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BRI LL brill.com/jps

On the Imperial Discourse of the Delhi Sultanate

and Early Mughal India

A llA n o o sh a h r
University of California, Davis
anooshahr@gmaiL com

Abstract

Studies of the political culture of early Mughal India generally follow a genealogical
method, positing two mutually exclusive traditions (Medieval Indo-Islamic or Turco-
Mongol) as the source of Mughal Imperial discourse. The present articles will compare
early Mughal texts with those of the Delhi Sultanate as well as Shibanid Central Asia in
order to show that all three shared a common pattern that had to be modified based on
particular historical exigencies.

Keywords

Mughal - Shibanid - Delhi Sultanate - Political discourse

A genealogical search into the political culture of the Mughal Empire has been
a subject of interest for a good century and a half. In 1854, the British scholar
William Erskine proposed that the Central Asian roots of the dynasty should
be credited with the empire’s notions of despotic sovereignty and some of its
institutions (Erskine 1972,1:5-7). Rushbrook Williams argued in 1918 that Babur
had inherited from his Central Asian ancestors not just an absolutist monar­
chy but a divine one, consisting of superstitious reverence of the emperor
(Rushbrook Williams, 168). Ram Prasad Tripathi modified this thesis in 1936 by
stating that Central Asian, or “Turko-Mongol”, political tradition consisted of
competing concepts of divine monarchy, as well as shared sovereignty amongst
members of the ruling family. Tripathi argued that the reign of Humayun
served as a watershed as the tensions between these two notions boiled over
during the civil war and temporary overthrow of the Mughal dynasty in the
early 1540’s (Tripathi, 115-125). In post-independence India the concerns over

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2014 | DOI 10.1163/18747167-12341270

158 ANOOSHAHR

divine monarchy shifted however to the matter of the power of the central
government. Iqtidar Alam Khan, for instance, further refined this thesis by
arguing, against Tripathi, that no notion of divine sovereignty can be observed
in the “Turko-Mongol” tradition. Instead, Iqtidar Alam Khan suggested that it
was under the rule of Humayun, especially given his reconquering of India in
the 1550’s, and then substantially under Akbar's reign, that the Mughals essen­
tially abandoned their decentralized political inheritance of Inner Asia and
significantly marginalized their military elite from that region, instead opting
for the autocratic traditions and practices of the earlier Delhi Sultanate (Khan,
10-16). Iqtidar Alam Khan’s intervention has thus formed a strand of scholar­
ship that believes in a sharp discontinuity with Central Asia and a continuity
with the Delhi Sultanate. A subsequent example of this position is provided by
Douglas Streusand who has argued for the similarity and superiority of Mughal
policies and rituals under Emperor Akbar, compared to those of the Delhi
Sultanate.
Yet, there are those who argue for the survival of the "Turco-Mongol” heri­
tage among the Mughals all the way up to the eighteenth century. This argu­
ment, despite its age, has shown a peculiar resilience in modem scholarship.
Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam resist the unitary and evolutionary
model of the Mughal state and argue that while the Mughals in north India
gradually consolidated and centralized the emperor’s power, those in Kabul
who had a stronger Central Asian orientation recalcitrantly clung to the older
model and resisted the “narrowfingj down of the peer group of the ruler”
(Alam and Subrahmanyam, 21-22).
In the other extremity, Lisa Balabanlilar has disavowed the arguments for
“indianization” under Akbar and argued that the Indian-Timurid court cul­
ture was continuously and primarily shaped by the heritage of Timurid rule
in Central Asia (Balabanlilar, 3). Included in this heritage was the “traditional
Turco-Mongol” succession rivalries, which caused devastating wars among
the male members of the family. This tradition, she argues, “remained nearly
unmodified for generations, so successfully did it define the ruling family’s
essential sovereignty” (Balabanlilar, 6). This argument is problematic for a
number of reasons. First, it assumes incorrectly that the imperial campaign of
legitimation was only directed at Central Asian immigrants. Second it posits
an essential quality on the members of this group who continued to "remain
loyal to those familiar, potent symbols of power” that had been worked out in
Timurid Central Asia (Balabanlilar, 154). But was the Timurid tradition really
familiar to those descendants of Timur who had been born of Rajput mothers
and had spent all their lives in India? How is this essential quality passed down?

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Most recently, Munis Faruqui has seen the persistence of the Central Asian
heritage of competitive succession throughout the Mughal rule as inherent
to their political "constitution”, so to speak. Young princes had to form house­
holds and factions, thereby extending the influence of the royal family deep
into Indian society (Faruqui, 2). Thus in Faruqui’s treatment, “Turco-Mongol”
sovereignty undergoes some modification from the time of Emperor Akbar,but
the Central Asian element of the concept remains unchanged. Did notions and
practices of sovereignty not undergo change in Turan itself, or were they time­
less and eternal? Moreover why should these traditions, that supposedly devel­
oped on the northern steppe, have had any application in urban and agrarian
Transoxania where the Mughal dynasty originated?
A critical stance against both strands of the debate has been taken up by
Mansura Haidar. For instance, while she agrees with and expands Tripathi’s
point that the deification of emperors was actually a very common phenom­
enon, she contends that this political feature was often not absolute. Certainly,
in Islamic statecraft texts, the power of the king can be said to be contractual
as God could withdraw his support from an oppressive king (Haidar, 173). At
the same time, Haidar does not give much credence to the dominance of the
concept of “collective sovereignty” since states supposedly practicing this con­
cept simultaneously conducted direct administration and revenue collection
by the crown. She finds the struggle amongst royal brothers in Safavid Iran,
the Ottoman Empire, and Humayun’s India to signify the absence of definite
succession practices, and not a sign of institutionalized shared sovereignty
(Haidar, 174). Finally, she attributes the suppression of the Turani emirs to the
desire to create a composite nobility which could be better controlled by the
king. She finds evidence for this practice in the works of Abu al-Fazl, as well as
in early Perso-Islamic political works that advise the monarch to engage in a
sort of “divide and rule” policy as homogeneity of the nobility would inevitably
lead to laziness and conspiracies (Haidar, 144).
Haidar’s insight provides important guidelines for rethinking the issues of
sovereignty or succession in the Mughal state. Nevertheless a number of prob­
lems remain unresolved. For instance, we need to give serious consideration
to the emic notions of sovereignty among the Mughal political elite. Did the
ruling elite of Hindustan self-consciously perceive its political tradition as an
ethno-cultural (i.e. “Turkic”) or even a geographic (i.e. “Inner Asian”) heritage?
Or did they draw on a discourse that was dynastic, historical, or something
else? Moreover, the moderns have not explicitly separated competing “ideolo­
gies” at work within this tradition. We know that the “nobles” had very differ­
ent ideas to the king and his close associates when it came to the extent of

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sovereign power, but this “class-based” distinction is abandoned when scholars

separate the nobles along ethnic lines, with Turks representing a stronger force
that resisted centralization and Persians representing those who went along
with it.
The present article seeks to address some of these problems. It will do so
by undertaking a diachronic comparison across the Indo-Persian tradition,
pairing the most outspokenly pro-royalist positions in the Delhi Sultanate
with those from the Mughal period, specifically during the reign of Emperor
Humayun, while simultaneously considering certain features of the sixteenth
century Uzbek/Shibanid realm in Transoxania. The reasons for this selection
are as follows: we know that Humayun’s reign witnessed one of the earliest
attempts by the Mughal court to promote a form of “absolutism” far greater
than that of Babur, the founder of the dynasty. Humayun’s failure in accom­
plishing the imperial campaign of this attainment of power in his lifetime
should not detract us from the novelty and foundational importance of his
attempted transformation. Similarly, other recent studies have pointed out a
comparable role played by the emperor and his court in the invention of rituals
and ideologies which modern scholarship associates with the reign of Akbar
(Orthman, 202-220). In what way was the Mughal political discourse redefined
under Humayun? How did it evoke the earlier political language of the Delhi
Sultanate? How did it compare with its contemporaries? Muzaffar Alam has
already elucidated the contrast between the statecraft texts of the fourteenth
and sixteenth centuries (Alam, 60-80). What shall we make of the similarities
between the two, as well as that of a sixteenth century neighbor that suppos­
edly shared its Central Asian heritage with the early Mughals?
The present article will also suggest alternative ways of understanding
“shared sovereignty”. I will argue that the political system in which multiple
sovereignties were overlaid was “imperial” and not simply “monarchical”. In
other words, one can find the expression of a political system, present in India
(during the Sultanate as well as the early Mughal periods) but also in Central
Asia, which allowed for the coexistence of several “kings” serving under a supe­
rior king. There is a precedent, if not a direct model, for this system, in the old
Persian notion of emperor as literally “king of [the other] kings" (shahanshah).
The Mongol title of “khan” was understood by Persian authors to mean the
same thing. All this will be argued in greater detail below. Suffice it to say that
I intend to abandon the genealogical approach for a comparative one. Whereas
the former method posits usually mutually exclusive lineages for Mughal polit­
ical discourse (either to the Sultanate or to Inner Asia), the latter method will
hopefully show that there are enough similarities among all three to suggest a
common model. I will begin with the early Sultanate texts of Juzjani and Amir

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Khusraw, whose writings voice the courtly (or one might say “royalist”, mean­
ing pro-monarchical) definition of sovereignty in the formative thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. Moreover, these texts were in circulation during the early
Mughal period and could have served as the conduit for the political ideas
expressed in them.1
The “royalist” thought of medieval Indo-Muslim states referred to the
supreme ruler was the sultan and his subordinates were maleks— literally
“kings”. The sultan ruled directly in one kingdom, mamlekat, while the maleks
acknowledged him as ruler in kingdoms they had conquered or had received as
land-grants (iqta) (Juzjani, i: 418 and 460). If a malek took possession of a king­
dom, he might claim independence and have the Friday sermon recited in his
name and issue his own coins. This was likely, especially following the death of
his sovereign (Juzjani, 1:434). In such cases, the “rebel”would be confronted by
his master’s successor (Juzjani, 1:418, 437-8). Hindustan, in other words, was a
collection of kingdoms, or mamalek, comprising Sind, Delhi, Lakhnauti (itself
referred to with the plural mamalek or “kingdoms”), and Lahore (Juzjani, 1:
418). After its conquest by Qutb al-Din Aybak, Gujarat was added to this list as
a kingdom, and Sind was called a province “velayaf (Juzjani, 1:461).
The sultan was thus a monarch who was in charge of other monarchs.
Sovereignty in the sultanate was a pyramid-like hierarchy of kings ruling in a
variety of kingdoms. The synonyms used by contemporaries for the supreme
ruler bear this out: shahanshah (king of kings), sultan al-salattn (sultan of
sultans), padshah (supreme king, from Old Iranian paiti-khshathra) or even
khaqan-e mo'azzam (the great khaqan— an Inner Asian “imperial” title)
(Juzjani, 1: 422, 483, and 497, 11:1). A parallel institution was understood to
be at work among non-Muslim rulers as well. Regarding Ray Lakhmaniya, for
instance, Juzjani writes, “His family (khandan) was held in greatness by the
Rays of India who considered him as the caliph of India" (Juzjani, 1:424). Even
similar Mongol practices were acknowledged when an ambassador from Delhi
to a Mongol ruler changed the name of his master from “Ulugh Khan” to “Ulugh
Malik” in the Mongol translation of his Persian letter, because, “according to
the way of Turkestan, the ‘khan’ is the chief commander and all others are
called kings {maleks)" (Juzjani, 1:87).
But if a malek obtained his right to rule either through a grant or by direct
conquest in the name of a sultan, where did the latter receive his sovereignty?

1 For an analysis of the political culture of the Delhi Sultanate see Kumar 2007, where he
places the development of Sultanate institutions against the backdrop of the Ghurids in
whose realm, he argues, corporate sovereignty was practiced along with military slavery for
the selection of the ruling elite. For a political narrative see Jackson 1999.

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This depends on the perspective of the observer. The version that has come
down to us most coherently is the one proposed by chroniclers, many of whom
belonged to the Muslim religious elite. By following their explanation we enter
the realm of the mysterious and divine pre-destination or taqdir. God decided
in eternity (i.e. a time without beginning or end, outside of history) to select an
individual for kingship, usually for a purpose (for instance to give shelter to a
people during a dangerous time) (Juzjani, i: 440). The evidence for this would
be observable throughout the ruler’s life, beginning at conception. The signs of
political fortune (asar-e dawlat) and the light-rays of kingship (anvar-e mamle-
kat) would be placed on this individual’s forehead. During her pregnancy, this
light would shine on the face of the future monarch’s mother. The joy of seeing
him in the cradle would manifest in the faces of all those who cast their eyes on
him, and he would bring comfort to people all his life (Juzjani, 1:440). Beauty of
face, wisdom, and admirable disposition were other signs (Juzjani, 1: 441). Yet
not everyone could easily recognize these signs. All the great men might have
had their eyes on a promising young prince, but they could be confounded by
the secret plan of God and the death of their candidate (Juzjani, 1: 453). Only
the gaze of mysterious mendicants with the power of the occult could recog­
nize, as well as cause, the continual ascent in a king’s fortune, even while still a
child (Juzjani, 1:442). This political fortune, or dawlat, directly affected Islamic
law (mellat) (Juzjani, 1:440). A commander who was fighting a holy war in the
name of a sultan could suddenly experience a reversal of fortune (bakht) and
be defeated if his sultan, far away in his capital, happened to die in the middle
of the campaign (Juzjani, 1:431-2).
The ideal king ruled with justice and generosity, and achieved victory in
battle (Juzjani, xi: 3). Subjects owed such kings gratitude and obedience. While
in modern legal terminology the word haqq is used to denote a “right”, as of an
individual’s, in the early thirteenth century, haqq implied that which was due,
specifically to a monarch. Juzjani explicitly states that showing gratitude to the
generosity of the sultan and his maleks— defined elsewhere as repaying that
which is due to them (ada-e huquq)—was a religious requirement (farz) and
debt (qarz) (Juzjani, 1:1-3). In this context, rebellion against one’s monarch
was described not simply as reprehensible, but even as a damnable act whose
evil (shumi) would return to the guilty and uproot his existence (Juzjani, 1:32).
This was of course a fiction developed in a political system in which the
members of the political elite were military slaves who had risen through the
ranks through a combination of good service, intelligence, and, at times, rebel­
lion. Even after the Shamsid dynasty was established, successions to the throne
were decided after some sort of conflict between rival factions, or even follow­
ing a riot, and the monarch was generally chosen by consensus of the military

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leaders— the emirs and the maleks (Juzjani, 1:465).2 Most likely, from the per­
spective of these warriors, sovereignty was derived from popular election by
members of their cadre. Of course the notion of eternally pre-determined king-
ship would have competed with this. On closer inspection, however, we can
see why the Muslim religious notables, such as our author Juzjani, placed such
an emphasis on the divine element in politics. Theirs was in fact a contractual
theory as it demanded social and moral responsibility of the ambitious warrior
or powerful sultan. Was it not in fact good deeds, such as charity and kindness,
administered to the poorer subjects that helped increase the fortune of the
future potentate? Numerous examples testify to this. Was it not also through
some misbehavior, be it an arbitrary execution or engaging in debauchery, that
the sons of Iltutmish lost their crowns (Juzjani, 1: 455, 466)? Indeed Juzjani
believed this to be the case. Divine kingship was in fact a check on the authori­
tarian tendencies of the militarized politics of the Delhi Sultanate.
By the turn of the century, a number of major changes had taken place. For
one, the religious status of the monarch was elevated to new heights. In a world
where the Abbasid dynasty had been wiped out by the Mongols, the Muslim
rulers of India now claimed the title of Caliphate (Amir Khusraw, 20, 50, 53).
Moreover, as was befitting of the new status of the sovereign, new court cer­
emonies were introduced that were commensurate with his rank. For example,
a meeting between Qutb al-Din Mubarak, the Khalji king, and his commander
Khusraw Khan is described thus, “He kissed the floor of that court, and the
Caliph fostered him with a hundred kindnesses” (Amir Khusraw, 72). It should
be noted that the term used for this ritual prostration, zaminbus, is a technical
one and appears with great frequency later in the Mughal period.
Now, just as the ruler was being referred to by this new elevated title, the seat
of his government was also renamed. In the early thirteenth century, the city of
Delhi was known as “seat of the kingdom” or dar al-molk—a generic term that
could also be applied to other capital cities (Juzjani, 424). By the fourteenth
century however, Delhi was no mere capital but the “seat of the caliphate” or
dar al-khetafah (Amir Khusraw, 77). When the construction of a new mosque
in Delhi was completed, the monarch Qutb al-Din Khalji led the Friday con­
gregational prayers, and the poet Khusraw began the description of the scene
with these words, “When the prayer niche of the House of the Caliphate was
built, the Caliph came out on the following Friday” (Amir Khusraw, 77).
Equally novel was the attribution of solar monarchy to the rulers of Delhi.
Qutb al-Din Mubarak is endlessly compared with the sun by his panegyrist
(Amir Khusraw, 53). Behind this poetic convention was in fact a theoretical

2 See Kumar 2007.

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position. The monarch was both a sun and the shadow of God. The imme­
diate subordinates, that is the tributary kings (ra’y s or maleks), possessed a
minute speck of this power, a tiny sun-particle. “The king of the world (jahan-
padshah)" writes Khusraw, “the pivot of the world and religion, is the shadow
of God and the earthly sun” (Amir Khusraw, 51). Elsewhere he describes the
relationship between the monarch and the lesser lords thus: “in whatever
direction the sun may turn, other light particles will be overwhelmed;” (Amir
Khusraw, 56) The ray of Warangel expresses this paradoxical idea most suc­
cinctly when he supposedly says, “We are like the light-particle of the royal sun.
We always seek refuge with the shadow of the God” (Amir Khusraw, 53).
Parallel to the promotion of sovereignty to the level of the sun or the caliphs,
was the expansion of its universalist claims. In addition to the old set of syn­
onyms, we now get emperor of the world (jahan-padshah), king of the world
(jahdn-shdh), protector of the world (pdsban-e jahan), lord of kingdoms
(mamalek khodavand), world-conqueror (jahanglr), possessor of the world
(jahandar), king of the world (shah-ejahan), or king of the universe (shah-e
‘alam) (Amir Khusraw, 30, 41, 45, 35, 37, 249, 318, 84). Some versions of these
titles will reappear in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the official
regnal names of Mughal emperors.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, as the position of the monarch grew in impor­
tance, that of other power-holders declined in theory. We see very few kings
(maleks) in Amir Khusraw’s narrative. Whereas Juzjani reserved most of
the second volume of his history, the Tabaqat-e Naseri, for enumerating the
careers of several maleks, Amir Khusraw writes primarily about the actions of
the supreme monarch. Moreover, a position was staked out at court by which
the monarch claimed ownership of all the property of his subordinates. This
is of course a concept of ownership that later contributed to the notion of
Oriental Despotism and the idea that there existed no private property in
medieval India.
In its earliest forms however, such conclusions would be highly erroneous.
What the monarch claimed was in fact the revenue, elephants, and velayat
(term implying both the “governorship” and the “province”) of a local king.
Even if the local ruler had inherited this from his father, it was argued, he still
owed it to the favor of an earlier monarch. Put another way, kingship was the
subjugation of the rights of a lesser ruler, often through instruments of rule.
Elephants, money, and territory were not common property owned by inhabit­
ants but particular symbols and tools of exercising power. Although this claim
was apparently just theoretical. It was not possible for the Sultans of Delhi
to control such immense wealth vis-a-vis their subordinates. Rather the local
ruler was expected to acknowledge this relationship verbally, in return for

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which, the sultan would claim disinterest in his lowly sums (Amir Khusraw,
114-115). Moreover, the sultan was expected to engage in conspicuous generos­
ity by distributing his wealth back to those who had earned it— i.e. the agents
of his rule. The sobriquet zar-afshan (he who strews gold) speaks to this point,
as do numerous other descriptions or allusions to scenes of distribution, such
as the image of the sultan throwing jewels and pearls from a ship to his court­
iers whose hands were filled with treasures (Amir Khusraw, 206). It was fully
understood that those who crowded around the throne of the ruler in adora­
tion were there to receive the financial benefits of the king who “rains down
treasures” (ganj-bar).
What we have here is an economy of gift exchange among the ruling elite.
By nominally recognizing the supreme monarch as the owner of one’s source
and symbols of rule, the local governor/king then placed an obligation on his
superior to pretend to refuse the gesture in a sign of supremacy and instead
shower him with favors (monetary or otherwise). As Khusraw puts it, regarding
the notables on the occasion of the birth of the crown prince, “They brought
forth gifts (pishkash) from every place. They gave and in return took much
more from the king” (Amir Khusraw, 341). In turn, the same pattern of behavior
was expected of the maleks toward their subordinates. They were expected to
hand out the king’s “gifts" to people who served them. Consuming the “king’s
gold and treasures” by one’s self was considered inappropriate (Amir Khusraw,
254). Maleks, khosraws, and khans too vied for the title of “he who strews jew­
els” (gawhar-feshan) (Amir Khusraw, 341).
Of course in line with these developments, there appeared a simultaneous
attempt at regulation based on ethical grounds. The most important Indo-
Persian statecraft treatise (Fatava-e Jahandari by Barani) dates back to this
period. As Sunil Kumar has argued, Barani had no tolerance for royal claims
to spiritual authority and made a point in his writing of attacking, in order to
destroy, the foundation of such claims (Kumar 2000, 37-65). All the same, we
should not lose sight of the fact that while Barani did not buy into the political
theology that had been developed by royalist authors of the Delhi Sultanate,
he nevertheless believed kingship to be a necessary evil for the maintenance of
social order. He was therefore amenable to effective visual glorification of mon-
archs if it complemented what he believed to be precepts of good kingship.
For instance he praised Sultan Balaban for strengthening the army, support­
ing worthy people, and extending his generosity to deserving people (Barani,
29). He also recorded with approbation the spectacle of the sultan riding like
the sun surrounded by Sistani soldiers whose unsheathed blades shimmered
in the daylight. He recounted with delight how the sultan, with his sun-like
face and white beard, sat on the throne in such a stern manner that it made

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men's hearts tremble (Barani, 30). In short, while Barani opposed the way in
which the sultan’s power was justified in royalist texts, he effectively pursued
the same pro-monarchical end within the system of king and military/ruling
subordinates. He did however wish to place a check on this power through
religious figures in the realm, as well as through Islamic law.
Still, while Barani stands out as one of the most vocal critics of unchecked
royal power, even his pro-monarchical opponents wanted to place some sort of
safeguard on the king’s supremacy. The germ of this material was already con­
tained in the same panegyric literature that was exalting the king. The monarch
was instructed to have sound and strongjudgment (ra'y-e mohkammva tadbir-e
sakht), to know when to go on campaigns and when to stay put, to exercise
restraint, to promote fairness and justice (ensafva ‘adl), and to bring about a
peaceful life (asudagi) for the masses and the elite (Amir Khusraw, 228-229).
He was specially advised to consult with others in his decision-making. Had
not Alexander conferred with Aristotle, Elijah, and Khizr (Amir Khusraw, 229)?
The affairs of the world were too vast for one individual to deal with alone, yes
even for the king (Amir Khusraw, 230). Moreover, it was recommended that the
ruler be trained in the arts of government particularly from a young age. No
doubt, it was argued, that whoever was selected for the throne by God already
possessed knowledge derived from the occult—how else would one individ­
ual be able to run an entire kingdom (Amir Khusraw, 348-9)? Nevertheless a
proper education was required in order to further refine and develop those
divine gifts (Amir Khusraw, 350).
In the long run, anxiety over the extent of royal power proved unwarranted.
With the weakening of the sultanate by the end of the fourteenth century, a
dose of humility had to be injected into royal enthusiasts. True, a ruler such as
Ferozshah was still styled superlatively as the sultan of kings (soLtan-e shahan)
(Afif, 48), who ruled over “supreme khans a n d ... respected kings” (khandn-e
‘ozzam va... motuk-e ba ehteram) (Afif, 72). Yet, this monarch no longer ruled
in a “seat of caliphate” but a mere “seat of kingdom” (dar al-moLk-e DehLi) (Afif,
58). Some of Ferozshah’s titles are of dubious merit. Blain Auer has rightly
noted that the title “seal of crown-wearers” (khatm-e tajdarari) applied by the
historian Afif was meant to allude to the Prophet Muhammad who was known
as the “seal of the prophets’ (khatam at-'anbtya) (Auer, 50-53). But such an allu­
sion is not just a means of legitimation but a tragic retrospection on Afif’s part.
For him, the sultan was literally that last of the sultans before the chaos of new
Mongol invasions broke loose beyond the Indus River (Afif, 20).
A very interesting sequence within these developments is the use of more
inflated, though not “imperial”, nomenclature by early fifteenth century
chroniclers. When Yahya Sirhindi refers to his royal patron as “Lord of the

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Universe, Great King of the sons and daughters of Adam, king of kings of Arabs
and Persians” (khudaygan-e ‘alam, padeshah-e bariiva banat-e Adam, malek-e
moluk-e ‘arab va iajam) (Sirhindi, 2-3), he is free to reach for such hyperbolic
conceits precisely because he can no longer truly refer to him as the “emperor”
of the kings of India. As the text clearly shows, Mubarkshah’s zone of influence
extended to a relatively small area between the Punjab and Jaunpur and such a
small region barely had room for sub-kings to serve under an emperor.
The second half of the century is not well-served by chroniclers. Our main
source for the history of this period is the late sixteenth century Vaqe'at-i
Moshtaqi. In many respects however, and in particular in regards to its politi­
cal concepts, Mushtaqi’s history very much reflects the situation of Akbar’s
India. So, for instance, when writing about Sikandar Lodi, our author refers to
him as a “sultan” and to other great lords as “commanders” or “emirs” ('omara)
(Mushtaqi, 19). One would expect here the presence of smaller “kings” in the
Lodi state and not “officials” as in the next century under Akbar. We could how­
ever read this as another sign of weakness. The territory ruled by the Lodis was
simply too small to include various lesser kings.
In short, the fifteenth century saw a rolling back as well as a continuation of
these “imperial” claims. At the same time, the classic texts of the early period
(such as those analyzed above) were widely available when the nascent Mughal
state embarked on a new imperial project, bolstered by "ideological” and tex­
tual backing. While one cannot posit a direct lineage between the concepts as
developed in early sultanate texts and those found in early Mughal chronicles,
one can still compare the similarities and differences. This is especially the
case beginning with the royalist (again in the sense of pro-monarchical power)
claims made on behalf of the second Mughal emperor Humayun.
Such a claim would certainly need to be justified. After all, did Humayun
not divide his domain among his brothers, especially his brother Kamran who
ruled Kabul and the Punjab? In other words did Humayun not inherit and
implement (at least at the beginning of his reign) a “Turco-Mongol” concept of
kingship involving shared sovereignty? At first glance this may seem to be the
case, but in reality it is not so. For instance, modern scholars have long cited
the chroniclers of the late sixteenth century who stated that Humayun con­
stantly evoked his father Babur’s advice as justification for showing restraint
toward his rebellious brothers. What is being referred to is a letter by Babur,
written to his son, then prince Humayun, dated November 27,1528, where the
emperor had instructed his oldest son to show restraint and conduct him­
self well with his brother Kamran. Moreover, Babur had ordered Humayun to
observe the “principle” [qa'eda] of six parts to Humayun and five to Kamran,
presumably suggesting a shared rule with a slight advantage in favor of the

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i68 ANOOSHAHR

older sibling (Babur, 349a). He had also rem inded his sons that Kabul was to
be a royal dem esne and none of his children should covet it (Babur, 350a). But
this cannot be seen as evidence for the notion of corporate sovereignty. In
fact, in a letter to Khwaja Kalan, Babur explicitly states that the presence of
several rulers [hdkem] in one province [veldyat] will certainly lead to disarray
(Babur, 359a-359b).
This apparent paradox is in fact illusory. One should rem em ber that Babur
wrote this docum ent w hen he had ju st achieved mastery over India and was
trying to position his sons in Kabul as the outpost from which he hoped they
would attack the Uzbeks and retake Samarqand. The recom m endations are
thus com m ands to his sons as heads of armies on the verge of a battle, and
not a testam ent to be used as a constitutional document. It is unlikely th at the
forty-five year old Babur had expected to die in only two years and had there­
fore tried to prepare his successors for power-sharing. As such, the omission
of any reference to the other two sons, ‘Askari and Hindal, is only natural. Had
Babur been planning the future course of his dynasty in these letters, and had
he believed in shared sovereignty, he would not have failed to include them.
Other evidence, also appearing at first to point to a notion of corporate
sovereignty under Humayun, can likewise be challenged. The royal decree
of Humayun, dated November 4th 1553, bears testimony to the nature of the
internal divisions of the Mughal state. The text, issued in favor of a Qazi Baha
al-Din for the possession of a landed property, formulaically lists the subservi­
ent notables as brothers of the emperor, followed by his sons, then the emirs
(commanders/governors), sadrs (religious officials), viziers (ministers), dmels
(agents), mobashers, and the motasaddis of the particular village (qasaba).
(Shafi1, 1933) The significant presence of the “brothers” in this text however,
seems to be a late practice, subsequent to the first collapse of Mughal power
in India. Other documents, similar in their formulaic listing of the political
and administrative elite, make no explicit m ention of the brothers at all, or
place them in a clearly subservient position. A m anual of official letter-writing
by M uham m ad Yusufi Haravi, from the early 1530’s, subdivides the addressees
according to the official hierarchy of the Mughal realm, as sultans, sons of sul­
tans, emirs, sadrs, viziers, government high officials (divanis) and m en of the
pen (i.e. m em bers of the chancery), sayyids (those of high-ranking religious
families), shaykhs (religious leaders), the 'ulama (Islamic jurists/scholars), the
qazis (jurists), hakims (philosophers/naturalists) and physicians, poets, and
astrologers (Yusufi, ff. 2a, 5a, 9a, 13b, 18b, 23b, 54b, 56b, 61a, 66a, 68a). Moreover,
the em peror’s spiritual guide Shaykh M uham m ad Ghaws Gwaliori provides a
similar list in 1549/50, in which he promises, as a reward to one who follows
his teachings, a private visit by the Padshah, viziers, the pillars of the state, the

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ON T H E IM P E R IA L D ISCOUR SE OF T H E D E L H I SULTANATE 169

‘ulama, the pious, qazis, the sayyids, and others (Ghaws Gwaliori, 122a). While
Humayun’s letter skips the members of the imperial chancery (who would
count among the composers and not recipients of the particular decree), and
while all three texts disagree over the particular order of offices, especially
among the lower ranks, the fact remains that each list reflects a clear hierarchi­
cal division of officials in which the position of the male members of the royal
family, while otherwise sublime, still falls below that of the emperor. In sum,
the available documentation appears to confirm the anecdotal evidence of the
chronicles, this being that while the princes of the House of Babur remained
significant players in the new order, Humayun intended to establish what
one might momentarily, and conventionally (as it is not an emic category),
dub a more “centralized” monarchy in the Mughal domains throughout his
entire reign.
It is therefore instructive to look more closely at earlier material, particu­
larly that of Khvandamir’s Qanun-e Homayuni. Khvandamir specifically men­
tions the various classes of Humayun’s domains as a set of hierarchies of
rank which included, after the emperor, the emirs, viziers, sayyids, shaykhs,
the ‘ulama, qazis, muftis, letter writers, farmers, merchants, and shopkeep­
ers (Khvandamir, 259-260). Here again we have a list similar in many ways to
those mentioned above. The fact that they are never uniform is significant,
suggesting perhaps a contestation among the elite in those formative decades
between the 1530’s and 1550’s. For the purposes of the present article, what is
particularly noticeable is the absence of other princes from the list. A closer
look at Khvandamir’s language provides some very important clues. This is
because our author specifically refers to this arrangement as belonging to the
kingdom of India (mamlekat-e Hendustan) (Khvandamir, 260). On the other
hand, Kabul is considered by our author to be another kingdom (mamlekat)
and hence its ruler, Kamran, finds no mention in the list of the attendees at
the coronation ceremony (Khvandamir, 253). The logical conclusion is that
Humayun rules over a collection of kingdoms (initially at least two), each with
its own king, while simultaneously residing in the most important of these, i.e.
Hindustan. Humayun is therefore “emperor” of Kabul and Hindustan, and also
ruler of Hindustan. Furthermore this view makes sense of Yusufi’s terminol­
ogy, mentioned above, as he too subdivides the category of sultan into three
divisions: the supreme sultan [a'La], the middling sultan [awsat], and the low
sultan [adna] (Yusufi, ff. 2a, 3a, 4a). Humayun is specifically mentioned as a
supreme sultan (Yusufi, f. 2a).
The evidence of the anonymous universal chronicle completed, at least in
one manuscript recension, at the end of Humayun’s reign, broadly supports
this thesis. Here the author ranks the sons of Babur in order of seniority with

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170 ANOOSHAHR

Humayun as Padshah, Kamran as Sultan, and Hindal and ‘Akari as Mirzas

(mere princes) (Anonymous, ff. 235b). With regards to the territorial division
of the empire, the author states that the “kingdom” of Kabul and Lahore (retro­
actively rubberstamping Kamran’s capture of Lahore from Kabul immediately
after Babur’s death) was given to Kamran, while the governorship (eyalat) of
Qandahar, Zamindavar, and Garmsir fell to Akari. Hindal gained the “sultanate”
(saltanat) of Alwar, while Mirza Sulayman sat on the throne of Badakhshan.
The province (vilayat) was given to Mahdi Khwaja, and the rule [hokumat] of
Jaunpur went to Hindu Beg. Mihr Ali received the prefecture [darughagi] of
Delhi. Other sultans and emirs, we are told, were sent off to other countries and
provinces (belad va velayat) (Anonymous, f. 236a). What we have here then is
a very clear picture of the early notion of Mughal sovereignty, extending from
a supreme king [padshah or emperor] to lesser kings [sultans], and then to
the governor/commanders [emirs]. Mughal rule thus extends to kingdoms,
countries, and provinces. The domain of the emperor is not a fixed space but
extends to whatever falls under his purview.
This notion is well bom out in the conquest of Gujarat. The memoir­
ist Jawhar consistently refers to Humayun as Padshah but to Bahadur, ruler
of Gujarat, as Sultan (Jawhar, 4b). When the Mughal army defeats Bahadur’s
army, Hindu Beg, the commander of the Mughal army tells Humayun that he
should, “make a present of the province [velayat] of Gujarat to Sultan Bahadur
and appoint him [nasb namayand] on [His Majesty the Padshah’s] behalf”
(Jawhar, 7b). Humayun flat out refuses and declares that he wishes to convert
it into a centrally organized unit [zabt]. Disappointed with this decision, the
emirs then encourage the emperor’s brother Mirza Askari to go to Delhi and
proclaim himself king in order to force the emperor to quit Gujarat (Jawhar,
8a). Here, Hindu Beg and the emirs have a notion of sovereignty that is firmly
rooted in the traditional imperial idiom of a supreme ruler governing a subser­
vient king whose independence has been jeopardized due to defeat. Yet, this
loss does not deprive him of his right to rule in his native land. It is only that
the status of his kingdom has been downgraded to a province. Humayun, how­
ever, had something else in mind. He wanted to convert Gujarat into a directly
governed territory and appoint governors from Delhi. Only then do the emirs
go to the emperor’s brother, but in order to force the hand of the emperor.
Thus the concept of imperial sovereignty over kings, as employed under
Humayun, resembles in many ways the political notion of authority in the
Delhi Sultanate, though it does diverge from it somewhat. But one should not
assume that the difference should be attributed to a timeless and unchang­
ing “Central Asian” tradition. Contemporary Central Asian politics, far from
practicing shared sovereignty, followed a very similar imperial pattern. For

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ON T H E I M P E R IA L DIS C O U R SE OF T H E D E L H I SULTANATE 171

instance in the Uzbek kingdom, Muhammad Shibani was the supreme

“Khan” who ruled over a number of “sultans”, each ruling a particular realm,
although the terminology denoting the nature of each rule is not consistent.
So, according to Fazl Allah Ruzbihan Khunji for instance, the khan’s son,
Muhammad Temur Sultan, was the commander [farmanfanma] of the throne
of Samarqand, Kochum Sultan was the ruler [hakem\ of Turkestan, Sevinch
Sultan held the rule [hokm] of the throne of Tashkent, and Mahdi Sultan held
the command [farman] of the throne of Hisar-i Shadman. Jani Beg Sultan and
Pulad Sultan were the commanders [farmanfarma] of the throne of Andijan
and Khwarazm respectively, while ‘Ubayd Allah Sultan and Khurramshah
Sultan were the rulers [farmanrava] of Bukhara and Balkh. Finally, the khan’s
oldest son, Abu al-Khayr Sultan, was the crown prince. The khan, it seems,
moved about the realm and did not directly govern any of the realms in his
domain (Khunji, 2-5). In sum, the notion of the sovereign was similar both in
Mughal India as well Shibanid Central Asia in so far as the emperor coexisted
with, and ruled over, lesser kings. The so-called “Turco-Mongol” sovereignty
is actually an imperial one that finds a parallel, if not direct filiation, in older
Persian political practice.
Now if the sultans or Mirzas derived their sovereignty from the Padshah
(or Khan), where did the latter earn his right to rule? Predictably, from God.
According to Humayun’s panegyrist Khvandamir, for instance, God selected
kings and prophets in eternity. Kings [moLuk] rule around the world in order
to bring order to the variety of peoples and to heal [eltiyam] the wounds that
the “times” inflict (Khvandamir, 251). In support of these claims Khwandamir
draws on the Koranic verse, “We made you deputies on earth” (Koran 6:165 and
10:14). The use of the word deputy [khalifa, i.e. caliph] is significant as this is
the first such usage in the Mughal context. The extension of divine power to
the king is also contractual. The king is required to bring order and healing to
God’s creatures.
Khvandamir further allocates kings as those whom God has character­
ized with fairness and the care of subjects [nasafatva ra'iyat-parvari]. These
individuals are expected to serve as a refuge of the people, to strengthen the
foundation of the Holy Law, and perform holy war [ghaza va jihad] against
infidelity. Of such celestial emperors [padshahan-e sepher-eqtedar], one, being
Humayun, is exalted above all others due to the greatness of his lineage and the
vastness of his domains (Khvandamir, 252). But how is his justice manifested?
Here we find the first clearly formulated policy of the Mughal Empire serving
as a safe haven for countless immigrants from within the Islamic world. From
the borders of Turkestan to the farthest reaches of Hindustan, those who have
been scorched by the suns of the rulers of the present age [nava’eb-e ruzgdr]

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172 ANOOSHAHR

have found shelter under his shadow. All those who have fled the calamities of
this era, from the beginnings of the province of Iran to the ends of the king­
doms of Kabul and Zabulistan take refuge in his eternal fortune. No pharaonic
rebel dares to come out of his isolation. Therefore deer lie peacefully with leop­
ards, fish relax with crocodiles, doves are intimate with falcons, and sparrows
converse with eagles (Khvandamir, 253).
What we have therefore is a contractual divine imperialism, similar in many
ways to the period of the Delhi sultanate. The main difference lies in the ecu­
menism of the Mughal court towards immigrants. The idea of the solar mon­
archy was also very much present under Humayun, as it was under the sultans
of Delhi. Eva Orthman and Azfar Moin have recently analyzed the rituals at
Humayun’s court, depicted by Khvandamir, in which the court was arranged
strictly based on planetary maps of heaven, with the emperor occupying the
position of the sun or God (Orthmann, 202-220; Moin, 116-123). hut it is worth
noting that, just like in the Sultanate texts, the emperor is paradoxically both a
sun and a shadow that gives shelter.
It is also worth noting that the idea was drawn upon widely, and that rivals of
the Mughals also began using the same metaphors in the 1530’s and 1540’s. For
instance, the poet Abu al-Qasim Kahi, who served both the courts of Delhi and
Gujarat, wrote an ode to Humayun’s rival Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, in which he
expressed his hope that “the sun of his [i.e. Bahadur Shah’s] face will emanate
light rays until eternity, this is my prayer day and night, dusk and dawn” (Kahi,
40). In another ode, Kahi described the Gujarati ruler as “the sky of generos­
ity, Sultan Bahadur Ghazi King, may the sun of his state not be absent from
our heads” (Kahi, 85). Likewise the poet Jayasi, author of the Hindi romance
Padmavat punned in his encomium to Sher Shah on the dynastic sobriquet of
“Sur" and its Sanskrit homonyms meaning “hero” as well as the “sun” to evoke
the notion of solar monarchy (Jayasi, 6). In short, just as the Mughals made
imperial claims to South Asia, their rivals too had to follow suit in order to
avoid falling behind the “ideological” race for dominance in north India.
This was of course the “royalist” (by now we should say the “imperial”) view.
Needless to say, not everyone bought into the Mughal imperial claim in its
entirety. A good example of an alternative view is provided by the poet Nisari
of Bukhara in his poetic anthology of Mozakker-e Ahbab. Nisari lists “Chagatay
Sultans” [i.e. Babur and his descendants] after cataloguing the Shibanid or
“Chingizzid Sultans”. Babur is alternatively referred to by Nisari as both Sultan
and Padshah (Nisari, 91-92), reflecting his changing status from a Timurid
petty ruler in Ferghana to supreme monarch in Kabul and India. Humayun,
however, is only called a Padshah (Nisari, 95-103). Significantly, Nisari also
applies the imperial title of Padshah to Kamran (Nisari, 107), and he also

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ON T H E IM P ER IA L DISCOUR SE OF T H E D E L H I SULTANATE 173

describes them in almost identical ways; with his father and brother having
courage, having patronized poets, being bilingual (in Turkic and Persian) and,
perhaps most importantly, highlighting their supposed love for Naqshbandi
saints. It is from 'Askari onwards that the male members of the Chagatay fam­
ily are demoted to the level of mere prince “mirza”. These include first Askari
(Nisari, 117), next Hindal (Nisari, 119), followed by Ibrahim Mirza, the dead son
of Sulayman “Padshah”, ruler of Badakhshan (Nisari, 121), the father still being
alive while Nisari was writing and was seen as Padshah in his own right (Nisari,
124). Nisari’s inventory ends, interestingly, not with Akbar, but Mirza Abu al-
Qasim, Kamran’s son, who at the time of the composition was imprisoned in
Gwalior “due to what is necessary for the kingdom” (Nisari, 126). Akbar does
not receive his own entry and is merely called Humayun’s “noble son, the victo­
rious Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar” (Nisari, 103). He is remembered only for
building a tomb for his father, as well as for allowing jealous people to murder
Bayram Khan, whose death Nisari rues because of the emir’s handsomeness,
political talent, poetic ability, and generosity (Nisari, 248). It is possible that
Nissari inflated the status of the Mughal family that resided in Kabul in order
to increase his chance of patronage. It is however also possible that he gives
evidence of not so much a view of shared sovereignty, but the existence of an
alternative polity in Kabul. In other words, Kamran was not just a ruler of a
subordinate kingdom, but a rival emperor in his own right, and his son was
wrongfully deprived of his throne by an ill-advised Akbar. We must remem­
ber that in 1561, when Bayram Khan died, the Mughal state had operated out
of India for only nineteen years (from 1526 to 1540 and 1556 to 1561), whereas
Kabul had served as the seat of Mughal government for thirty six years (1504-26
and 1540 to 1556), almost twice as long. Moreover, the kingdom of Kabul had
remained in the hands of the dynasty, uninterrupted, for the whole period
under discussion. Nisari’s language reflects this pattern. More research will be
required to test the point as to whether the kingdom of Kabul was thought
to be the “real” Mughal state, or even a fourth state between the Safavids,
Shibanids, and Timurid India.

Conclusion

The goal of the article has been to challenge and provide an alternative way of
looking at the Mughal political discourse from the perspective of genealogy.
The word “genealogy” certainly evokes biological descent, and as such has led
to the articulation of mutually exclusive “family trees” (either Central Asian
or Indians which the Mughals supposedly synthesized). We know of course

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174 ANOOSHAHR

that people do not inherit their political behavior through blood. Babur and
his descendants do not refer to their political concepts in “ethnic” terms. What
we are dealing with is a self-consciously styled imperial venture that shared
many similarities with its predecessors and rivals— the Delhi Sultanate of the
fourteenth century and the Shibanid Khanate of the sixteenth. Of course as we
know, though Mughal claims were hegemonic, they were not accepted by all,
at least not in the same way.
Once we abandon modern political metaphors from physics (centralization
vs. decentralization) or ethno-nationalist characterizations (Turco-Mongol),
and take seriously the emic categories of our Persian sources, we can fully
appreciate the consistency of the Mughal political discourse in its imperial
claims. Right from the early years of its establishment in Hindustan, i.e. from
the 1530’s onward, the Mughals wanted to present themselves not as mere
kings but as emperors, or more literally “master-kings” (padshah). We can per­
haps even push the date back to 1508 when Babur assumes this title, though
obviously under much more modest conditions. As such the reign of Humayun
is particularly important as it signals the foundation of many of the politi­
cal concepts that find their fullest expression under his son Akbar. As stated
above, Eva Orthmann has already traced the origins of what is later called din-e
etahi to the court of Humayun. This article is meant to expand her argument
and add to it by proposing an explanation for the appearance of these features
under Humayun. But we have ended with a divergence in the sources which
may suggest that the residents of Kabul saw themselves as an alternative and
independent polity. It remains to be seen whether this hypothesis holds up
against a wider investigation.

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