Was Delhi Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq Actually The Insane

Jauna Khan aka Ulugh Khan succeeded his father and first Tughluq ruler Ghiyas -ud -Din –Tughlaq under the title of Muhammad bin Tughluq whose death in 1351 after a 26-year reign, according to the 16th century historian Badauni, liberated the Sultan from his people and freed them from him. 

Muhammad bin Tughluq was among the most remarkable, enigmatic and controversial figures among the Sultans of Delhi. To his contemporaries, he was a mixture of cruelty and kindness.                                                                                                                            

For Barani, who enjoyed his patronage, the ideal ruler was the next Tughlaq monarch Firuz Shah Tughluq. Ibn Batuta, who was appointed Qazi of Delhi by the Sultan, failed to examine all the aspects of the Sultan’s personality in the right perspective. 

With an excellent command on Arabic and Persian, he was well versed in astronomy, jurisprudence, logic, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, and rhetoric.

In 1327 one such rebellion by his cousin Bahauddin Gurshasp, governor of Sagar, prompted Muhammad bin Tughluq to transfer his capital from Delhi to centrally located Devagiri, which he named Daulatabad. However, this experiment of his did not go down well with the Delhi populace. This forced the Sultan to retransfer the capital to Delhi.    

Introduction of a token currency in 1329-30 by Muhammad bin Tughluq was his second experiment which has drawn controversy. Probably imitating the paper money issued by Kublai Khan in China, the Sultan issued bronze tankas at par with the value of silver tanks. A shortage of silver was the main reason for the introduction of this project. However, the experiment came to naught due to the circulation of counterfeit coins on a large scale, which caused economic chaos. To combat the chaos, the Sultan stopped the circulation of the token currency and was compelled to exchange all the token coins for the silver coins. 

Muhammad bin Tughluq in 1328-29 increased the land tax on the Doab farmers. The increase coincided with a sever famine in the Doab, followed by plague. The Sultan established a department of agriculture (diwan-i-kohli), got wells dug for irrigation and introduced improved agriculture methods through rotation of crops.

During his reign Muhammad bin Tughluq had to encounter as many as thirty four rebellions, twenty seven of them in the south. Three important states – the Vijayanagar Empire, the Bahmani kingdom and the Muslim sultanate of Madurai in extreme south India, came into existence at the cost of Sultanate territory. In fact, his end had come while fighting against the rebels in Thatta in Sindh.