Description: In this book Dr. K.L. Srivastava deals with the Position of the Hindus under the Sultans of Delhi. In the peculiar conditions of India in this period, the political behaviour of Muslim rulers towards the Hindus was often influenced by Muslim religious and constitutional doctrines. In spite of the fact that there is dearth of dependable data on several aspects of this problem, the scholars have directly stated contradictory views. Under such circumstances, a researcher feels handicapped at arriving at exact conclusions. Confronting all these difficulties, the author has scanned both Hindu and Muslim sources and presented a compact and comprehensive treatment of the subject. Wherever he has divergent views from other writers, he cites sound fads for proving the truth of his arguments. He has given a detailed account of the employment of the Hindus in the State services, the condition of Hindu traders and the mode of living of the Hindus in communities and societies. Moreover the contribution of Sufi saints to the propagation of Islam is also thoroughly expressed.

This book provides an integrated view of the Delhi Sultanate government from 1206 to 1526. It is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the political events and the dynastic history of the Sultans and the second part with the administration, different land issues, social life including two major religious movements and other cultural aspects including architecture and sculpture. The growth of the city of Delhi has been shown here perhaps for the first time. Most of the books on Delhi Sultanate mainly narrate the political events. Here other aspects have been included to show the real character of the Sultanate. It may be mentioned that the English officials from the end of the eighteenth Century had termed the medieval period of India as a ‘dark age’ – a statement that has been accepted by several Indian writers. It is to negate this view that an integrated narrative has been provided here. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

We are aware of the Puranas in Hindu society. As an Indian even if you have not read them, they shape your behavior. These stories permeate the air of Bharat. Whether we believe in them or not, they determine our value system. All our festivals, ceremonies, and the way we celebrate them, are narrated to us in these Puranic stories. There are thousands of stories, and even for a brilliant mind, it is impossible to remember all of them. Collectively, as a society, we remember these stories, but as individuals, we struggle to know all. The purpose of these stories was to unite society. The stories that unite people depend on the society. The type of stories that will unite people depends on the political system, ethnic diversity in society, available resources, wealth distribution among citizens, geographical features such as deserts, snowy mountains, overflowing riverbanks, plateaus with good agriculture and water, or areas surrounded by dense forests with unknown diseases, etc. After twelve hundred years of barbaric invasions and colonization, when Bharat became free on 15th August 1947 and chose to be a democratic nation with immense diversity, the question arises: how do we unite the society? Stories revolving around military heroes or successful business ventures are one way to connect with people and unite society. However, these individual stories do not provide us with the broader narrative of a civilizational nation. We cannot unite Bharat in the same way as the USA, Greece, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or China. Bharat is a civilizational nation, and on top of that, we have vast diversity, population, and poverty. Engaging 1.4 billion people of a democratic nation who speak over 400+ languages, and embrace dozens of religious and ethnic diversities in nation-building is an immense challenge. That's why, despite one's education, experience, or intelligence, without divine blessings, whether you are a nation or an individual both will suffer. Bharat has a long tradition of writing and narrating Pauranic stories, and in a democratic system, we need to harness this art to unite society. However, this time, the stories should steer clear of concepts like heaven and hell. They should also avoid focusing on the gods and goddesses of the sky. Citizens should not prioritize to an afterlife but instead strive for a meaningful, peaceful existence on the land we call Rashtra or nation. Namo Purana is a grand narrative of Bharat. Glory, struggle, and progress from Vedic times to 2023 are compressed within this book. It encapsulates everything essential about Bharat, its Vedic time, peaks, struggle, rise, and resurgence. This is not a book focused on any specific topic like spirituality, history, geography, or economy. Instead, it is a Purana that delves into every aspect of Maa Bharati's life. Readers will encounter a wide range of topics in this work, including spirituality, dharma, religion, history, geography, trade and business, economy, culture, politics, geopolitics, war and conflicts, agriculture, literature, biographies, Bhakti Yoga, Jnyana Yoga, Karma Yoga, sociology, colonization, patriotism, nationalism, constitution, law and order, and the dos and don'ts of good governance. Each is discussed briefly to inspire the citizens of Bharat to understand their motherland, its struggles, and challenges. One should neither look up to any other nation with awe nor look down on any other nation. All nations on the planet are equal, and their residents are our family members residing in different houses. Therefore, it's important to respect and care for all, while ensuring that our Rashtra, our home, is safe and peaceful for ourselves and future generations.

The Delhi Sultanate ruled northern India for over three centuries. The era, marked by the desecration of temples and construction of mosques from temple-rubble, is for many South Asians a lightning rod for debates on communalism, religious identity and inter-faith conflict. Using Persian and Arabic manuscripts, epigraphs and inscriptions, Fouzia Farooq Ahmad demystifies key aspects of governance and religion in this complex and controversial period. Why were small sets of foreign invaders and administrators able to dominate despite the cultural, linguistic and religious divides separating them from the ruled? And to what extent did people comply with the authority of sultans they knew very little about? By focusing for the first time on the relationship between the sultans, the bureaucracy and the ruled Muslim Rule in Medieval India outlines the practical dynamics of medieval Muslim political culture and its reception. This approach shows categorically that sultans did not possess meaningful political authority among the masses, and that their symbols of legitimacy were merely post hoc socio-cultural embellishments.Ahmad's thoroughly researched revisionist account is essential reading for all students and researchers working on the history of South Asia from the medieval period to the present day.

During the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, Islamic conquest and trade laid the foundation for a new type of Indo-Islamic society in which the organizational forms of the frontier and of sedentary agriculture merged in a way that was uniquely successful in the late medieval world at large, setting the Indo-Islamic world apart from the Middle East and China in the same centuries.

This is the second of a projected series of five volumes dealing with the expansion of Islam in "al-Hind," or South and Southeast Asia. It analyses the conquest of the eleventh-thirteenth centuries, the migration of Muslim groups into the subcontinent, and maritime developments in the same period.

During the early medieval Islamic expansion in the seventh to eleventh centuries, al-Hind (India and its Indianized hinterland) was characterized by two organizational modes: the long-distance trade and mobile wealth of the peripheral frontier states, and the settled agriculture of the heartland. These two different types of social, economic, and political organization were successfully fused during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, and India became the hub of world trade. During this period, the Middle East declined in importance, Central Asia was unified under the Mongols, and Islam expanded far into the Indian subcontinent. Instead of being devastated by the Mongols, who were prevented from penetrating beyond the western periphery of al-Hind by the absence of sufficient good pasture land, the agricultural plains of North India were brought under Turko-Islamic rule in a gradual manner in a conquest effected by professional armies and not accompanied by any large-scale nomadic invasions. The result of the conquest was, in short, the revitalization of the economy of settled agriculture through the dynamic impetus of forced monetization and the expansion of political dominion. Islamic conquest and trade laid the foundation for a new type of Indo-Islamic society in which the organizational forms of the frontier and of sedentary agriculture merged in a way that was uniquely successful in the late medieval world at large, setting the Indo-Islamic world apart from the Middle East and China in the same centuries. Please note that The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries was previously published by Brill in hardback (ISBN 90 04 10236 1, still available).