Muhammad Bin Tughluq Genius

 Muhammad Bin  Tughluq Genius (1325-1351)

1351

Muhammad bin Tugluq, also known as Prince Fakhr Malik, was the Turkic Sultan of Delhi from 1325 to 1251. He was the eldest son of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. Ghiyath al-din sent the young Muhammad to the Deccan to campaign against King Prataparudra of the Lalatiya dynasty, with its capital at Warangal. He succeeded to the Delhi throne after his father’s death in 1335.

 

Muhammad Tughluq, as a scholar, was well versed in logic, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and the physical sciences. He had knowledge of medicine and was skilled in dialectics. He was also a calligrapher.

 

Muhammad bin Tughlaq was the most disputed of all the sultans ever to rule India. Muhammad Kunhi was also known as Muhammad the Bloody by birth. He was the most brutal, cold-blooded, and nutty sultan yet. At the same time, he was also fantastic, philanthropic, and admiration person. This dichotomy in his personality might be diagnosed as a psychiatric disorder today, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.Unanswered questions include whether he was a genius or a demonic lunatic, an idealist or a visionary, a tyrant or a benevolent king.However, all these characters were apparent at one time or another in his actions. Was he a devout Muslim or a heretic? A complex man, he remains an riddler. He went against the ulema to challenge their views and verdicts.

 There is ample evidence of his psychotic behavior.One minute he would be effusive in his praise and shower of presents, but the next he would enthusiastically shed blood and condemn one person to death. He would be humble one moment, then explode with rage, committing the cruellest and most violent acts.There is a story about a poor soul who faced the sultan's wrath when he was flayed alive in front of the court audience and his innards were cooked with rice and force-fed to his family.Members of the family who refused to eat it were summarily executed. Muhammad was also exceptionally well educated, and he was the patron of arts that would rival those of the Mughals later. He was an authority on medicine and mathematics. He possessed formidable intelligence and superb penmanship.

For all his brilliance, he also undertook bizarre, unachievable campaigns like trying to reverse Alexander’s march into India and capturing Afghanistan, Iran, and Uzbekistan. After spending large sums of money, the project was cancelled before it even began. Another folly, a mission into China, got bogged down in Kulu with aversion from Hindus. Only ten out of an astonishing force of sixty thousand horsemen returned to Delhi following this failure. He had some success in Deccan, however, and Devagiri was under his firm control. He renamed it Daulatabad and ordered his capital moved there, fourteen hundred kilometres from Delhi. When the affectionate citizens of Delhi showed unwillingness to move so far away, the sultan resorted to tyrant force. People were ousted from their homes in Delhi, and if they refused to go, they were promptly put to death. Cripples were banded to the catapult and slung towards Daulatbad. A blind man was tied to a horse and dragged all the way, and only one of his legs reached the final destination in Daulatabed. However, all these accounts of brutality may be exaggerations by the Ulema, who were squaring off in an acerbic war of words with the sultan in Delhi. It is sad that his nonaccommodation by the Ulema was the reason for Muhammad of Tughlaq to move to Daulatabad. The Sultan's monumental nonsense came to an end when he decided to return to Delhi. Some of his supporters had hardly reached Daulataved when they had to turn around.

The military expenses incurred by his foolish adventures and the move to Daulatabad cost him dearly. To raise funds, additional taxes were levied on the poor farmers, who fled to the jungles to escape the reprisals of a cruel sultan. The land went uncultivated, and this added further to the Treasury's problems. The resulting famine on top of an existing drought killed thousands. At this juncture, the sultan turned very compassionate and distributed a large amount of grain from the stocks and showed enormous concern.

He also attempted to fine-tune the money supply with the mintage of new gold coinage and adulterated silver coins. Brass and copper coins were also introduced. The scheme again failed utterly, and people lost all confidence in the Sultan. Counterfeits appeared all over the place, and Muhammad was eventually forced to buy back all the tokens, real and counterfeit, at considerable expense to the Treasury.

Despite the mind-boggling idiocy of the failed experiments, Muhammad bin Tughlaq managed to remain in power for twenty-six years. Unlike some of his predecessors, he ought to be admired for the absence of religious bigotry and his successful administration with a minimum of merit. He did not busy himself with temple destruction, nor did he indulge in nurturing his libido. He was a genius when it came to military strategy. He died in 1351, while pursuing rebels in Sindh, of a natural cause, though other theories of deliberate poisoning abound. His cousin, Feroz Shah, succeeded him in a remarkable and bloodless manner.

Feroz Shah made peace with the Ulemas and promptly received favourable press. Most of his campaigns for electionstalledpnsion resulfailure,utter failure and he resumed thetempleess of temole desecration when he sacked the sacrLordhrine of lord Jagannat1361. Heri in 1361.he returned to Delhi with the customary loot and seventy-th;ee elephants, he also built the Feroz Shah KitTughlaqabadf tughlaqabad. He ordered two Ashoka pillars to be transported from river,a, down river at an enormous cost, installing  them in Delhi, though no one knew the script of the writings. Surprisingly, one of the pillars thus carried to Delhi had gravestones added two centuries earlier by one of the pillars thus carried to Delhi, describing his victory over the Ghaznivads in Punjab. Feroz Shah was also responsible for the first madrassah and was the first to levy taxes on Brahmins. After a rule of thirty-seven years, Feroz Shah died in 1388, and his tomb is in Hauz Khas in southern Delhi, next to the reservoir built by Alaud-in-Chilji. After his death, another bloody progression crisis ensued, and the Tughlaq ancestor lasted only until 1413. They also had to endure the horrendously bloody attack by the Mongols under Timur the Lame in 1398. Following his conquests of Baghdad and Persia, the Mongols destabilised the already weak Delhi sultanate. 

After defeating the obligatory sultan, a three-day orgy of rape and murder went unchallenged. Timur himself admired the amount of gold, silver, jewels, and precious stones that he was able to acquire. All Hindu populations were decimated, and only an exclusively Muslim quarter was spared. Timur’s Mongols had embraced Islam and turned into its firm adherents, targeting the idolaters. Timur detected that it was the will of God that unfortunate  should befall the city, and he was helpless in saving the city of Delhi or its Hindu population. After Timur departed, the Tughlaqs returned to Delhi and maintain  to hold power for another fifteen years.