KONGRE BİLDİRİLERİ
Balban to reduce the freedom of activity of Muqtis. Ala-ud-din first repossessed the milk, inam and
waqf lands in the Khalsa and instituted an extensive land survey under a highly competent official
named Sharf Qaini. The practice of giving a free hand to the local leadership to extract taxes at will,
according to any arrangements they imposed on the peasants, was also abandoned18. This was effective
in reducing double exploitation by Khuts who extracted state taxes in addition to traditional levies in
accordance with local custom from the peasants and failed to report any increase in productivity due
to addition of land under cultivation or other means. Ala-ud-din assessed taxes according to actual
measurement of land by “masahat and wafa-i-biswah”19. Sharf Qaini’s land registers, according to
Barani, included the Khalsa lands and old iqtas like Lahore, Badaun and Depalpur [not differentiating20
between Khut and Balahar] where it was possible to replace local or internal-communal allocation and
assessment. Ala-ud-din thus used the standard three types of assignments [khalsa, iqta and khiraj/
tribute] but reduced assessment to two rates [wafa-i-biswah and lump-sum]. A new kind of assignment
emerged when after the conquest of Gujrat there was no raja that could be made a vassal21; as a
consequence a vali or iqlim-dar was appointed with a naib-vazir to institute a variant of wafa-i-biswah.
Ala-ud-din’s system did not take into account the productivity of land and the dues of a collector,
nor did it allow for addition to land under cultivation or problems of tax farming. Ghias-ud-din Tughluq
addressed these issues by introducing assessment of taxes according to actual annual yield22. This
would have meant the maintenance of annual registers as indicated by Haji Abdul Hamid’s system of
journals. However this also allowed the local assessment system to re-emerge, it set back centralization
by reinforcing composite traditions of conglomerate states and reintroduced an element of uncertainty
in the annual revenue realized by the state. Ghias-ud-din’s successor, his son Muhammad bin Tughluq,
was strongly committed to centralization and believed in extending the scope of governance so that its
social roots produced an integrated polity. If his land records were available many issues of the history
of the Delhi Sultanate could be resolved. However, it is clear even from a narrative of history, devoid
of analysis and interpretation, that the Sultanate remained a conglomerate state despite the fact that
some additional areas were brought under the direct registration of the central government.
The policies of the Sultanate, especially after the land survey conducted under Sharf Qaini
during the period of Ala-ud-din’s sultanate were apparently managed according to the record keeping
procedures given by Abdul Hamid23. Separate unbound records were called Jarida [pl. Jaraid]. When
maintained in the form of a day book, the Jarida recorded all the transactions from salaries and receipts
to transfer of villages, rewards and assignations of control. A second category of registers perhaps
prepared from the day book or parallel to it was the Awarij for all hisab and financial transactions.
Then there was the Daftar-i-Mufridat for record of remittance from land assignments, shiqqs and iqtas.
Finally there was Daftar Jami-ul-Hisab where accounts of various administrative units were kept,
giving a clear picture of the expected revenues of state. These registers, maintained by a muharrir,
were records “of salaries, of awards, of title deeds, of contracts, of permits and orders ... accounts
of Karkanas and of buildings and...divisions (of crops) or of booty, of every cultivator, of the kind
of crops (sown), the Khiraj due from every person ... grazing animals are all recorded (therein) in
detail”. Muhammad bin Tughluq used four categories of administration in his conglomerate state; the
first was an extended Khalsa region, the domain of the Ilbaris; next a set of Iqlims or Vilayats which
had been under independent rulers but were gradually absorbed from the time of Ala-ud-din24. These
were subject to either of two systems, that of a ‘naib vizier’ [as in Gujrat25 and Deogir at different
times] or they were farmed out for taxes [as in Badar] if their independent status had been revoked.
Since this was the case with most of Muhammad bin Tughluq’s domain, their revenue assessment was
also settled in the Koshak-i-hazar satoon; however, not all areas were measured, registered, assessed
or assigned according Ala-ud-din’s system; finally there were the vassal sultans as at Lakhnauti.
Muhammad bin Tughluq did formulate a land settlement policy for enhancing agriculture as well and
120
Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü
introduced innovations in tax collection26 but the local modes of record keeping remained in vogue
even in the heartland of his empire.
This conglomerate structure of the Delhi Sultanate began to disintegrate almost from the moment
that it reached its peak. South of the Vindiya new states emerged within a decade of the absorption of
the southernmost tip of South Asia. If any part of the system which had evolved in the north was used in
the restructured south, it was due to the efforts within successor states. Since Firoz Shah’s empire was
reduced to the regions which had been acquired by Ghori and his subordinates its land measurement
and assessment followed along the lines of Sharf Qaini’s baseline survey. In the next stage of decline
there came a gradual change in state structures, which reverted to some of practices of the early stages
of Ilbari sultanate. The Lodhi government was more a tribal concern, also a composite, conglomerate
enterprise but one which patronized localization; this prepared the way for both, degradation of
existing record and future innovation in record keeping. This provided Raja Todar Mal an opportunity
to bring together fruits of the entire process of evolution and produce a classic local award.
We cannot be sure how much of the system evolved during Delhi Sultanate was lost to degradation
of governance, especially in the aftermath of Timur’s invasion but we do know that Ala-ud-din Khalji
and Muhammad bin Tughluq created a highly sophisticated and extensive system. It is c