Muhammad Bin Tughlaq

The Indian History is well enriched, and there are a lot of interesting characters in it. As India has forever been a country with fertile land and a favorable climate, many rulers have ruled here since ancient times. As a result, this country has witnessed one of the oldest civilizations, the Indus Valley Civilization, and the British Raj too. 

However, one of the prominent eras of Indian History is that of the Delhi Sultanate. It was the time when Islamic rulers dominated the country, and India was in the strong hands of brave and responsible emperors. One of the emperors of the Delhi Sultanate was Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, and he is popularly known as the wise fool in Indian History. Muhammad Bin Tughlag founded the Tughlaq Dynasty, which persisted for a very short period just because of his foolishness. 

Here, you will be able to know some interesting facts about Muhammad Bin Tughlaq and why he is considered a wise fool in Indian History. 

Birth and origin of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq

Ghiyasuddin Tuiglaq, a Turkic slave of the Delhi Sultanate, was the father of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq. As per History, his mother was an Indian Hindu. He was quite brave and could easily take control of the Delhi Sultanate within a short period. 

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After Muhammad Bin Tughlaq became the Sultan, his mother became a philanthropist and built several hospitals. Though Muhammad Bin Tughlaq was a brave king, he was considered the wise fool in Indian History. 

Do you know why Muhammad Bin Tughlaq was called Wise Fool in Indian History? Well, the foolish decisions of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq as a king are given below. You can actually see that all the decisions made by him as a king are unplanned, leading to the countrymen's clumsy conditions. The main reason why the people had to suffer even with the toll of their lives was the lack of judgment. 

1. Burden of Taxes: As a king, Tughlaq always wanted to expand the borders of his territory. This is the only reason he aimed to have a decent attack and defense mechanism. The army of Tughlaq was huge, and the maintenance needed a huge amount of money. 

Tughlaq, without any planning, made his subjects pay increased amounts of taxes. The majority of people were unable to pay it. Mostly, the farmers were all left in a huge crisis which made them shift the job. This led to the scarcity of food in the whole territory ruled by Tughlaq. Common people, on the other hand, had to face corruption to get food.

2. The Increase in Doab Taxes: The middle areas of rivers Ganga and Yamuna are known as Doab. This place is rich in alluvial soil and very fertile. So, during Tughlaq's reign, this area fell in the Delhi Sultanate. But, without proper planning and predictions regarding the aftermath, Tughlaq increased the taxes for this region. 

Again, the farmers who had farmlands in this area had to switch their occupations. Unemployment at a humongous level gave rise to robbery and theft all over the territory. The lives of people turned into hell due to this administrative reform. Apart from several famines, many people lost their lives due to the harsh measures taken by Tughlaq himself as punishment. 

However, he understood the ill-reform he had made and later tried to fix the matter by providing loans to the people. But, it was too late. The anger of common people remained with Muhammad Bin Tughlaq as long as he remained in power. 

3. Introduction of Token Currency: Tughlaq was the one who was also clumsy about the financial structure of his state. It becomes prominent as we find that introduced token currency. Tughlaq introduced copper coins at the exact cost of silver. The weightage of both silver coins and copper coins is the same. This is called the token currency system. 

This system led to an imbalance in the economy. Common people were unable to get the coins in hand. Gradually, every house became a mint, and the normal money flow came in a fix. 

All this nuisance occurred because, in the 14th century, there was a global scarcity of silver. Quite unfortunate for the people of India because Muhammad Bin Tughlaq was ruling over the Delhi Sultanate at that time. 

4. Transferring Capital: As the wise fool in Indian History, Muhammad Bin Tughlaq's historic mistake was to transfer his capital from Delhi to Deogiri. Deogiri was an ancient place in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Tughlaq named it Daulatabad. He took a hasty decision of transferring his capital in order to rule the entire Indian landmass. 

Now, geographically, Daulatabad was a place located nearly at the centre of the country. As Tughlaq decided against shifting the capital, he ordered all his men and knights to travel this huge distance between Delhi and Daulatabad. 

As the people started the journey, most of them died on-road. Many of the knights turned frail, and some were even not in the condition of travelling any further. This stuck in the mind of Tughlaq as he decided to go back to Delhi, even after being very near to Daulatabad.

According to the notes of many historians, Tughlaq initially decided to shift his capital to safeguard the people from the probable Mongol invasion. However, there was hardly any planning, and no sense of responsibility ever was seen in Muhammad Bin Tughlaq being the Sultan of Delhi.

Wise and Foolish: Why?

Till now, you have seen Muhammad Bin Tughlaq termed as a wise fool in Indian History. The main reasons are given below in detail. However, these are not facts related to the life of the Sultan, and we can only deduce the thoughts of the emperor. So here, the facts are shown, like how every foolish decision of Tughlaq had a bit of wisdom in it. 

1. Need of a Huge Army: No doubt, it is foolish to increase the commons' taxes to maintain a huge army. However, it was the need for that time. Not only a huge army could ensure that Tughlaq expanded his territory easily while providing the required defence.

All-round defence for the Delhi Sultanate was a need back then as repeated Mongol invasions were coming from the north. Only a huge army could have restricted the vandals properly. 

2. Necessity of the Token Currency: The token currency system was introduced by Tughlaq during the scarcity of silver globally. Copper was still available, and it was easy to make coins out of it. So, it can be termed as a wise decision. However, Tughlaq foolishly failed to plan things up properly. It initially led the common people into confusion and then pushed them into the trap of corruption. 

3. Need to Shift the Capital: It was necessary to shift the capital due to the danger of the Mongols. However, Tughlaq was the one to do it without proper planning and reasoning. Moreover, with poor transportation ailments, it was really a tough job for the people to move to the new capital and retreat back as per the decision of the Sultan.