Darwaza (1311): A gateway to the Qutb mosque built by Alauddin; it has the first true dome built on scientific principles in India, horseshoe-shaped arches with a lotus-bud fringe, and red sandstone inlaid with white marble.

Siri and Hauz-i-Alai: Alauddin built Siri, a new city, and a large tank (Hauz-i-Alai, later Hauz Khas); he also began the Alai Minar, which was never completed.

Jamaat Khana mosque: At Nizamuddin's dargah, often dated to the Khalji period, with arches and a dome.

4. The Tughluqs

Tughluqabad: Ghiyasuddin Tughluq's fortified city with massive sloping (battered) walls; his tomb (c. 1325) stands in a pentagonal enclosure with sloping walls and a white marble dome.

Muhammad bin Tughluq: Built Jahanpanah, linking older cities, and the Adilabad fort; the Bijay Mandal palace platform belongs to his time.

Firuz Shah Tughluq: Built Firozabad (Feroz Shah Kotla), where he set up an Ashokan pillar brought from Topra; another was brought from Meerut; he built the madrasa at Hauz Khas and repaired older monuments, as listed in his Futuhat.

Octagonal tomb: The tomb of Khan-i-Jahan Tilangani (1368–69) is the first octagonal tomb in Delhi, a form that the Sayyids and Lodis developed.

Mosques of Khan-i-Jahan Junan Shah: The Khirki and Kalan mosques, raised on plinths, with domes and severe walls.

Character: Austere, massive, of rubble and plaster, with sloping walls, a reflection of shortage of resources and a military mood, according to most architectural historians.

5. Painting

Scarcity: Very little Sultanate court painting survives; Afif and the Futuhat report that Firuz had figured wall paintings replaced with garden scenes, showing an orthodox objection to images.

Western Indian (Jain) style: Palm-leaf and, from the 14th century, paper manuscripts of the Kalpasutra and Kalakacharya Katha from Gujarat and Rajasthan, with flat red backgrounds, angular figures and the protruding far eye.

Eastern palm-leaf painting: The Pala Buddhist tradition of Bengal and Bihar had declined by the 13th century.

Persian influence: Illustrated Persian manuscripts reached India; the hybrid Sultanate style is best seen in 15th-century works such as the Mandu Nimatnama and illustrated Chandayan copies.

6. Music and composite culture

Music: Sufi sama, Khusrau's qaul and tarana, and the Ghunyat-ul-Munya (1375), compiled in Gujarat, the earliest known Persian treatise on Indian music.

Language: Hindavi, mixing Persian and local speech, grew in Delhi; it became Dakhni in the Deccan after Muhammad bin Tughluq's transfer of population and later developed into Urdu.

Coins and titles: Early Delhi coins carried Nagari legends and the bull-and-horseman motif; Sanskrit inscriptions call the Sultans suratrana, a Sanskrit form of 'Sultan'.

Shared shrines and saints: Hindus visited Sufi dargahs, Sufis and yogis debated, and saint traditions overlapped.

Daily life: New foods, dress (the tunic and trousers), the use of paper and new crafts spread across communities.

7. Sources and evidence

Monuments and inscriptions: The Qutb mosque and minar inscriptions; Firuz's Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi on buildings he raised and repaired.

Chronicles and travellers: Barani, Afif and Ibn Battuta describe palaces, cities and festivals.

Manuscripts: Jain Kalpasutra copies, the Ghunyat-ul-Munya and later illustrated Sufi romances.

8. Historiography and debates

Brown: Percy Brown's Indian Architecture (Islamic Period) (1942) classified the styles into imperial (Delhi) and provincial schools.

Temple destruction: Richard Eaton, 'Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States' (2000), argues that attacks on temples were mainly political acts aimed at royal temples of defeated rulers, not a general campaign against all temples.

Reuse as meaning: Finbarr Barry Flood's Objects of Translation (2009) reads the reuse of temple material in the Qutb mosque as appropriation and display of victory, and stresses cultural exchange across the frontier.

Composite culture: Tara Chand and nationalist writers (Nehru's The Discovery of India) stressed synthesis; Aziz Ahmad's Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (1964) stressed parallel, often separate traditions; Cynthia Talbot (1995) shows how Sanskrit and Telugu inscriptions described Muslims as 'Turks', an ethnic as much as a religious other.

9. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Alai Darwaza' or 'features of Sultanate architecture', list structural features (arch, dome, mortar), decoration and one or two monuments with dates.

15 marks: Trace the evolution from the corbelled arch (Qutb mosque) through the true arch (Balban's tomb) and true dome (Alai Darwaza) to the Tughluq and Lodi tomb types.

20 marks: For 'composite culture', cover architecture, music, language, religion and daily life, then present the debate (Tara Chand vs Aziz Ahmad, Eaton, Talbot).

Keywords: arcuate, voussoir, squinch, spolia, Indo-Islamic, batter (sloping walls), suratrana, Hindavi.

1. Agricultural production

Two harvests: Ibn Battuta noted that the soil yielded two crops a year, the kharif (autumn) and rabi (spring), and in some places rice was sown three times a year.

Crops: Wheat, barley, rice, millets, pulses and oilseeds as food crops; sugarcane, cotton, indigo and sesame as cash crops; fruit cultivation expanded with Persian and Central Asian tastes (grapes, melons).

Sericulture: Mulberry silk production spread in Bengal; Irfan Habib argues it was established there by the 15th century, when Chinese visitors noted silk.

Irrigation devices: Wells with the rope-and-pulley, the charas (leather bucket) and the pot-wheel; Irfan Habib argues that the gear-driven Persian wheel (saqiya) came into wider use in the Sultanate period, and Babur later describes it in Lahore and Dipalpur.

Canals: Firuz Shah Tughluq built canals from the Yamuna and Sutlej to Hissar and other areas and charged the haqq-i-sharb, about a tenth of the produce; Ghiyasuddin Tughluq is also credited with digging canals.

Extension of cultivation: Muhammad bin Tughluq's diwan-i-amir-i-kohi tried to bring waste land under crops with state loans (sondhar), but the scheme failed through corruption and poor planning (Barani).

Revenue and peasants: Alauddin's demand of half the produce assessed by measurement pushed peasants to sell grain for cash; famines, as in the 1330s, show how fragile this system was.

2. Alauddin Khalji's market regulations

Aim: Barani says Alauddin fixed prices so he could keep a large army against the Mongols on modest pay; Amir Khusrau presents the measures as welfare for the people.

Grain market: The shahna-i-mandi controlled the grain market; grain was stored in royal granaries; banjaras (grain carriers) were registered and made to stand surety for one another; revenue in the Doab was collected in kind to supply the granaries.

Cloth and luxuries: The sarai-i-adl was a market for cloth and costly goods; Multani merchants were advanced money from the treasury to bring goods.

Horses, cattle and slaves: Prices for these were also fixed, and brokers were controlled.

Enforcement: The diwan-i-riyasat and spies (munhiyan) watched the markets; shopkeepers who gave short weight had flesh cut from their body equal to the shortfall, Barani says.

Extent and end: The regulations applied mainly to Delhi and depended on the revenue system around it; they lapsed after Alauddin's death (1316).

3. Currency

Iltutmish's coinage: He introduced the silver tanka (about 11 grams) and the copper (billon) jital, which became the standard coins of the Sultanate.

Monetisation: Revenue in cash, salaries paid in tankas and bills of exchange spread the use of money in the countryside.

Token currency (about 1329–30): Muhammad bin Tughluq issued brass and copper coins to pass at the value of silver, probably because of a shortage of silver; Barani says every Hindu's house became a mint, and the Sultan had to redeem the tokens with silver and gold.

Numismatic evidence: Surviving token coins carry inscriptions urging obedience to the Sultan; Thakkura Pheru's Dravyapariksha (c. 1318) gives the metal content of coins of his time.

4. Urban economy and crafts

Karkhanas: Royal workshops produced cloth, arms, carpets and other goods for the court; Afif says Firuz had 36 karkhanas.

Textiles: Cotton weaving was the largest craft; Bengal's fine cloth and Gujarat's textiles were exported; silk weaving grew.

New techniques: Paper came into regular use from the 13th century; the spinning wheel (charkha) and the carder's bow (dhunia's kaman) sped up cotton working; Irfan Habib argues these were introduced or spread under the Sultanate.

Building industry: The arch, dome and lime mortar created demand for masons, lime burners and brick makers; Delhi's repeated new cities employed thousands.

Other crafts: Sugar refining, metal-work, leather, paper-making and the manufacture of luxury goods for the nobility.

5. Trade and commerce

Inland trade: Grain moved by banjara caravans on bullocks; towns were linked by roads with sarais; brokers (dallals) and money-changers (sarrafs) served the markets.

Credit: Multani and Hindu merchant bankers lent money to nobles and the state; the hundi (bill of exchange) was used to transfer funds.

Overland routes: Through Multan and Lahore to Kabul, Khurasan and Central Asia; horses were the main import by land, along with dry fruits and slaves; India exported textiles and indigo.

Maritime trade: Cambay and Broach in Gujarat; Calicut and Quilon in Malabar; ports of the Coromandel and Bengal (Satgaon, Sonargaon); Arab, Persian, Gujarati, Chetti and Chinese merchants took part.

Indian Ocean links: India exported cotton textiles, pepper, spices and indigo, and imported horses (by sea to the south), precious metals, silk and porcelain; Ibn Battuta saw large Chinese junks at Calicut.

Foreign merchants: Marco Polo (1290s) describes horse imports into the Pandya ports and the trade of Malabar; the Karimi merchants of Egypt and Arab traders were prominent.

6. Sources and evidence

Chronicles: Barani's detailed account of the market regulations and token currency; Afif on Firuz's canals and karkhanas; Amir Khusrau's Khazain-ul-Futuh.

Travellers: Ibn Battuta on crops, prices, ports and Chinese junks; Marco Polo on south Indian ports.

Technical works: Thakkura Pheru's Dravyapariksha and Ganitasara; surviving coins are central evidence for monetary history.

7. Analysis

Growth: Most historians accept that the 13th–14th centuries saw urban growth, monetisation and expansion of crafts and trade.

Limits: The economy depended heavily on extraction from peasants; famine, revolt and overtaxation in the Doab under Muhammad bin Tughluq show its fragility.

State and market: Alauddin's controls show a strong state intervening in markets, but they could not be sustained beyond the capital and his reign.

8. Historiography and debates

Urban revolution: Mohammad Habib's thesis of an 'urban revolution' was developed by Irfan Habib in The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I (1982, eds Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib), linking towns to revenue surplus and technology.

Persian wheel debate: Some scholars hold that the araghatta of earlier Sanskrit texts was already a geared Persian wheel; Irfan Habib argues that the geared device came with the Sultanate.

Market regulations: Historians debate whether the controls covered only Delhi or wider areas, and whether Barani's figures are reliable.

Token currency: Older writers treated it as madness; modern historians (for example Irfan Habib and Satish Chandra) see it as a reasonable response to a silver shortage that failed because the state could not stop forgery.

9. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'token currency' give date, reason (silver shortage), failure (forgery, Barani) and redemption.

15 marks: For 'market regulations', give aims, the machinery (shahna-i-mandi, sarai-i-adl, diwan-i-riyasat, munhiyan), effects and limits.

20 marks: For 'urban economy and trade', link revenue surplus, towns, crafts and technology, inland and maritime trade, and end with the urban revolution debate.

Keywords: kharif and rabi, saqiya, haqq-i-sharb, tanka and jital, karkhana, banjara, hundi, Multanis, urban revolution.

1. Women, Religious Classes, Caste and Slavery

Example 1 (UPSC 2024, 15 marks): Compare and contrast the position of Hindu and Muslim women in 13th and 14th century India.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)

Approach: A compare-and-contrast question: set out the common features first, then the differences in law, marriage and public life, and close with the role of class.

The position of women in the 13th and 14th centuries depended as much on class as on religion. Evidence comes from the Dharmashastra commentaries, Persian chronicles, Sufi malfuzat and Ibn Battuta (in India 1333–42).

Common features: In both communities the household was patriarchal and upper-class women lived in seclusion (purdah). Peasant and artisan women of both faiths worked in fields and at the spinning wheel, and both communities kept female slaves.

Hindu women: The smriti tradition (the Mitakshara) gave women limited property rights through stridhana, upper castes forbade widow remarriage and married girls young, and sati was practised among some high-status groups; Battuta describes a sati he saw near Amjhera in Malwa and says it was praised but not compulsory.

Muslim women: Sharia gave them a fixed share in inheritance (half a son's share), the mahr (dower), the right to seek divorce and the freedom to remarry as widows, though polygamy was permitted to men. Raziya (1236–40) ruled at Delhi, while Firuz Shah, in his Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi, forbade women to visit shrines outside the city.

Thus Muslim women had firmer legal rights and Hindu women faced harsher customs such as sati and enforced widowhood, but seclusion and dependence were common to elite women of both faiths, and class shaped daily life more than creed.

Example 2 (UPSC 2018, 10 marks): Discuss evidence on slavery provided by Ibn Batuta with special reference to female slaves.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)

Approach: Introduce Ibn Battuta and his Rihla, then present what he says about the supply, price, uses and treatment of slaves, with female slaves at the centre, and end with the value and limits of his evidence.

The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta lived in India from 1333 to 1342, served Muhammad bin Tughluq as qazi of Delhi and wrote the Rihla, in which slaves appear constantly.

Supply and price: Wars and raids produced a steady flow of captives, so slaves were cheap. In Bengal, he says, a beautiful slave girl could be bought for one gold dinar, and he himself bought one there.

Female slaves: They worked as domestic servants, concubines and, if trained, as singers and dancers. Captured girls, including daughters of defeated chiefs, were distributed by the Sultan to nobles at festivals, and slave girls formed part of Muhammad bin Tughluq's gifts to the Chinese emperor.

Corroboration: Barani's list of Alauddin's market prices, with separate rates for a working slave girl and a concubine, confirms that female slaves were a normal market commodity.

Battuta's evidence is first-hand but reflects the elite household he lived in and is silent on the slaves' own lives. It shows that female slaves were valued for labour, pleasure and prestige.

2. Bhakti and Sufi Movements under the Sultanate

Example 3 (UPSC 2026, 10 marks): "The Sufis created a climate in which people belonging to different sects and religions could live in peace and harmony." Discuss.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)

Approach: Discuss the statement by showing how Sufi practice and teaching encouraged harmony, then qualify it with the limits of that role, and give a balanced judgement.

The Sufi orders of the Sultanate, above all the Chishtis of Ajmer and Delhi, kept khanqahs open to all, and their malfuzat, such as Amir Hasan Sijzi's Fawaid-ul-Fuad, show concern for people of every faith.

Practices of harmony: The jamaat-khana and langar fed rich and poor, Muslim and Hindu alike; Nizamuddin Auliya taught that serving the needy was higher than ritual worship; and the doctrine of sulh-i-kul (peace with all) was attached to the Chishtis by later tradition.

Shared idiom: Sama with Hindavi songs, Amir Khusrau's verse, the use of local languages and the dargah as a place of pilgrimage for all communities created a common religious culture.

Limits: Sufis remained within Islam and some, such as the Suhrawardis close to the court, supported the state and the ulama. Their harmony was social and local rather than a doctrine of equal religions.

The statement is broadly valid: Sufis did not end conflict, but their tolerance, service and shared devotion created spaces where communities met in peace.

Example 4 (UPSC 2024, 10 marks): Evaluate the contribution of Qalandariyyah to medieval Indian culture.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)

Approach: Define the Qalandars and their practices, name the main figures in India, then evaluate their cultural contribution and its limits.

The Qalandariyya were wandering dervishes who rejected the discipline of the khanqah and social convention. The movement took shape in Iran and Syria in the 13th century (Jamaluddin Savi is seen as a founder) and reached India with the Turks.

Practices: Qalandars shaved the head, beard and eyebrows, wore blankets, carried iron rings and lived on alms, despising wealth and rank. Ahmet Karamustafa (God's Unruly Friends, 1994) calls this renunciation through social deviance.

Figures in India: Lal Shahbaz Qalandar of Sehwan in Sindh (13th century) and Bu Ali Qalandar of Panipat (d. 1324), a Persian poet.

Contribution: They carried Sufi ideas to the poor, mixed with Nath yogis and other ascetics, and shaped popular devotion, music and dance such as the dhamal at Sehwan; their mockery of formal religion fed the critical strand of mysticism.

Though the Chishtis and the ulama viewed them with suspicion, their contribution to popular culture was real: they widened Sufism's social reach and helped create a shared culture of shrines.

Example 5 (UPSC 2023, 20 marks): Analyze the tenets, spread and impact of the Bhakti Movement.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)

Approach: Cover the three parts in turn: the tenets (with the nirguna–saguna distinction), the spread across regions and languages, and the impact on religion, society and literature, ending with an assessment informed by the historiographical debate.

The Bhakti movement was a devotional current that began with the Alvars and Nayanars of Tamil country (c. 6th–9th centuries) and spread north between the 13th and 16th centuries. It taught that loving devotion to a personal God was the surest path to liberation.

Tenets: Bhakti stressed devotion over ritual and sacrifice, the grace of God, the guru, the repetition of the divine name and the equality of devotees before God. It took two forms: saguna bhakti, devotion to Vishnu's incarnations Rama and Krishna, and nirguna bhakti, devotion to a formless God, as in Kabir, Ravidas and Nanak.

Spread: In Maharashtra the Varkari saints Jnaneshwar, Namdev and later Eknath and Tukaram centred on Vithoba of Pandharpur; in the north Ramananda, Kabir and Ravidas preached in Banaras, Chaitanya in Bengal and Odisha, Shankaradeva in Assam, Vallabha and Surdas in Braj, and Mirabai in Rajasthan. Saints used the vernacular, songs (kirtan, abhang) and itinerant preaching, and their followers formed panths and maths.

Religious impact: Bhakti shifted religion from priest and temple to personal devotion, while saints such as Kabir attacked both pandit and mulla.

Social impact: Many saints came from artisan or low castes and criticised caste ritual, giving dignity to the poor; yet the movement rarely challenged caste as a social system, and many sects later adopted caste rules again.

Literary impact: It created a great vernacular literature in Marathi, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese and Punjabi, from the abhangs of Tukaram to the Adi Granth (1604).

Bhakti thus made religion personal and literature popular and gave voice to humble groups, though its social radicalism stopped short of overturning caste.

Example 6 (UPSC 2023, 10 marks): Discuss the importance of Sufic literature as an important source of history.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)

Approach: Name the genres of Sufi writing with examples, show what kinds of historical information each gives, and close with the cautions needed in using them.

Sufi literature is a major non-official source for the Sultanate, because it records the lives and talk of people outside the court. K.A. Nizami was among the first historians to use it systematically.

Genres: The malfuzat (recorded conversations of a saint), such as Amir Hasan Sijzi's Fawaid-ul-Fuad (1307–22) on Nizamuddin Auliya and Hamid Qalandar's Khair-ul-Majalis on Nasiruddin Chiragh; the maktubat (letters), such as those of Sharafuddin Yahya Maneri of Bihar; and the tazkiras (biographical dictionaries), such as Amir Khurd's Siyar-ul-Auliya.

Value: They tell us about prices and famines, the life of artisans, traders and peasants, popular beliefs, music (sama), relations between Sufis and the state, and the spread of the Persian and Hindavi languages, which the court chronicles ignore.

Limits: They are devotional in purpose and full of miracles, and some malfuzat attributed to the early Chishtis are later forgeries, as Nizami showed.

Used critically alongside the chronicles, Sufi literature gives a social history of the Sultanate seen from below.

Example 7 (UPSC 2021, 10 marks): Discuss the attitude of Chishti saints towards the state. How were the Suhrawardi saints different in their attitude towards the government?

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)

Approach: A two-part question: describe the Chishti attitude with examples, then contrast the Suhrawardi attitude, and end with what explains the difference.

The two great Sufi orders of the Sultanate, the Chishtis and the Suhrawardis, differed sharply in their relations with the state.

Chishti attitude: The Chishtis held that contact with rulers corrupted the soul. They refused state service and land grants (jagirs) and lived on futuh, unsolicited gifts. Baba Farid is said to have declined villages offered by Ulugh Khan (Balban); Nizamuddin Auliya never visited the court of Alauddin Khalji; and Nasiruddin Chiragh-i-Dehli was harassed by Muhammad bin Tughluq for refusing to serve him.

Suhrawardi attitude: The Suhrawardis, led by Bahauddin Zakariya of Multan, saw no harm in close ties with government. Bahauddin accepted the title Shaikh-ul-Islam from Iltutmish, supported him against Qubacha, owned great wealth and held grants.

Reasons: The Chishtis worked among common people in a plural society, while the Suhrawardis of frontier Multan stressed sharia and saw the state as protector of the faith.

Thus the Chishtis kept a moral distance from power, while the Suhrawardis cooperated with it.

Example 8 (UPSC 2019, 15 marks): Sufi and Bhakti thoughts ennobled Indian psyche amidst the vagaries of time. Elucidate.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)

Approach: Elucidate by showing, with examples, how Sufi and Bhakti ideas raised moral and humane values in a period of war and instability, and note the limits.

The 13th to 16th centuries were marked by conquest, the fall of old kingdoms, famines and rigid caste and religious boundaries. In this setting the Sufi and Bhakti saints offered a message of love, equality and inner devotion that gave ordinary people moral strength.

Love over ritual: Both taught that God is reached through love and a pure heart, not through ritual, priests or rank. Kabir mocked the pandit and the mulla alike, and Nizamuddin Auliya held that relieving the distress of the needy was the highest worship.

Dignity of the humble: Saints such as Namdev (a tailor), Kabir (a weaver) and Ravidas (a leather-worker) showed that devotion was open to all, while Sufi khanqahs and langars fed everyone without distinction.

Shared culture: Common shrines, Hindavi songs, sama and kirtan, and the poetry of Amir Khusrau, Baba Farid and Guru Nanak built bridges between communities, which Tara Chand saw as the root of a composite culture.

Vernacular voice: Preaching in Marathi, Hindavi, Punjabi and Bengali carried ethical ideas to people who knew no Sanskrit or Persian.

Limits: The saints did not abolish caste or end conflict, and their followers later formed separate sects.

Yet by placing humanity, compassion and tolerance at the centre of religion, Sufi and Bhakti thought gave Indian society an ethical anchor that outlasted the political turmoil of the age.

Example 9 (UPSC 2018, 15 marks): What was the role of Sufi Folk literature in the diffusion of Islam in India in general and in Deccan in particular.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)

Approach: Explain what Sufi folk literature was, give examples from North India and then the Deccan (drawing on Richard Eaton), and assess how far it spread Islam, noting that conversion was gradual and not the Sufis' main aim.

Besides learned Persian works, Sufis composed songs and poems in local languages for ordinary people. This Sufi folk literature carried Islamic ideas into villages and homes where Persian was unknown.

North India: Verses in early Punjabi attributed to Baba Farid were later included in the Adi Granth; Amir Khusrau's Hindavi songs were sung at sama; and Maulana Daud's Chandayan (1379) began the Hindavi premakhyan, a love story with a Sufi meaning, followed by Qutban's Mrigavati (1503).

Deccan: Richard Eaton (Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700, 1978) showed how Sufis of Bijapur such as Miranji Shams-ul-Ushshaq and Burhanuddin Janam wrote in Dakhni the chakki-nama (songs for grinding grain), charkha-nama (spinning songs) and lori-nama (lullabies). Women sang them at household work, so that Sufi ideas, the names of God and the Prophet and the role of the pir entered daily life.

Diffusion: Eaton argues that Islam spread through such slow cultural absorption, not by force or mass conversion, and that a family might accept the pir's blessing long before formal conversion.

Limits: Most Deccani folk texts date from the 16th–17th centuries; K.A. Nizami and others stress that the early Sufis did not aim at conversion, and many devotees of shrines remained Hindu.

Sufi folk literature thus helped Islam take root gradually and in Indian forms, especially in the Deccan, as a shared devotional culture rather than a planned mission.

Example 10 (UPSC 2017, 15 marks): “Bhakti and Sufi movements served the same social purpose.” Discuss.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)

Approach: A 'discuss' question on a comparison: show the common social purposes, then the real differences in origin, organisation and social aims, and conclude on how far the statement holds.

The Bhakti and Sufi movements flourished side by side in the 13th–16th centuries. Both were mystical and devotional, which led Tara Chand (Influence of Islam on Indian Culture, 1936) and others to treat them as parallel or even connected movements.

Common purposes: Both placed love of God above ritual and formal learning, criticised the pride of priests and ulama, and taught humility and service. Both reached ordinary people through the vernacular and through music (sama and kirtan), offered the poor and low-born dignity, and created shared spaces of worship that eased tension between communities.

Differences: Sufism worked within Islam and the sharia, through organised silsilas, khanqahs and the pir–murid bond, and some orders, such as the Suhrawardis, were close to the state. Bhakti grew from Indian roots in the Alvars, Nayanars and Nath traditions, was divided into saguna and nirguna streams, and had no single organisation.

Social aims: Nirguna saints such as Kabir and Ravidas openly attacked caste, while most saguna saints and Sufis accepted the social order and sought inner reform.

The statement holds for their broad humanising role, since both softened religious boundaries and gave voice to the humble, but their origins, organisation and degree of social protest were different.

Example 11 (UPSC 2015, 20 marks): "Sufis and medieval mystic saints failed to modify either the religious ideas and practices or the outward structure of Islamic/Hindu societies to any appreciable extent." Comment for/against.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)

Approach: The question asks you to argue for and against a sceptical view. Present the evidence that the saints changed little in doctrine and social structure, then the evidence of real change, and give a balanced conclusion.

The statement takes a sceptical view of the Sufi and Bhakti saints of the 13th–16th centuries, who are often credited with reforming religion and society and creating a composite culture. Testing it requires separating the saints' ideas from their actual effects.

For the statement: The Sufis remained within the sharia; even the Chishtis did not challenge the authority of the ulama or Islamic law, and the orthodox Suhrawardis and later the Naqshbandis worked to strengthen it. The structure of Muslim society, with its divide between ashraf and ajlaf, continued.

Among Hindus, caste, temple worship and Brahmanical ritual survived intact. The followers of radical saints such as Kabir and Ravidas formed new sects (Kabirpanth, Raidasi), which themselves acquired gurus, rituals and caste-like rules. Irfan Habib notes that 'popular monotheism' attracted artisans and peasants but never overturned the caste order.

Against the statement: The saints changed religious practice in important ways. Devotion in the vernacular, the guru, the name of God and congregational singing (kirtan, sama) replaced Sanskrit ritual for many; temple-centred and priest-led worship lost its monopoly. Kabir's and Nanak's ideas led to the Sikh panth, a new religious community.

Social change: Low-caste saints such as Namdev, Kabir and Ravidas won respect and followings across castes; Sufi langars and dargahs brought Hindus and Muslims together; and a shared vocabulary of devotion grew in Hindavi, Punjabi and Marathi. Tara Chand and later scholars see here the roots of cultural synthesis.

The statement is therefore partly true: the saints did not transform the outward structure of either society or dissolve caste and orthodoxy, but they changed religious sensibility, created new communities and literatures and softened relations between faiths.

3. Persian and Regional Literature

Example 12 (UPSC 2026, 15 marks): Critically analyze Barani's Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi and identify the shortcomings in his account.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)

Approach: A critical analysis: introduce Barani and the work, acknowledge its value, then set out its shortcomings under clear heads, and end with how historians should use it.

Ziauddin Barani (c. 1285–after 1357), a nadim (companion) of Muhammad bin Tughluq, completed the Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi in 1357. It covers Delhi's history from Balban to the early years of Firuz Shah Tughluq and continues Minhaj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri.

Value: Barani was the first Indo-Persian historian to explain events by causes. His account of Alauddin Khalji's revenue measures and market regulations, of the token currency and the Doab taxation of Muhammad bin Tughluq, and of the nobility is our main evidence for these subjects.

Didactic purpose: Barani saw history as moral instruction for rulers, so he shaped events to prove that piety is rewarded and impiety punished; Peter Hardy (Historians of Medieval India, 1960) showed how this purpose governs his narrative.

Class and religious bias: He was hostile to the low-born and to Hindus, praised high birth and orthodoxy, and judged rulers by these standards.

Weak chronology and memory: Written in old age, out of office and from memory, the work gives few dates, compresses or misorders events, and passes lightly over Alauddin's Deccan campaigns, which Amir Khusrau and Isami describe more fully.

Inconsistency and flattery: His picture of Muhammad bin Tughluq mixes praise and condemnation, and his treatment of Firuz, his patron, is flattering.

The work remains indispensable, but its facts must be checked against Khusrau, Isami, Ibn Battuta and coins, and its judgements read as Barani's political philosophy.

Example 13 (UPSC 2025, 15 marks): Barani’s “Fatwa-i-Jahandari” was not a proper account of the Delhi Sultanate, rather a lament. Elucidate.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)

Approach: Explain what kind of text the Fatawa-i-Jahandari is, show why it reads as a lament, then show its value as political theory, and conclude.

Barani wrote the Fatawa-i-Jahandari in the late 1350s, after losing favour at court on Muhammad bin Tughluq's death. It is not a chronicle but a mirror for princes, a set of counsels on kingship, translated by Mohammad Habib and Afsar Umar Salim Khan in The Political Theory of the Delhi Sultanate (1961).

Not an account: It contains no connected narrative of reigns; it states how a Muslim king ought to rule and cites rulers only as examples, many of them idealised Ghaznavid and Persian kings.

A lament: Written by an old, impoverished and bitter man, it mourns a world in which, in his view, the low-born held office, Hindus prospered, philosophers misled kings and the ulama were worldly. Barani even admits that kingship rests on the practices of Persian emperors, which conflict with the Prophet's way, and regrets this.

Value as political theory: It argues that the Sultan must issue zawabit (state regulations) beside the sharia, that justice and the protection of religion are the king's duties, and that only the well-born should serve. Mohammad Habib stressed that these were Barani's personal views, not the actual practice of the Sultans.

The statement is largely true: the Fatawa is a lament and a programme rather than history, yet it is invaluable for understanding the outlook of the Sultanate's orthodox, aristocratic elite.

Example 14 (UPSC 2021, 10 marks): Identify the different categories of Persian literature which emerged during the Delhi Sultanate.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)

Approach: Identify the categories one by one with one or two named works each, and close with a line on their significance.

Persian, the language of the court and administration, produced a rich and varied literature in the Delhi Sultanate, which falls into several categories.

History (tarikh): Minhaj-us-Siraj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri (1260), Barani's Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi (1357), Isami's verse history Futuh-us-Salatin (1350), Afif's Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi and Yahya Sirhindi's Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi (c. 1434).

Poetry: Amir Khusrau's ghazals and historical masnavis such as Qiran-us-Sadain and Nuh Sipihr, and the ghazals of Amir Hasan Sijzi.

Political theory: Fakhr-i-Mudabbir's Adab-ul-Harb wa'sh-Shujaat and Barani's Fatawa-i-Jahandari.

Sufi literature: malfuzat such as the Fawaid-ul-Fuad, letters (maktubat) and the Siyar-ul-Auliya.

Letters and memoirs: Ainul Mulk Mahru's Insha-i-Mahru and Firuz Shah's Futuhat-i-Firoz Shahi.

Translations: Ziya Nakhshabi's Tuti Nama, adapted from the Sanskrit Shukasaptati, and the Dalail-i-Firoz Shahi, from Sanskrit texts taken at Nagarkot.

Together these genres created an Indo-Persian literary culture that served the court and also absorbed Indian themes.

4. Sultanate Architecture, Painting and Composite Culture

Example 15 (UPSC 2026, 10 marks): How far can the Qutub Complex at Mehrauli be considered as an ideal specimen for the study on the development of architecture under the Delhi Sultanate? Analyze.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)

Approach: A 'how far' question: show what the Qutb complex reveals about the evolution of Sultanate architecture, then what it leaves out, and give a measured verdict.

The Qutb complex at Mehrauli holds buildings from the 1190s to the 14th century and shows how Indo-Islamic architecture grew out of Indian craftsmanship and West Asian forms.

Early phase: The Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque (begun 1190s) reused temple pillars, and its screen of arches (1199) was built by Indian masons using corbelling, with Arabic calligraphy beside Indian floral motifs. The Qutb Minar, begun by Aibak and completed by Iltutmish, shows fluted storeys and bands of inscription.

Development: Iltutmish enlarged the mosque and built his tomb (c. 1235), where squinches carry the transition to a dome. Alauddin Khalji's Alai Darwaza (1311) has true arches and a true dome, red sandstone with white marble inlay, and horseshoe arches with a lotus-bud fringe.

What it lacks: The first true arch in Balban's tomb lies outside the complex, and the Tughluq style of sloping walls and plain rubble, and the octagonal and double-domed Lodi tombs, are absent.

The complex is thus an ideal specimen for the formative phase of Sultanate architecture, not for its full development.

Example 16 (UPSC 2018, 20 marks): Describe the new architectural features added by successive Sultans in the construction of Tombs in India.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)

Approach: Describe the tombs in chronological order, dynasty by dynasty, naming the new feature each introduced, and close with the overall line of development.

The monumental tomb (maqbara), unknown in pre-Turkish India, became a main building type of the Delhi Sultanate, and each dynasty added new features.

Early Turkish (Mamluk): The Sultan Ghari (1231), built by Iltutmish for his son Nasiruddin Mahmud, is the first monumental Islamic tomb in India, with an octagonal underground chamber inside a fortified enclosure. Iltutmish's own tomb (c. 1235) in the Qutb complex is a square chamber with rich carving and squinches for a dome. Balban's tomb (c. 1287) shows the first true arch built with voussoirs in India.

Khalji: Alauddin's tomb and madrasa in the Qutb complex, now ruined, continued the use of true arches and domes, which the Alai Darwaza (1311) had perfected.

Tughluq: Ghiyasuddin Tughluq's tomb (1325) at Tughlaqabad has sloping (battered) walls of red sandstone, a white marble dome and stood in an artificial lake within a fortified enclosure. In Multan, the tomb of Shah Rukn-i-Alam (c. 1320s) is a great brick octagon. The tomb of Khan-i-Jahan Tilangani (1368–69) in Delhi introduced the octagonal tomb with a surrounding verandah. Firuz Shah's tomb at Hauz Khas (c. 1388) is plain and square.

Sayyid and Lodi: Two types developed: octagonal tombs with verandahs, chhatris and sloping buttresses, such as those of Mubarak Shah and Muhammad Shah Sayyid (1444) and Sikandar Lodi (1517–18), and square tombs such as the Bara Gumbad (1490). Sikandar Lodi's tomb is often cited as the first in India with a double dome, which raised the outer dome without making the interior too tall.

The tomb thus evolved from a fortified crypt to a domed, octagonal, double-domed garden structure, the direct ancestor of Humayun's tomb and the Taj Mahal.

Example 17 (UPSC 2014, 15 marks): Trace the technological and stylistic development in the architecture of the Sultanate period.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)

Approach: Trace two threads together: technology (arch, dome, mortar, materials) and style (decoration and the character of each phase), moving from the Mamluks to the Lodis.

Sultanate architecture combined West Asian forms with the skills of Indian masons. Percy Brown (Indian Architecture: Islamic Period) traced its growth through distinct dynastic phases.

Technology: Indian builders used the trabeate system of beams and corbels, so the early arches of the Quwwat-ul-Islam screen (1199) are corbelled. The true arch built with voussoirs appears in Balban's tomb (c. 1287), and the true dome in the Alai Darwaza (1311). These depended on strong lime mortar, which Irfan Habib counts among the technical changes of the period. Later builders used the four-centred arch, pendentives and squinches, and in the Lodi period the double dome.

Materials: Early buildings used dressed stone and reused temple material; the Khaljis used red sandstone with white marble; the Tughluqs used rubble covered with plaster.

Style: Decoration relied on Arabic calligraphy, geometric patterns and arabesque, since figures were avoided, while Indian craftsmen added lotus, bell and kalash motifs. The Khalji style was ornate; the Tughluq style was austere, with sloping walls and fortress-like massiveness, as at Tughlaqabad; the Lodis built octagonal tombs with chhatris and returned to ornament.

Thus Sultanate architecture moved from improvised beginnings to a mature Indo-Islamic style that the Mughals inherited.

5. Agriculture, Urban Economy, Crafts and Trade

Example 18 (UPSC 2022, 10 marks): The establishment of large number of urban settlements in North India in the thirteenth century was principally owing to the deployment of Turkish garrisons across the lands. Comment.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)

Approach: Comment on a one-cause explanation: accept the role of garrisons and iqta centres, then add the other causes of urban growth and the debate on continuity, and conclude.

Mohammad Habib described the Turkish conquest as bringing an 'urban revolution' to North India, and the 13th century did see the growth of towns such as Delhi, Lahore, Multan, Badaun, Kara and Awadh.

Role of garrisons: The Turks held the country through garrisons placed in forts that became the headquarters of iqtas. The muqti and his troops spent the land revenue, collected largely in cash, in these centres, which drew craftsmen, traders and servants. Irfan Habib stresses this transfer of rural surplus to towns.

Other causes: Long-distance trade with Central and West Asia, new crafts such as paper-making and the spinning wheel, a stable silver currency (the tanka) and Sufi khanqahs also fed urban growth.

Continuity: B.D. Chattopadhyaya and others show that many towns were already growing in the early medieval period, so the Turks expanded an existing network.

The statement identifies an important cause, but urbanisation resulted from garrisons, cash revenue, trade and crafts together.

Example 19 (UPSC 2020, 10 marks): How did international trade support urbanisation in North India during the 13-14th century CE.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)

Approach: Explain the overland and maritime trade routes, the goods and merchants involved, and show how this trade fed particular towns, ending with its limits.

The 13th–14th centuries joined North India to a wider Islamic world stretching from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. International trade became one of the supports of the towns that grew under the Sultanate.

Overland trade: Routes through Multan, Lahore and the passes linked Delhi with Khurasan and Central Asia. India imported war horses, fine textiles, dry fruits and slaves, and exported cotton cloth, indigo, sugar and slaves. Multan, the gateway town, was home to Multani and Khurasani merchants.

Maritime trade: Gujarat's Cambay and Bengal's Sonargaon and Satgaon traded with the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and Southeast Asia, and their products reached Delhi.

Effects: Payment for horses and luxuries required silver, and the stable tanka eased transactions. Ibn Battuta describes Delhi as the largest city of the Muslim East, full of foreign merchants and markets.

Yet much urban wealth came from the land revenue spent by the ruling class. Trade supplemented this base and gave towns a cosmopolitan character.

Example 20 (UPSC 2020, 15 marks): Some new crafts production were introduced by the Turks. Comment.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)

Approach: Comment by listing the crafts and techniques usually credited to the Turkish period, giving the evidence for each, then the debate on how new they were, and conclude.

Irfan Habib, in his studies of technology in medieval India, argued that the Turkish conquest brought a set of new techniques from the Islamic world, which raised production and changed urban crafts.

Textiles: The spinning wheel (charkha) appears in India in this period; Habib cites Isami's Futuh-us-Salatin (1350) as an early reference. The carding bow of the cotton-carder (dhuniya) also spread, and silk weaving and embroidery flourished in the royal karkhanas.

Paper: Paper-making spread in the 13th–14th centuries, supporting the bureaucracy, correspondence and book production.

Building: Lime mortar, the true arch and the dome came with the Turks.

Other crafts: Carpet-weaving, glazed tiles, bookbinding, calligraphy and possibly distillation are associated with the period, and the stirrup and new forms of harness changed cavalry warfare.

Irrigation: Habib also argued that the Persian wheel with gearing (saqiya) came into wider use, but scholars point to the earlier araghatta wheel, so how new it was remains debated.

The statement is broadly correct: the Turks introduced or spread important crafts and techniques that enlarged urban production, though some had Indian antecedents.

Example 21 (UPSC 2019, 15 marks): Delineate the state of agriculture during the Sultanate period.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)

Approach: Delineate the agrarian scene: crops and harvests, irrigation, the peasantry and revenue system, state measures under Alauddin, Muhammad bin Tughluq and Firuz, and the general condition of agriculture.

Agriculture was the base of the Sultanate economy and the source of the land tax (kharaj) that maintained the ruling class. Barani, Afif and Ibn Battuta are our main sources.

Crops: Ibn Battuta noted that the soil gave two harvests a year, the kharif and the rabi. Wheat, barley, rice, millets and pulses were the food crops, while sugarcane, cotton, oilseeds and indigo were grown for the market.

Irrigation: Wells, tanks and the water-wheel watered the fields. Firuz Shah Tughluq cut canals from the Yamuna and Sutlej, including one to his new town of Hisar, and charged a water tax (haqq-i-sharb); Afif also credits him with many orchards around Delhi.

Agrarian structure: Between the state and the peasant stood the khots, muqaddams and chaudhuris, the rural chiefs who collected revenue and kept a share. Alauddin Khalji fixed the land tax at half the produce, based on measurement, and made these chiefs pay the same rates as ordinary peasants.

State experiments: Muhammad bin Tughluq's higher taxation in the Doab, coinciding with famine, caused peasants to flee, after which he gave loans (sondhar) and created a department (Diwan-i-Amir-i-Kohi) to extend cultivation, with little success. Firuz reduced the burden.

Agriculture was productive and increasingly commercial, but the peasant bore a heavy tax and was vulnerable to famine and state demands.

Example 22 (UPSC 2018, 10 marks): Discuss the advancement made in Textile Technology under the Delhi Sultans.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)

Approach: Discuss the new tools and processes in spinning, carding and weaving, the organisation of production in karkhanas, and the evidence of quality, with a note on the debate.

Cotton textiles were India's leading manufacture, and Irfan Habib has argued that the Sultanate period saw important changes in textile technology brought from the Islamic world.

Spinning wheel: The charkha replaced the hand spindle and raised the output of yarn several times. Habib finds an early clear reference in Isami's Futuh-us-Salatin (1350). Spinning became a common household task of women.

Carding bow: The bow used by the dhuniya to clean and fluff cotton spread at the same time and speeded preparation.

Weaving and finishing: Better looms, wider use of dyes such as indigo, and block printing improved cloth. Royal karkhanas employed weavers and embroiderers of silk and gold thread; al-Umari's Masalik-ul-Absar speaks of thousands employed by Muhammad bin Tughluq.

Quality: Amir Khusrau praised the fine cloth of Devagiri, and Ibn Battuta admired the textiles of Bengal.

Some scholars caution that dating these tools is uncertain, but the evidence points to a real rise in textile production.

Example 23 (UPSC 2017, 20 marks): Delineate non-agricultural production and urban economy in the 13th and 14th centuries C.E.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)

Approach: Delineate two linked themes: the range and organisation of non-agricultural production, and the urban economy (towns, markets, merchants, money), with the historiography and a conclusion.

The 13th and 14th centuries saw marked growth of crafts and towns in North India. Mohammad Habib called this an 'urban revolution', and Irfan Habib linked it to the cash revenue of the iqta system and new technology.

Crafts: Textiles led: the spinning wheel and carding bow raised cotton output, while silk weaving and embroidery grew. Other crafts included paper-making, metalwork and arms, leather goods, sugar, indigo, building (with lime mortar and the arch) and carpet-weaving.

Karkhanas: The state ran workshops to supply the court and army; Afif says Firuz Shah had 36 karkhanas, and al-Umari reports that Muhammad bin Tughluq employed thousands of weavers and embroiderers. Most production, however, remained in the hands of artisans working at home.

Towns: Delhi, which Ibn Battuta thought the largest city of the Muslim East, Lahore, Multan, Badaun, Kara, Jaunpur, Cambay and Lakhnauti were centres of administration, crafts and trade. Iqta headquarters became market towns.

Markets and merchants: Barani describes Alauddin Khalji's controlled markets: the grain market (mandi), the Sarai Adl for cloth, and separate markets for horses, cattle and slaves, supervised by the shahna-i-mandi. Multani and Hindu merchants (sahs) and brokers (dallals) carried trade.

Money: Iltutmish established the silver tanka and copper jital, and a monetised economy grew; Muhammad bin Tughluq's token currency (1329–30) shows its importance.

B.D. Chattopadhyaya warns that urban growth had begun earlier, and Irfan Habib notes that towns depended on the agrarian surplus.

Non-agricultural production and the urban economy thus expanded, though they rested on the extraction of rural revenue.