The agrarian system of Moslem India

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1804119261

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-188010

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Moreland, William Harrison http://d-nb.info/gnd/172263670

Title:: The agrarian system of Moslem India

Edition:: 2. ed. Reissue (d. Ausg. Cambridge) 1929; [Reprint]

Place of publication:: Delhi

Publisher:: Oriental Books, Munshiram Manoharlal

Year of publication:: 1968

Scope:: XVII, 296 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter II. The 13th and 14th centuries

Collection:: Economics Books

THE 1312 AND 14tH CENTURIES 25 occasionally a reference to Chitor as a province, but there is little trace of effective jurisdiction in this region. This enumeration brings us down to the line of the Narbada. Alauddin carried the Moslem flag across this river, and for a time there was a large and important province at Deogir or Daulatabad, and others extending as far as the South-East Coast, but this extension was not retained for long. There were thus in all from 20 to 30 provinces, the numbers varying from time to time as the kingdom grew or shrunk; and the phrase ‘‘the twenty provinces,” used by Ziya Barni (p. 50) in recording the resources of the kingdom under Balban, may be taken as a more or less precise description. We have then the kingdom divided into provinces, while the villages were grouped in parganas, and the question naturally arises whether there was any intermediate ad- ministrative unit corresponding to the district of later times. I have failed to find materials for a decisive answer to this question. In a few passages we read of “divisions” (shigg), in terms which suggest that these were in fact districts; but the passages are not decisive, and leave room for doubt whether these divisions, if they existed, were normal or exceptional, or whether the word is not a mere synonym. My impression is that during the fourteenth century the word shigq was coming into use as a synonym for the terms which I have rendered ‘ province”; but a full discussion of the question would carry us too far, and, since it is not really important for the present purpose, I shall leave the matter open. We have no actual description of a province at this period, but it would, I think, be a mistake to picture an area with strictly defined boundaries, and with uniform adminis- trative pressure over all its parts. At the provincial capital was the Governor with the troops maintained by him, and there may have been smaller centres of authority, though this is doubtful ; in some villages, his officials might be dealing directly with the peasants, in others there would be resident grantees or assignees, in others—as I think the majority— there would be Chiefs to whom the Governor looked for the revenue. If Chiefs rebelled, that is to say, did not pay the

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