India Through the Ages: A Popular and Picturesque History of HindustanSteel, Flora Annie Webster
History
India Through the Ages: A Popular and Picturesque History of Hindustan
Steel, Flora Annie Webster
India -- History
Rebellion grew rife. Little Prince Ajey-si's heir, Hâmir, recovered
Chitore, Guzerât revolted, and almost ere it was annexed, the Dekkan
rose and expelled half the Mahomedan garrison.
These tidings coming to the already suffering king brought on
paroxysms of rage, and he died, his end accelerated by poison
administered by that slave of his worst passions, Kafûr. Thereupon
followed the usual murders and sudden deaths of an Indian succession,
followed by the death of Kafûr, and the final enthroning of
Allah-ud-din's third son, Mobârik. He was a weak sensualist, who,
nevertheless, was human. So he removed some of his father's more
oppressive taxes, and did away with his restrictions on trade and
property. After which he and his creature Khûshru, a converted Hindu
slave, outraged all decency, and gave way to sheer dissolute devilry,
which ended in the master's murder by his favourite, who thereinafter
snatched at the crown.
But this man even the Mahomedan India of the time could not stand.
Mobârik, "whose name and reign would be too infamous to have a place
in the records of literature, did not our duty as historian oblige us
to the disagreeable task," was bad enough. Khûshru was worse. So he
was killed, and a worthy warrior, by name Ghâzi-Beg Toghluk, who had
repelled many invasions of Moghuls, was invited to the throne.
Ferishta's description of this is rather nice, and bears quotation:
"So they presented him with the keys of the city, and he mounted his
horse and entered Delhi in triumph. When he came in sight of the
Palace of a Thousand Minarets" (this must have been somewhere close to
the Kutb) "he wept, and cried aloud:
"'Oh, subjects of a great empire! I am no more than one of you who
unsheathed my sword to deliver you from oppression, and rid the world
of a monster. If, therefore, any member of the royal family remain,
let him be brought, that we his servants should prostrate ourselves
before his throne. But if none of the race of kings have escaped the
bloody hands of usurpation, let the most worthy be selected, and I
swear to abide by the choice.'"
Not a bad speech. Small wonder that there followed on it the first
historical notice of "chairing"--"the populace, laying hold of him,
raised him up, carried him to the throne, and hailed him as
Shâhjahân, Master of the World; but he chose the more modest title of
Ghiâss-ud-din...."
For the curse of Sidi Dervish had been effectual, and the House of
Khilji was extinct.
Warned by the past, one of the first acts of Ghiâss-ud-din was
formally to nominate his successor from amongst his four sons. He made
an unfortunate choice, for there is little doubt but that Prince Jonah
was accessory to his father's death four years afterwards, when he
invited him into a wooden palace which promptly fell upon, and crushed
the king and five of his attendants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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