Medieval India: The Personality of Mohammed-bin-thuglak, a Mixture of Opposites
by In the annals of Medieval Indian History, Mohammed-Bin-Thuglak is considered as the mixture of opposites.
Image via Wikipedia: Devagiri Fort
Image via Wikipedia :Track within Dauladabad Fort
Image via Wikipedia : A view from the top of the Devagiri Fort
The Indian History has been generally divided into three divisions, ancient, medieval and modern periods, for the purpose of academic study and research.
Of them, the medieval India predominantly deals with the invasion of Muslims into India and their subjugation and rule covering more than a period of three centuries. In fact,we have come across some unique and exotic personalities in the annals of medieval Indian history.
Of them, Mohamed-Bin-Thuglak, a ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, was a strange and unique personality, who belonged to the Thuglak Dynasty.
No doubt he was an intellectual, a well read scholar par excellent, humane and considerate; devoted to his religion Islam; grasped the peoples problems as quickly as possible and even offered original solutions instantaneously; also came up with some pioneering plans to mitigate the sufferings of the poor farmers by setting up a permanent fund to offer them loans on easy installments; set up irrigation projects to solve their irrigation problems, when they suffer due to failure of monsoons. He was a brilliant calligraphist. Above all, he was so humble and never egoistic while dealing with his subjects; even an ordinary citizen of his empire could meet him and he would personally listen to his grievances.
Such a fine person had also some terrible qualities that one cannot easily comprehend or understand.
Mohamed -Bin-Thuglak, as the ruler of his empire was an autocrat and never brooked criticism and rebellion in any quarter of his empire. Even for a slightest sign of rebellious nature of a chieftain under his control, Mohamed -Bin-Thuglak personally invaded the chieftain’s principality and quelled the rebellion; a mere defeat of the chieftain was not sufficient to control his anger; he captured the chieftain in person and dragged him all the way to his head quarters in Delhi, If he had captured a number of vanquished chieftains, he ordered all of them to put into gallows, in a open place so that it could be witnessed by all his subjects.
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Post Commentken bultman
On August 9, 2009 at 6:18 am
Very interesting story of a personality in history with whom I was not previously acquainted.
Jenny Heart
On August 9, 2009 at 6:27 am
Well done! Like it!
Uma Shankari
On August 9, 2009 at 8:52 am
Very interesting post. Enjoyable read.
deep blue
On August 9, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Well written history. Thanks for sharing.
George W Whitehead
On August 9, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Nice article, Rama.
Ruby Hawk
On August 9, 2009 at 8:22 pm
History can be surprising and we have had some doosies but thank goodness we don’t have men like him now, at least we hope we don’t. A nice history lesson.
papaleng
On August 10, 2009 at 2:13 am
What a great lesson in Indian history. Thanks for sharing it to us and I’ve learn a lot of facts today.
ladybaby
On August 10, 2009 at 8:54 am
I would have characterized him as being , “EVIL.” I don’t know how Ruby Hawk thinks that there are not leaders in the world like him now. We would not be fighting wars all over the globe if it weren’t for other evil leaders, who glory in seeing others in misery, and lust for power and control at any cost.
Ramalingam
On August 10, 2009 at 9:00 am
You are right mam.They are the modern versions Mohamed-Bin-Thuglak.Pol pot from Compuchia, Idi Ameen from Uganda, Hitler from Germany (who had actually committed genocide by sending many of his detractors to concentration camps) and so on and so forth.There are lot of examples of such personalties from history.
Goblins09
On August 11, 2009 at 3:00 am
Great article, great read, learned some good facts, nice historical insight.
Daisy Peasblossom
On August 12, 2009 at 12:26 am
Very interesting character analysis, and great choice of illustrations.
Rajiv Sighamony
On August 13, 2009 at 1:11 pm
nice article and I am thankful to you to bring those historical subjects which I left in the school. I read it and it refreshed me.
Vaibhav Diwaker
On August 15, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Nice article….Tuglaq was also a very good administrator. Never read about this shifting of capital. Thanks for this enlightenment.