Page 25 - SST Class 07
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4. Ala-ud-din Khalji died in ___________ .              In fact, Muhammad-bin Tughluq thought that he
            5. ___________      was   a    weak   sultan    and     could better control the Deccan from Devgiri. So,
               compromised with the Mongols.                        he renamed it as Daulatabad       and ordered the
                                                                    shifting of the capital from Delhi to there. Not

                    TUGHLUQ DYNASTY (1320-1414 AD)                  only this, he ordered all people of Delhi to shift to
                                                                    the new capital. The people had to take a lot of
            The Tughluq dynasty was founded by Ghiyas-ud-           trouble for this. But when they reached there,
            din Tughluq   . Two important sultans of this           Muhammad-bin Tughluq said that it was difficult
            dynasty were Muhammad-bin Tughluq         and Firoz     to keep a watch over the northern frontiers from
            Shah Tughluq  .                                         there, so he ordered to move the capital back to
                                                                    Delhi. Shifting back the capital to Delhi was seen
             Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq                                  as a weakness of the sultan. Due to this, the

            During the brief period, he ruled, he put down the      Bahmani   kingdom rose to power in the Deccan
            rebellions and strengthened the Sultanate. He was       and the Vijayanagar  kingdom rose in South India.
            succeeded by his son.
                                                                    Yet another new idea of Muhammad-bin Tughluq
             Muhammad-bin Tughluq                                   was the issue of token currency in 1329. He had
                                                                    taken this step in view of the shortage of silver, so
            Source of Information
                                                                    he got coins of brass and copper minted which
            The    chief   source    of    information    about     had the same value as the corresponding silver
            Muhammad-bin Tughluq is the detailed account            coins. These coins could be exchanged from the
            left by an African traveller named Ibn Battuta . He     royal treasury at any time.
            lived in his court for several years and wrote in
            detail about the court and people.                      Activity

            Muhammad-bin Tughluq had a lot of new ideas              Why did the people not accept the token currency
            ahead of his times, which he tried to implement;         issued by Muhammad-bin Tughluq? Was it different
                                                                     from the paper currency which we use now?
            however, he could not execute his ideas properly.
            His ideas failed miserably.                             However, the pattern of the coins was very simple,
                                                                    so the local craftsmen easily counterfeited them.
                                                                    Now the people started to pay their taxes in this
                                                                    counterfeited currency, as a result, the treasury
                                                                    was emptied. Therefore, this step had to be
                                                                    withdrawn. Zia-ud-din Barani  , a chronicler, writes
                                                                    in his account named Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, that
                                                                    hills of bronze coins came up near Tughluqabad
                                                                    which had been returned by the people.
               Muhammad-bin Tughluq           Ibn Battuta
            Muhammad-bin Tughluq wanted to expand his               However, it was not an end to his new ideas.
            empire on all sides, for which he needed a larger       Muhammad-bin Tughluq, in order to secure his
            army, which required larger revenue. Therefore,         northern frontiers, sent his army to occupy the
                                                                    Kangra region (present day Himachal Pradesh). He
            he increased the tax on cultivable land in the
            doab (the area between the Ganga and Yamuna             sent the army further to Tibet, where the hostile
            rivers). However, this step was ill-timed as this       hills caused a lot of casualties. It is said that only
                                                                    three officers returned alive from there.
            area was facing famine at this time. As a result, a
            lot of people abandoned their land and revolted.        Muhammad-bin Tughluq also had an idea to
            Consequently, Muhammad had to withdraw his              expand his empire up to Central Asia, so he
            orders.                                                 recruited a large number of soldiers and equipped
            Another such step was the shifting of his capital.      them with weapons and supplies. He even paid
                                                                                        The Delhi Sultanate Period
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