54 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA
in the chronicles, and I can find no contemporary authority
for the view which has been put forward by some modern
writers that it was only one-tenth!: the actual figure is a
matter of conjecture. The method of assessment adopted
was Sharing, and we are told that ‘‘apportionments and
excess-demands, and crop-failures, and conjectural-assess-
ments” were entirely abolished. The words rendered
‘apportionments” and ‘‘crop-failures” are the same as
those which have been noticed in connection with the
reforms of Ghiyasuddin, and their use here may indicate
that Measurement had been practised in some places during
Muhammad Tughlaq’s reign; but it is also possible that the
chronicler was writing at random, and merely expressing
his own preference for the method of Sharing. The other
two expressions are not explained, but they point to ex-
actions over and above the regular revenue. So far then
as concerns the Demand to be made on the peasants, the
position was that they were to pay a share of their produce,
and nothing more; there is nothing to show whether the
payment was to be made in cash or in grain. The question:
Who was to receive the payment ? brings us to two important
topics, the provincial Governors, and the Assignees.
Ziya Barni makes it clear (p. 573) that, at the outset
of the reign, the provincial Governors, like the other high
officers, were chosen for their personal character, and not
for speculative offers of revenue; and the administration
was again purged (p. 574) of touts and pests, as it had been
purged by Ghiyasuddin. At the same time, the severity
of the Audit and Recovery procedure was relaxed: while,
by an altogether exceptional order, the value of the
Governors’ annual presents to the King was set off? against
1 Possibly some other writers may have been misled, as I was for a time,
by the phrase in Dowson’s rendering of the King’s Memoir (Elliot, iii. 377),
“First the kharaj or tenth from cultivated lands.” As the phrase stands,
“tenth” seems to be here an explanation of khardj, but the text shows
clearly that it must be read as an alternative, the reference being to the
fundamental rules of Islamic law explained in Chapter I. The king is
enumerating the lawful sources of revenue: ‘ first, the khardj, the ‘ushir,
and the zakat; next the jiziya,” etc.
* Afif, 268. In this reign the Governors came every year to pay their
respects to the King; the presents (khidmati) offered on the occasion con-
sisted largely of slaves, a commodity which Firiz valued highly, and which
he is said to have accumulated (p. 270) to the number of 180.000.
