Review: Fouzia Farooq Ahmed, Muslim Rule in Medieval India: Power and Religion in the Delhi Sultanate PDF

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Fouzia Farooq Ahmed: Muslim Rule in Medieval India Fouzia Farooq Ahmed's study, which is based on her dissertation submitted to the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan, deals with the first independent Muslim rule on the Indian subcontinent, the Sultanate of Delhi (1206-1526). As a &quo...

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Review: Fouzia Farooq Ahmed, Muslim Rule in Medieval India: Power and Religion in the Delhi Sultanate Tilmann Trausch

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Fouzia Farooq Ahmed: Muslim Rule in Medieval India Fouzia Farooq Ahmed's study, which is based on her dissertation submitted to the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan, deals with the first independent Muslim rule on the Indian subcontinent, the Sultanate of Delhi (1206-1526). As a "classical" political history, it focuses on politico-military events and the relationship between the sultans, their bureaucracy, and the ruled. Ahmed's objective is to rationalize the oscillation of the "state structure" from temporary stability to recurring spells of instability (XI). Assuming that the Delhi Sultanate is generally perceived as an exceptionally centralized political structure (1), Ahmed argues the contrary, maintaining that the Delhi Sultanate was simply not a centralized polity. She therefore strives to demystify key aspects of governance and religion in this period of interest. Ahmed strives to augment the existing structural and institutional knowledge of the Delhi Sultanate with a discussion of additional sources on some aspects of the behavioral and relational dimensions of political power. Firstly, she attempts to shed light on the relations of the powerful and the powerless "within the prism of collective historical experience". Secondly, she explicates informal behavioral patterns such as trust, paranoia, loyalty, betrayal, and patrimonialism that crystallize into norms and traditions and become the identity markers of the sultanate's political structure. Thirdly, she discusses distributional aspects of power, such as centralization and hierarchy, and attempts to rationalize the working of the sultanate's administrative system. Finally, she deals with issues of authority and legitimacy by investigating claims of moral validation of the sultan's power through culture, tradition, and religion (13). Cycles of regime formation, regime perpetuation, and regime disintegration, which Ahmed identifies for each one of the sultanate's four ruling dynasties, are crucial for her understanding of her subject. By probing into these cycles, she attempts to trace continuities and discontinuities in the power dynamics of the major northern Indian Muslim states between the eighth and fourteenth centuries (XI). The study consists of an introduction (1-13), nine main chapters, and a conclusion. In Chapters 1 and 2, Ahmed deals with the history of Muslims in India prior to the sultanate period. Chapter 1 (14-29) focuses on early Arab trader and settler communities, while Chapter 2 (30-40) examines Mahmud of Ghazna and his conquests on the subcontinent. Chapter 3 (41-58) deals with the Ghurid dynasty from present-day Afghanistan, as well as with Shihab al-Din Ghuri, whose adherents went on to found the Delhi Sultanate. In these chapters, Ahmed strives to discuss authority patterns and legitimacy under the Arabs, Ghaznawids, and Ghurids, sets the context for her discussion of power relations in the Delhi Sultanate, and traces the roots of historical experiences of Muslim rule that led to the emergence of the Delhi Sultanate (11). Complete Review: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2017/07/30665.html...