History Quiz: Delhi Sultanate (Contribution the field of Economy, Art, Science and Technology etc.) |11 May, 2021

The early Sayyid Sultans ruled paying tribute to Timur’s son. Their rule is marked for the composing of Tarikh-i- Mubarak Shahi by Yahiya bin Ahmad Sirhindi. By the end of their rule the empire was largely confined to the city of Delhi.

• Amir Khusrau emerged as a major figure of Persian prose and poetry. Amir Khusrau felt elated to call himself an Indian in his Nu Siphr (‘Nine Skies’).
• In this work, he praises India’s climate, its languages – notably Sanskrit – its arts, its music, its people, even its animals. The Islamic Sufi saints made a deep literary impact.

• The Fawai’d-ul-Fawad, a work containing the conversations of Sufi Saint Nizam-ud-din Auliya was compiled by Amir Hassan.
• Abdul Malik Isami, in his poetic composition of Futuh-us-Salatin, records the history of Muslim rule from Ghaznavid period to Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s reign.

Source: Tamil Nadu state board.

Delhi Sultanate did not hamper the progress of Sanskrit Literature. Sanskrit continued to be the language of high intellectual thought.

• The Sanskrit schools and academies established in different parts of the empire continued to flourish.
• The classical Sanskrit inscription (Pala Baoli) of 1276 in Delhi claims that due to the benign rule of Sultan Balban god Vishnu sleeps in peace in the ocean of milk without any worries.
• The influence of Arabic and Persian on Sanskrit literature was felt in the form of translations.
• Shrivara in his Sanskrit work Kathakautuka included the story of Yusuf and Zulaika as a Sanskrit love lyric.
• Bhattavatara took Firdausi’s Shah Namah as a model for composing Zainavilas, a history of the rulers of Kashmir.

Source: Tamil Nadu state board.

Music was an area where the syncretic tendencies were clearly visible. Muslims brought their musical instruments like Rabab and Sarangi.

• Amir Khusrau proclaimed that Indian music had a pre-eminence over all the other music of the world.
• The Sufi practice of Sama, recitation of love poetry to the accompaniment of music, was instrumental in promotion of music.

• Pir Bhodan, a Sufi saint, was considered a great musician of the age. Royal patronage for the growth of music was also forthcoming.
• Firuz Tughlaq evinced interest in music leading to synchronisation by translating an Indian Sanskrit musical work Rag Darpan into Persian.
• Dancing also received an impetus in the official court. Zia-ud-din Barani lists the names of Nusrat Khatun and Mihr Afroz as musician and dancer respectively in the court of Jalaluddin Khalji.

Source: Tamil Nadu state board.

Orthodox Islamic theology considered decorating the buildings with animal and human figures as un-Islamic.

• Hence the plastic exuberance of well-carved images found in the pre-Islamic buildings was replaced by floral and geometrical designs.

• Arabesque, the art of decorating the building with Quranic verses inscribed with calligraphy, emerged to provide splendor to the building.

Source: Tamil Nadu state board.

The Sultans did not alter many of the social institutions inherited from ‘Indian Feudalism’.

• Slavery, though it had already existed in India, grew substantially in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
• Both in war and in the event of default in payment of taxes, people could be enslaved. They were put to work as domestic servants as well as in crafts.

• The village community and the caste system remained largely unaltered. Gender inequalities remained practically untouched.
• In upper class Muslim society, women had to observe purdah and were secluded in the zenana (the female quarters) without any contact with any men other than their immediate family. Affluent women travelled in closed litters.
• Muslim women, despite purdah, enjoyed, in certain respects, higher status and greater freedom in society than most Hindu women.
• They could inherit property from their parents and obtain divorce, privileges that Hindu women did not have.
• In several Hindu communities, such as among the Rajputs, the birth of a girl child was considered a misfortune.

• Islam was not against women being taught to read and write. But it tolerated polygamy.

Source: Tamil Nadu state board.

Paper-making technology evolved by the Chinese and learnt by the Arabs was introduced in India during the rule of the Delhi Sultans.

• The spinning wheel invented by the Chinese came to India through Iran in the fourteenth century and enabled the spinner to increase her output some sixfold and enlarged yarn production greatly.

• The subsequent introduction of treadles in the loom similarly helped speed-up weaving.
• Sericulture was established in Bengal by the fifteenth century.
• Building activity attained a new scale by the large use of brick and mortar, and by the adoption of the vaulting techniques.

Source: Tamil Nadu state board.

An important aspect of Islam in India was its early acceptance of a long-term coexistence with Hinduism, despite all the violence that occurred in military campaigns, conquests and depredations.

• The conqueror Mu’izzuddin of Ghor had, on some of his gold coins, stamped the image of the goddess Lakshmi.
• Muhammad Tughlaq in 1325 issued a farman enjoining that protection be extended by all officers to Jain priests; he himself played holi and consorted with yogis.

Source: Tamil Nadu state board.

Al-Biruni was born in 973, in Khwarizm in presentday Uzbekistan. Khwarizm was an important centre of learning, and Al-Biruni received the best education available at the time.

• He was well versed in several languages: Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit.
• Although he did not know Greek, he was familiar with the works of Plato and other Greek philosophers, having read them in Arabic translations.
• In 1017, when Sultan Mahmud invaded Khwarizm, he took several scholars and poets back to his capital, Ghazni; Al-Biruni was one of them.
• He arrived in Ghazni as a hostage, but gradually developed a liking for the city, where he spent the rest of his life until his death at the age of 70.

• Al-Biruni’s expertise in several languages allowed him to compare languages and translate texts.
• He translated several Sanskrit works, including Patanjali’s work on grammar, into Arabic. For his Brahmana friends, he translated the works of Euclid (a Greek mathematician) into Sanskrit.

Source: NCERT Themes in Indian History.

Institutionally, the sufis began to organise communities around the hospice or khanqah (Persian) controlled by a teaching master known as shaikh (in Arabic), pir or murshid (in Persian).

• He enrolled disciples (murids) and appointed a successor (khalifa). He established rules for spiritual conduct and interaction between inmates as well as between laypersons and the master.
• When the shaikh died, his tomb-shrine (dargah, a Persian term meaning court) became the centre of devotion for his followers.
• This encouraged the practice of pilgrimage or ziyarat to his grave, particularly on his death anniversary or urs (or marriage, signifying the union of his soul with God).
• This was because people believed that in death saints were united with God, and were thus closer to Him than when living.
• People sought their blessings to attain material and spiritual benefits. Thus evolved the cult of the sheikh revered as wali.

Source: NCERT Themes in Indian History.

It was not just in sama that the Chishtis adopted local languages. In Delhi, those associated with the Chishti silsila conversed in Hindavi, the language of the people.

• Other sufis such as Baba Farid composed verses in the local language, which were incorporated in the Guru Granth Sahib.
• Yet others composed long poems or masnavis to express ideas of divine love using human love as an allegory.

• For example, the prem-akhyan (love story) Padmavat composed by Malik Muhammad Jayasi revolved around the romance of Padmini and Ratansen, the king of Chittor.
• Their trials were symbolic of the soul’s journey to the divine. Such poetic compositions were often recited in hospices, usually during sama.

Source: NCERT Themes in Indian History.