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Timur in the Political Tradition and Historiography of Mughal India

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Timur in the Political Tradition and Historiography of Mughal India Cahiers d’Asie centrale 3/4 | 1997 L’héritage timouride : Iran – Asie centrale – Inde, XVe- XVIIIe siècles Timur in the Political Tradition and Historiography of Mughal India Irfan Habib Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/asiecentrale/500 ISSN: 2075-5325 Publisher Éditions De Boccard Printed version Date of publication: 1 October 1997 Number of pages: 295-312 ISBN: 2-85744-955-0 ISSN: 1270-9247 Electronic reference Irfan Habib, « Timur in the Political Tradition and Historiography of Mughal India », Cahiers d’Asie centrale [Online], 3/4 | 1997, Online since 03 January 2011, connection on 10 December 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/asiecentrale/500 © Tous droits réservés Timur in the Political Tradition and Historiography of Mughal India Irfan Habib I. Timur’s image in India before the establishment of the Indian Timurid (“Mughal”) dynasty in 526, was naturally coloured by the experience of his invasion of 397-99. This can be seen from the account of this event in ,ahya Sihrindi’s T rikh-e Mob raksh hi, which was completed in .3., though the portion containing the account of Timur’s invasion was probably written much earlier . It was, therefore, practically contemporaneous with, and is certainly completely independent of, Sharaf al-Din 01li ,a2di’s afar-n ma, which was probably completed in .2.-5, and contains the most detailed version from the official Timurid point of view2. 1 compari- son of the two narratives is 3uite instructive. Despite some slips in the Indian account, li4e ma4ing Timur go to Multan from Tulamba, or placing his occupation of Delhi late by one month, it does give some dates and details of Pir Mohammad’s attac4 on 5chh and Multan, 397-98, which are lac4ing in ,a2di. 7ut the essential particulars are the same in both8 the route of the invasion, the slaughter and rapine, and the return. Naturally, however, while ,a2di exults in his hero’s brilliant successes and atrocities, ,ahya’s account is hostile to Timur, though with a certain amount of restraint. The restraint is understan- C1HIERS D’1SIE CENTR1LE N>.3-., 997 298 / Irfan Habib dable, since his patron’s father, Khe2r Khan (Khe@r KhAn) was appointed to the government of Multan by Timur in 399, during his return march3. Timur is simply “1mir Timur” in ,ahya, not eb-e Qer n (Lord of the ConBunction) as in ,a2di. Those whom he slaughtered were not all infidel Hindus, deserving their fate, as in ,a2di, but both Hindus and Muslims8 such as were 4illed by Timur when he marched towards Delhi “obtained the honour of martyrdom (sharaf-e shah dat)”. Li4e ,a2di, he too describes the slaughter of all the enslaved captives in the hands of Timur before his recrossing of the ,amuna to attac4 Delhi8 his estimate of the number of the victims is more moderate, being 50 000 as against ,a2di’s 00 000.. Dhen Timur entered Delhi after defeating Mahmud Toghlo3’s forces, he granted an amnesty in return for protection money (m l-e am ni). 7ut on the fourth day he ordered that all the people of the city be enslavedE and so they were. Thus reports ,ahya, who here inserts a pious prayer in 1rabic for the victims’ consolation (“To Fod we return, and everything happens by His will”)5. ,a2di, on the other hand, does not have any sympathy to waste on these wretches. He records that Timur had granted protection to the people of Delhi on the 8th of December 398, and the collectors had begun collecting the protection money. 7ut large groups of Timur’s soldiers began to enter the city and, li4e birds of prey, attac4ed its citi2ens. The “pagan Hindus” (Hend n-e gabr) having had the temerity to begin immo- lating their women and themselves, the three cities of Delhi were put to sac4 by Timur’s soldiers. “Faithless Hindus”, he adds, had gathe- red in the Congregation Mos3ue of Old Delhi and Timur’s officers put them ruthlessly to slaughter there on the 29th of December. Clearly, ,a2di’s “Hindus” included Muslims as well. 7y now immen- se numbers of slaves had been obtained by ordinary soldiers, and Timur and his nobles too4 the lion’s share from amongst “the several thousand craftsmen and men of s4ill” enslaved. No consolation nee- ded to be extended to such people, for, says ,a2di, “Delhi was laid waste (khar b shod) ... in punishment for its inhabitants’ evil beliefs and vile deeds and conduct”6. This would hardly be a sentiment Indians could share. 1fter Timur left, ,ahya tells us, Delhi and wha- tever areas he and his troops had passed through fell prey to epidemic and famine, ta4ing a further toll of lives. Delhi remained deserted and desolate (kharab-o-abtar) for two months. Fradually, the people of Tim r in the Political Tradition and Historiography of... / 299 Doab (the area between the ,amuna and Fanga), which had “escaped the grasp of the Mughal”, began to gather around Nosrat Shah (NoIrat ShAh) who re-established some administration in Delhi7. Timur’s invasion was thus seen as the last, and the most calamitous, of the Mongol raids, which left only huge devastation and desolation in its trail. Timur did not even care to leave any one to administer or maintain order in Delhi, and in his other Indian con3uests. Multan was the only place he left in the hands of a subordinate potentate in the person of Khe2r Khan. II. 1fter the death of Timur ( 8th of February .05), the process of contraction of the Timurid Empire, and dissensions within it began, so that throughout the 5th century India remained immune from “Mughal” invasions. 7ut as the “descendants of Timur 7eg” saw their power in Central 1sia disappear under the pressure of the 52be4s, one of them, the famous 7abur (d. 530), now positioned at Kabul, decided (in 507-8) to try his fortune in India8, and finally succeeded in the enterprise in 526. 7abur naturally emphasi2ed his descent from Timur, for whom, rather surprisingly, however, he usually employs in his memoirs no higher title than “7eg”9. On his seal in India he inscribed, on the cir- cumference, the names of his ancestors going up to Timur 0. ,et he nowhere directly ma4es the claim of an entitlement to a dominion in India on the basis of Timur’s con3uests. Only in two places do indi- rect suggestions occur. First, he tells us that ever since Timur’s time the latter’s descendants have continued to hold parts of the Sind Sagar Doab , an affirmation which may have historical truth behind it, since Timur’s dominions did come up to the Indus, east of 7annu 2. The second statement, an incorrect one, is to the effect that Timur had given away Delhi to the founder of the Saiyid dynasty (Khe2r Khan whom 7abur does not name) 3. Though an interpolation to this effect has been made in one of the manuscripts of ,ahya’s T rikh-e Mob raksh hi, its original source is possibly 7abur himself, for all manuscripts of ,ahya’s agree on the statement that Timur had Khe2r Khan released in the PanBab (not at or near Delhi) only to ta4e control over Multan and Dipalpur .. ,a2di too ma4es Timur hand over to Khe2r Khan nothing other than the charge of Multan 5. In fact, it was 300 / Irfan Habib 3uite an independent set of circumstances which led to Khe2r Khan’s sei2ure of Delhi in . ., some fifteen years after Timur’s departure from India. 7ut it was not, perhaps, the slender historical basis for any “gift” of Delhi to anyone by Timur that made 7abur refer to his con3uest so casually and not draw from it any legal claim in his own favour. Even in the fat-n ma issued in the form of a farm n (29th of March 527) after 7abur’s victory over Rana Sangram Singh, 7abur, or rather his draftsman, Shey4h JaKn, does not ma4e any reference to Timur, though the fat-n ma sought to portray 7abur in the same garb of a holy warrior against the Infidels as ,a2di had done in respect of Timur 6. The conclusion seems inescapable that to 7abur and his secretaries it loo4ed as if Timur’s name was not one through which much sympathy could be gained for 7abur’s cause in India. III. The duality involved in emphasi2ing the genealogical lin4s to Timur, the Lord of the Conjunction ( eb-e Qer n), the Dorld Con3ueror ()iti-set n), to reinforce the Indian Timurids’ dynastic prestige and innate claim to royalty, on the one hand, and confronting the reality of the negative image of Timur in India, on the other, becomes even more obvious during the reign of 14bar ( 556- 605). Li4e 7abur, 14bar from early in his reign used a seal, especially in revenue-grant documents, where, on the rim of the circle, his genea- logy is traced bac4 to Timur. This seal may be seen on a farm n as early as that of the 7th of 1pril 56 , assigning the revenues of a vil- lage to a Hindu master dyer, the genealogy on the seal going bac4 to “1mir Timur” 7, and on a farm n as late as that of the th of September 598, conferring revenue grants on temples of Lrindavan, etc., near 1gra, where the title of eb-e Qer n follows the name “1mir Timur” 8. Though 14bar is never 4nown to have himself ta4en the title of eb-e Qer n in imitation of Timur, this title does occur for him in 3uasi-official inscriptions8 for example, in an ins- cription of 975M 567-8 at Naunpur and one of 985M 577-8 at 1’2am- pur 9.
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