Medieval Indian History

Notes:
Abu Rayhan Biruni or Alberonius (Latin) was a Persian Scholar and polymath of the 11th century. He accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni in his conquests to South Asia.
Al Beruni was the First Muslim Scholar to study India and its ancient traditions. He is called father of Indology and the first anthropologist. He is called one of the earliest and greatest polymath of the Islamic World.

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Ramananda was first Bhakti saint and founder of Bhakti Movement of northern India. He preached in Hindi, the language of the masses. Kabir was a disciple of Ramananda.
Ramananda 12 disciples included Anantananda, Sursurananda, Sukhanand, Naraharidāsa, Bhavanand, Bhagat Pipa, Kabir, Sen, Dhanna, Ravidas and two women disciples viz. Sursuri and Padyawati. Among them, Kabir was most radical and adopted non-conformist stand later on

Notes:
Akbar patronized lot of scholars like Abdul Qadir Badauani”, Naqib Khan & Shaikh Sultan of Thaneshwar. Akbar has never forced India’s Hindu majority population to convert to Islam, instead providing lands for them and abolishing the poll tax on non-Muslims. In addition, he translated Hindi literature and also participated in Hindu festivals in Fatehpur Sikri which was designed by Akbar in the Persian style where he built a temple and hosted scholars from various religions frequently including Hindus, Christians, Zoroastrians as well as Muslims.

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Mughal Emperor issued coins from this mint in all the three metals in 1570. Silver coins of Akbar were issued from this mint with the mint epithet ‘Hazrat’. Copper coins were also issued along with gold.

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Abul Fazal encouraged Akbar for debates on doctrinal and philosophical enquiries. Akbar displayed a curiosity in these discussions. The debate took place in the Ibadat Khana or Hall of Worship. The Ibadat Khana is now recognized to be the Diwan-i-Khas, which was founded in 1574 at the City of Fatehpur Sikri. It was opened for Sunni Muslims initially and was opened to all religions viz. Sufis, Shias, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus and Jains.

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Balban introduced the famous Persian festival of Navroj in India to impress the nobles and people with his wealth and power. The festival is a New Year celebration of Spring Equinox.

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In the reign of Firoz Shah Tughlaq, as per Quran, only four kind of taxes were imposed on public viz.
a) Kharaj was the land tax that was equal to 1 /10 of the produce of the land.
b) Zakat was 2 % tax on property.
c) Jaziya levied on non-Muslims ( or religious tax on the Hindus).
d) Khams was 1 / 5 of the booty captured during the war.

Notes:
The finance minister of Akbar, Raja Todar Mal introduced the Dahasala system (or Zabati system), a system of taxation. In this system, the land cultivation and price of the produce was calculated for a period of 10 years and one tenth of this part was the part of state for one year. This new system was called Ain-i-Dahsala that could give per Bigha Revenue to the different regions.

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In 1675 AD, the 9th Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was captured and executed by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb because he objected to
Aurangzeb’s forced conversions. This led to the creation of Khalsa and the growth of Sikh military under the last Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh (who was the son of Guru Tegh Bahadur).

Notes:
In the Vijayanagar kingdom, there was a council of ministers, headed by a Prime-minister to assist and advise the king in administration. For it, the council of ministers met in a hall known as Venkat Vilas Mandapa.