44 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
was claimed; and minute variations in the share are re- 
corded on no other occasion, and are in themselves highly 
improbable. On the other hand, if the Governor was liable 
to pay a stated sum by way of surplus revenue, it would be 
the natural procedure of the Ministry to endeavour to in- 
crease this sum as quickly, and as largely, as possible. The 
result of such an increase would be that, in some form or 
other, the Governor would increase the burden on the 
peasants, and this would tend to hinder the development 
of the country, which was the King’s great object. To 
limit the enhancement on a province to about ten per cent. 
at a time would from this point of view be a reasonable rule 
of practice: development would be gradual, and the Gover- 
nor’s payment should increase pari passu, but should not be 
allowed to get ahead of the paying-capacity of the province. 
The sentence I have just examined has been read! in a 
different way, as stating that the Demand was limited to 
one-tenth or one-eleventh of the produce. Thisinterpretation 
would be a welcome addition to our knowledge of the pericd, 
but I do not see my way to accept it; the references to spies 
and enhancement-mongers cannot, so far as I see, be 
interpreted on these lines; the context indicates that the 
reference is to the relations between the Ministry and the 
Governors, not between the Governors and the peasants; 
and the point of the passage is enhancement of the sum 
payable, not the fixing of its proportion to the produce. 
The proportion claimed by Ghiyasuddin is not stated else- 
where in the authorities, and we can only infer that he did 
not alter the figure which he found established, but this 
figure again is not on record. Ziya Barni tells us merely 
(p- 383) that Qutbuddin “removed from among the people 
the heavy revenues and severe demands” imposed under 
Alauddin. The passage is rhetorical rather than precise; 
it cannot possibly mean what it seems to say, that he 
abolished the land-revenue altogether; and we can only 
guess that he reduced its incidence to some figure below 
Alauddin’s claim of half the produce, or in some other way 
alleviated the burdens on the people. 
1 Ishwari Prasad, Medieval India, P- 231. The same view is taken in 
the Cambridge History (iii. 128)