It's Always Sunni in Delhi - Delhi HTTT

[Thragka]

It's a wet Saturday afternoon and it's been a while since my last update, so here's a relatively long one. The pictures don't tell the whole story (in particular, I don't have exact dates for when a lot of this stuff happened), but I guess that's history.

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Chapter 4: Her Body and Soul

The end of what was in some places referred to as the Second and in some the second half of the First Jihad led to a brief period of blessed serenity for Delhi and her Sultan. Ibrahim II Shaja’atid spent a week at Agra recuperating, nominally to shore up the south-eastern defences, root out deserters and vagabonds and drive off the last few bands of Hindu troops that had become separated from their comrades, had not learnt of the cessation of hostilities or had just wandered over the border by mistake. It became quite clear to the nobles left in the capital, however, that Ibrahim had generated many “nominal” duties for himself over the latter stages of the war to keep himself away from the capital. Indeed, even after the peace treaty was signed and Ibrahim ran out excuses to return to the throne, the Sultan managed to find a plethora of reasons to put off any debate about the future of the crown. There were accounts to settle with the southern nobles who had put off paying war taxes while their strongholds were under siege, and patrols to finish about the borders before the soldiers could be relieved of their duty. In short, any mention of an election among the nobility was politely but firmly swept aside on the grounds that while the war had finished, Ibrahim’s duties as wartime Sultan had not. However, the nobility found that this left them an awful lot of room to through their own weight around in the capital and beyond, so many did little more than give a token grumble whenever the matter was brought up.

Six months later, just as the cabinet was informing Ibrahim that they had really run out of excuses for him, a messenger from Jaipur arrived on a half-dead horse and looking half-dead himself. He showed up at the palace gate dirty, clothes torn, horse foaming at the mouth and demanded to see the Sultan immediately. Nusrat Singh recognised him as the son of Saladin Chamcha, the military governor of Rajputana appointed by the cabinet while Ibrahim was away. Chamcha the younger offered a box to the Sultan and then fainted on the throne room floor; in the box were the remains of his father’s head, and a short message in Sanskrit from the Army of Jaipur’s commander. A large force of Rajputni rebels had risen, outnumbering the Army by more than two to one, and had offered a set of demands to the governor for greater autonomy in the region. Chamcha had refused, been killed, and the Army had fallen under attack.

“We will honour this man for his dedication to his Sultan and his country,” said Ibrahim, “for what Allah has put together, let no man put asunder. There can be no negotiation with those who would tear apart our great nation. We will crush them.” With that, the Sultan made to leave the throne room for the stables, but a prince from the northwest suddenly stood and barred his way.

“No. No more time wasted, squandering our money and our men. No more excuses. Ibrahim Shaja’atid, it is time you stepped aside and allowed Nusrat Shah’s permanent successor be chosen. If Allah and Delhi are willing, it may still be you; if so, you will be ruling with more authority than a pack of ministerial tricksters and the sword by your side.”

Ibrahim eyed up the outspoken lord as silence rang out across the room. Even though most of the nobles did want an election, the suddenness of this pronunciation made them uneasy with declaring against Ibrahim. None of them had forgotten the de facto Sultan’s warlike posturing when he had ascended the throne, and many also thought that the revolt should not be used to do something that could destabilize the country further. Ibrahim read all this from the mood of the room over the following seconds, and then made a calculated speech.

“I know you, Ali Khan. I know all of you in this room. How many of you rode with me in Rajputana, in Gondwana? I can count it in one hand. No, for you it is this little world in this room whose destiny you try to decide, by petty force of words instead of the soldier’s true life-and-death struggle. So be it. I know your agenda, hidden within wheels of wheels of insults and compliments and trades and requests. My pack of tricksters has aptly reported to me on your posturing while I have been away. You have been discussing, I know, certain rights pertaining to holding your own household troops and regional taxes based on ‘cultural differences’ with the capital. You can have them – those of you who remain here while I pacify some Hindu barbarians are free to work it out with the cabinet. Or you can have our vote, here and now. Who wants me off the throne? For once in your life, speak clearly your intentions!”

No more than a few hands rose. Ibrahim nodded triumphantly. “Then it is decided,” he announced, and strode out of the silent room.

The pacification of which the Sultan had spoken turned out to be yet another long affair in the recently subjugated lowlands. The rebel host was eventually driven away from Jaipur, but at great cost; more Muslim soldiers died than Hindus did, and the army of Delhi was reduced by near four thousand people, over a third of the Sultan’s forces. The rebels retreated west while Ibrahim’s host waited for reinforcements. The Pyrrhic victory, however, was made out to be much less harrowing a task than it actually had been in the propaganda of the realm – this, combined with the news that the people of Chandigarh had become the first commoners in Delhi to accept Islam made support for the Sultan rise again after the court showdown. Delhi’s reputation abroad also seemed to be no worse than usual, for a royal marriage was arranged with the court of Bengal, and – despite Ibrahim’s misgivings – trade links were established with the Oriat tribesmen of the north.

The next three years saw Ibrahim do little else but ride out against one dissatisfied mob or another. In the court, he was careful not to push his luck, but on the battlefield he vented all of his anger against any who took arms against Delhi. Eighteen months after Jaipur, it was north to put down Punjabi nationalists, and then back to Thar to deal with another Rajputni revolt. It took the intervention of a friendly Sindi force crossing the border to aid their Muslim compatriots to finally put the last batch of nationalists down.

The very same day, Sultan Ibrahim decided that, tired as he was of campaigning against rebels, it was time to deal with them in a more subtle manner. “We have been treating Delhi’s body,” he famously stated, “and now it is time we treated her soul.” Saikander Ra’ana was relieved from his ministerial duties, as the Sultan did not see trade as important to Delhi, and the artist Muzaffar Saraiya was hired to replace him. The Gujarati had some interesting ideas that Ibrahim was quick on taking up, not least the adaptation of an official calligraphic script for royal proclamations. There was, at first, much scepticism over whether such a measure would have any effect, but when the populace of Agra embraced Islam, criticism of the new policy stopped.

In the coming months, word came from the south that Vijaynagar had annexed her vassal Mysore. This drove Deccan into a state of near-paranoia. The southern Sultan was in regular communication with Ibrahim over the following weeks and months, his pigeon-relayed messages becoming more and more frantic, speaking of insurrection in the east incited by Bihari spies, and the need for “decisive action” to frighten off Vijaynagar. Hints towards another Muslim offensive became more and more frequent; try as he might, Ibrahim could do little to dissuade his ally from such a course of action. Within six months, Deccan had delivered a proclamation of war against Bihar, dragging opposing alliances of Hindu and Muslim forces into the New Jihad.

Although Ibrahim had counselled against war, when it was clear that conflict was unavoidable he was quick to take advantage of it. Once again he announced a wartime tax, and this time there were no complaints from the nobility. The Army of Delhi was ordered to cross the border into Bihar – this time, Delhi would remind India of her right to those lands, even if they could not be brought into the Sultanate during this war. But in the month that it took for the to return from dealing with western rebels, the war in Bihar had already finished – Deccan had demanded minor economic and diplomatic concessions from the Hindu kingdom in return for an agreement against direct military action. This left Delhi isolated from the southern theatre, her only nearby foe the isolated, mountainous kingdom of Nepal.

Eager to engage in a battle against an external enemy after years of hunting down rebels, Ibrahim led the Army of Delhi into the Himalayas and set siege to the fortress of Gorka. The Nepalese did not send any relief, having only a third as many men under arms as Delhi and hoping, perhaps, that the climate in the mountains would see of their foe for them. Ibrahim’s troops, however, were used to fighting and sieging in the mountains, and after several months the fortress fell. Rather than press on and suffer much worse attrition further from the border, the Sultan pulled his troops back into Delhi, resting easy in the knowledge that Nepal had been taught a lesson. Indeed, it took only two more months for Deccan to reach a rewarding peace with Nepal without their soldiers ever meeting on the field.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim further committed Delhi to the cause of Islam by creating two prohibitive laws against Hinduism – a marriage act declaring non-Islamic marriages void, and a blasphemy act making the public preaching of Hinduism punishable by heavy fines. After this, a learned Islamic scholar arrived at the court of Delhi, saying that he had come to see the self-styled Caliph of Delhi firsthand and hopefully both learn from Ibrahim and teach the Sultan something in return. Ibrahim was happy to welcome to welcome the imam to his court, and on his advice passed further religious laws condemning heretic sects and establishing the office of the Sheikh ul-Islam. Almost immediately, the number of Muslim missionaries and pilgrims travelling to Delhi increased dramatically, and the newcomers began preaching the way of Islam to the population with a hitherto unforeseen vigour. Many saw this as affirmation that Ibrahim was truly worthy of the throne, for both in his policies at home and abroad, he was meeting with success.

Delhi’s involvement in the Second or New Jihad was minimal for the following six months. Isolated to the north, she watched massive Vijaynagari armies rampage across Deccan and Orissi soldiers penetrate deep into Bengal territory. Deccan had had early successes in Orissa, but now was nearly powerless to stop the Hindu onslaught. In truth, Ibrahim saw that their early Muslim warmongering was finally seeing its consequences, and wished that he could aid Deccan more to prevent humiliation of the Muslim alliance than anything else. Vijaynagar, however, was simply too fearsome. The only solace Ibrahim got was from seeing the embarrassed peoples of Bihar and Nepal in arms against the governments whom they felt had betrayed them.

Deccan capitulated four months later, ceding yet more of their west coast to Vijaynagar and releasing Gondwana, albeit a suitably diminished Gondwana comprising only a third of her former territory. Nonetheless, it was what Ibrahim had feared – humiliation. The united Muslim front was effectively shattered, and Vijaynagar had once again proved herself a terrifying force to be trodden around lightly.

Ibrahim did manage to save face in the aftermath of the war, however, when his religious policies paid off once more and the people of Lucknow accepted Islam. The more cooperative population were much more welcoming of plans for land reform that had been rejected out of hand when they had been proposed before. The Sultan also spun his lack of participation in the Jihad as a new defensive military policy – with Nusrat Singh’s assistance, regular maintenance of fortifications became the norm and makeshift defences were soon to be soon in most major towns and cities.

The coming years were quieter – not without incident, but simply without many events that would ever be considered historically important. A diplomatic fracas led to a cooling of relations with the Timurid empire, but the Sultan knew that the Khan, a cousin of the name ‘Mîrzâ II Shaja’atid, was looking for an excuse to hold the crumbling empire, and Delhi would not provide it by rushing headstrong into an unwinnable war. There were two Rajputni rebellions in Jaipur in quick succession, but they were swiftly put down. This period was mostly remembered for the vast effort and expense the Sultan threw into the spread of Islam. Within two and a half years of the end of the Second Jihad, Sunni missionaries were a common sight across the lowlands and the foothills of the Himalayas, and met with little more resistance from the Hindu communities than that of the village drunk.

Thus did Delhi experience peace for another year. The era of quiet cultural growth ended the following summer, however, when Deccan, still reeling over its significant territorial loss in the previous war, cast its eyes around for a small state to add to its dominion and laid its gaze upon the tiny sultanate of Khandesh. Relations with Khandesh had been something of a contentious point between the Muslim allies of the west, with each of Deccan, Gujarat and Delhi guaranteeing its protection, and Sind bilaterally allied with both Khandesh and Deccan. In one fell swoop, Deccan rescinded her guarantee and notified her allies that she was declaring war. The calls to arms from both Deccan and Khandesh arrived to Delhi on the same day. Delhi, like Sind, had to make a choice over whom to support. Gujarat would surely come to Khandesh’s aid, as her alliance with Deccan had ended years before. Deccan, however, counted the Timurids among her allies, and it remained to be seen whether they would answer the call.

Ibrahim did not spend long deliberating his response. To side with Deccan would only solidify the Muslim reputation as that of power-hungry expansionists, and to reject Delhi’s previous guarantee would show them to be dishonourable. Furthermore, he hoped taking Deccan down a notch would distance Delhi in diplomatic eyed from the sultanate that was rapidly becoming a pariah in India and beyond.

“We defend Khandesh,” he stated simply to the court. Delhi was at war again.

 

[unmerged(59077)]

Good call by the Sultan except for the Timurid part of it...

 

[Thragka]

I didn't mean to just abandon this, but as exams loomed I just let it go. Now that I'm free of academic commitments, I hope to slowly but surely get back into it!

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Chapter 5: With Friends Like These

The superstitious in Delhi’s court were quick to assume that the Sultan’s choice was a bad one; barely had the army been mobilised when word arrived that Hindu zealots were revolting in Lahore. Ibrahim ordered a contingent of three thousand men to head northwest and put down the rebellion, while the main host of the Army of Delhi headed for Udaipur. A rebellion against Gujarati rule had flared there with the onset of the war, and with the smaller Sultanate bordering Deccan, they did not have the resources to commit to defending their border and dealing with their own rebel problem. It was a measure of the strong friendship between Ibrahim and his counterpart that the Sultan of Gujarat, Muhammad Shah I Muzaraffid led his forces south, trusting that Delhian forces would arrive in a timely fashion and deal with Udaipur quickly, before joining Gujarat and Khandesh on the front.

Thankfully, although a Timurid army was sighted across the border in Quetta, it seemed that the Shaja’atid Khan would not be making war to the east – the army was routed by rebellions and an independent Sultanate of Durrani was swift in establishing diplomatic relations with its Muslim neighbours. Word came of other rebellion across the once-proud Khanate, and until his own people could be pacified, the Khan would have little interest with international affairs. Although a great relief, Delhi was not completely off the hook; there were fears that disunity between the Sultanates would prompt the Hindu kingdoms to strike back against a divided enemy. It seemed that the northern Sultanates would escape actual military action, although pigeons from Gonwana and Bihar made it clear that any more “aggressive expansion” by Delhi would result in war. Ibrahim gave no response. Although he would have liked to scoff at his diminutive neighbours, both of them enjoyed strong relations with Vijaynagar, and another war with the southern kingdom was to be avoided at all costs. Indeed, aggressive expansion was not even favoured much in the court, and Nusrat Singh was inundated with requests from country princes on help improving their defences rather than the quality of their armies.

It took nearly two months for Ibrahim and his army of ten thousand men to reach Udaipur. Muhammad Shah led a small force from Ahmadabad to meet him and help put down the Rajputni nationalists, but there was no doubt on either side that it was Delhi’s troops doing most of the work. The Gujarati military was in dire straits; to the south, the Sultan of Deccan had crossed the border at Surat and was swiftly overpowering the Gujarati defenders. The Rajputni rebels broke and made for Jodphur, and Ibrahim debated chasing them down rather than letting them enter Delhi, but in the end Deccan was the more pressing threat, and he made to relieve Surat.

In the north, the rest of the army had finally managed to engage the Hindu force in Lahore. Warfare in the mountains, however, was slow and gruelling, with the troops facing a guerrilla campaign. It would be months before the rebels could be ousted from the province and driven south. The court drew reassurance at the news that, while conversion attempts had failed in Lahore, they had succeeded in Panipat, with the majority of the population accepting Islam.

When his men had recovered, the Sultan of Gujarat was happy to repay the favour to Ibrahim and led his army north to deal with the rebels that had spilled into Delhi. Ibrahim, meanwhile, was about to engage in a protracted series of battles in Surat. The forces from Deccan were nearly equal in size of Delhi’s; worse, they had the advantage of terrain, and caught the Army of Delhi as they attempted a slow and perilous river crossing. Nevertheless, Ibrahim persevered, and Muhammad Shah demonstrated the depth of his gratitude by appointing a nephew of Ibrahim’s as his heir. The Sultan sent word of this back to the capital immediately, and received some interesting succession news in return. It seemed that the Chagatai Khanate to the north had come under the rule of a Sultanate none in Delhi had heard of – the Ottomans, somewhere to the west. About this time, the northern army finally managed to drive the Hindu rebels over the border into Sind, and considered their duty complete. They headed south to join Gujarati forces in putting down the Rajputni rebels.

After two months, the campaign in Surat finally drew to a close, with Ahmad Shah of Deccan withdrawing back to his own lands. It was a close and exhausting victory. Delhi had lost more men than Deccan, on the whole, and was in no position to give chase. Instead, the southern front drew to a halt as all sides recuperated. Khandesh had shown Deccan the folly of their ways by occupying Nagpur and besieging Maharastra; other than that, no more territory had been gained by either side after nearly six months of war. The only news of any value came from the capital – the province of Multan had also converted to Islam, despite – or perhaps because of – having been one of the battlegrounds of the recent northern Hindu zealots.

After just over a month of tentative inaction, scouts reported that Ahmad Shah was moving his forces to relieve Maharastra. Ibrahim sprung to action, pushing his men to their limit. They reached the army of Khandesh before Deccan did, and Ahmad Shah’s disappointment was clear when the enemy army reached the city. Calling for dialogue between the two sultans, Ahmad Shah suggested that the war come to an end there and then with a white peace, but Ibrahim rejected it. In his eyes, Deccan had started the war, and so they should have to pay for it. Battle was joined, and Deccan forces retreated to Dadra. Ibrahim could not stay and help Khandesh complete the siege, however, as news had arrived from Rajputana that the rebels had grown in strength and were close to overpowering the Delhian army there. Barely had the Sultan set off when the northern army suffered a humiliating defeat and was almost totally massacred.

The siege of Maharastra came to an abrupt end when the army of Khandesh was set upon not by Deccan’s troops but the war-weary locals, eager to take out their displeasure on the invaders and on their overlords that had failed to protect them against the army of a tiny neighbour. When this news reached Ibrahim in Jodhpur, he forcefully suggested to his allies that now was the time to negotiate. Deccan’s military had been effectively humiliated and a popular revolt was punishment enough. Ibrahim settled for a pittance in war reparations from Deccan’s treasury and did not even do Ahmad Shah the honour of meeting him in person to deliver the terms; he was bent on finishing off the plague of rebels in Rajputana once and for all.

This rudeness was to be his undoing; barely a week after a treaty had been signed, Ibrahim I Shaja’atid was mortally wounded while battling the rebel host in Udaipur. His ministers and brother took over as regents for his twelve-year-old son, Bahlûl Ludi. The council was swift in taking over the necessary administrative instruments of the realm, as with Ibrahim away from the capital they had effectively been running the country for the past year anyway. Nonetheless, the death of a much-respected if not much-loved Sultan did have ramifications – in Lahore and Bikaner, the population revolted once again. The army of Delhi spent the next year roaming the east of the country, gradually diminishing the rebel hosts, but the countryside would not be at peace until fourteen months after Ibrahim’s death.

Events outside Delhi’s borders were just as hectic in the meantime. Almost immediately after the Sultan’s death, the northern state of Kashmir had entered a royal marriage with Delhi, mostly as a means of paying their respects to the late Ibrahim. And even without a Sultan to manage the country’s military, the court of Bengal to the southeast negotiated an alliance. The court was happy to have another Muslim state aligned with Delhi’s interest, and soon a Bengali prince found a bride in the Shaja’atid court.

To the south, Muslim interests did not look so favourable. Barely six months after the war for Khandesh was concluded, Deccan was invaded by Vijaynagar. The sultanate was still struggling with the revolt in Maharastra and found no allies on the subcontinent but the tiny northern Kashmir. In another six months, the war was over. Vijaynagar settled for a small sum from Deccan’s treasury, the annulment of the treaty with Kashmir and the satisfaction of seeing even more rebels flare up in Deccan, in both the eastern- and westernmost extremes. Meanwhile, much further to the east, word came that the Kingdom of Taungu had forcibly annexed their erstwhile foe Assam, creating a rather large potential Hindu enemy right on Bengal’s border.

Nonetheless, it seemed that these rapid shifts in the local balance of power had more or less been prompted by Ibrahim’s death and the assurance this gave to Delhi’s rivals that her diplomatic and military influence was more or less paralysed for the next few years. Two years into the regency, India and Delhi seemed to be enjoying a small stretch of peace. Administrative changes that Ibrahim had planned for his home in Agra were finally enacted with a series of land reforms that swelled local coffers. The late Sultan’s missionary efforts were continued, and although resistance was met in Bikaner, there was another small victory in Mandla as the population became mostly Muslim. More interesting, however, was the observation of a new army across the border helping the Timurid Khan with his revolts: the forces of the Ottomans had finally been sighted, their reputation greatly preceding them. With the young Bahlûl Ludi about to come of age, it remained to be seen if their presence would shift the balance of power in India, either for better or for worse.