32 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
Internal security was the first consideration, and, in or 
near the year 1300, the King took steps to bring his officers 
under closer control. His regulations issued with this 
object were numerous and varied, but the only measure 
which concerns us is the resumption of nearly all the 
existing Grants, which at his accession he had confirmed! to 
the holders, the idea being apparently that men of position 
should have no income independent of the King’s con- 
tinued favour. This measure is important as showing that 
Grants were in fact held merely at the King’s pleasure, and 
were liable to resumption at any time; but the area affected 
by it cannot have been large relatively to the extent of the 
kingdom, and the outstanding fact is the action which was 
taken about the same time to keep the Hindu Chiefs and 
rural leaders in subjection.? 
The view taken by Alauddin and his counsellors was that 
Chiefs and leaders would be rebellious so long as they had the 
resources necessary for rebellion; and a consideration of the 
actual position suggests that this view was probably sound. 
The Chiefs had behind them a long tradition of independence, 
maintained entirely by the sword: they cannot, in the mass, 
have had any particular reason for loyalty to the foreign 
rulers who had annexed the country by force, and who 
derived a large revenue from it; while the arrogance of 
individual Moslems? must have furnished on occasion a 
1 Barni, 248, for confirmation; and 283, for resumption. The resump- 
tion extended to religious endowments as well as personal grants, and 
was effected summarily, ‘“ with one stroke of the pen,’”’ as Dowson rendered 
the passage. 
? A translation of the passage dealing with this action is given in 
Appendix C. Barni speaks of ‘the Hindus,” but here, and in various 
other passages where the phrase occurs, the context makes it plain that 
he is thinking of the upper classes, not of the peasants. Taking his book 
as a whole, I would infer that he thought of the kingdom as consisting not 
of two elements but of three—Moslems, Hindus, and the “herds,” or 
peasants. In this passage, the details which follow show that the question 
really at issue was how to break the power of the rural leaders, the Chiefs 
and the headmen of parganas and villages; in point of fact, the regulation 
was favourable to the smaller peasants, in so far as it insisted on the leaders 
bearing their fair share of the burden—the weak were not to pay for the 
strong. 
3 See Barni, 290, for an extreme instance of this arrogance. The Qazi 
of Bayana laid it down as Islamic law that Hindus must show the utmost 
reverence to the collector of revenue, so that ‘“if the collector spits into 
a Hindu’s mouth, the Hindu must open his mouth to receive it without 
objection ”’