The period between the death of Sultan Firoz Shah Tughluq (1388) and the death of Emperor Humayun (1556) is significant in many respects. During this period the Delhi Sultanate split up into a number of provincial and regional kingdoms which continued to flourish till the arrival of the Mughals and produced a rich and varied culture. In this work an attempt has been made to study the various aspects of Muslim society in Northern India during this transitional period. This study includes, besides a survey of the political developments, an analysis of the social and economic life of different social classes and an assessment of the educational system and of the intellectual achievements of some of the notable scholars of the period. The establishment of various mystic silsilahs has also been briefly de-scribed. The origin and development of the Mahdawi movement and the Shattari Silsilah have been discussed in a separate chapter. The last chapter deals with the Bhakti Movement and how it influenced and was in turn influenced by Muslim Society. The account is based mainly on original sources.
The present work, contains substantially the text of a doctoral thesis submitted at the Aligarh Muslim University.
I should like to record my sincere sense of gratitude to my teacher, the late Professor S. Nurul Hasan for his affectionate guidance. I am also grateful to Professor Irfan Habib for the interest he took in the publication of this work; and to the Supervisor of my thesis, Professor K. A. Nizami for his useful suggestions. I am obliged to Dr. Maksud Ahmad Khan for re-checking the proofs and to Messrs KP Bagchi & Company for undertaking the publication of this work on behalf of the Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh.
The century and a half preceding the accession of Akbar was a formative period in the political and cultural history of medieval India. The Sultanate of Delhi which had held the complex social and political fabric of medieval India together for several decades began to disintegrate from the last quarter of the 14th century. As a result centrifugal tendencies appeared in every sphere of life. The Indo-Muslim society was called upon to face new moral and material challenges arising out of the decay of the centralized political structure of the Sultanate of Delhi. With the decline of the Tughluq Empire, there emerged the independent kingdoms of Gujarat, Malwa and Jaunpur. These and other minor kingdoms which expanded at the cost of the Delhi Sultanate developed their distinct culture and served as a basis for the Indo-Muslim culture which flourished under Akbar.
It was also during this transitional period that the character and composition of the Muslim society underwent a significant change. The old Muslim cities declined and a number of flourishing towns came to be ravaged and plundered by Timur. A number of Muslims abandoned their ancestral homes and settled in provincial cities and played a significant role in enriching the regional cultures. The Turkish ruling class was replaced by the Afghans who now became a dominant section of the Muslim society.
In the field of education the traditional methods and institutions continued, but greater emphasis came to be laid on logic and scholastic studies from the time of Sultan Sikandar Lodi. The literary output during the period under review was quite considerable.
A great change took place in the spiritual sphere also. The Suhrawardi order collapsed in Sind, but one of its branches flourished in Gujarat. The Chishti order lost its central character after the demise of Shaikh Nasiruddin Chiragh-i-Delhi, but his talented Khalifas established Chishti centres in the provincial kingdoms. Branches of the Chishti silsilah spread from Bengal to Gujarat and from Sirhind to Deogir and produced illustrious saints who with their piety and scholarship exerted great influence on the Muslim Society.
The period saw the rise and expansion of the Mahdawi Movement and the Shattari silsilah. The action and interaction of these religious forces produced results of great significance, an analysis of which would serve as a valuable background to the study of the social political and economic problems of the age of Akbar.
Barring the sidelights thrown on the general cultural trends of the period in the works of Dr. Tara Chand, Dr. Ashraf and others, no attempt has been made to study the condition of Muslim society during this crucial transitional period. This work is an humble attempt to fill in this gap in our historical studies.
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