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The Qutb Complex
The Qutb Complex
The Mauryan dynasty under Ashoka did not establish durable roots and fell under the weight of regional uprisings and an invasion by Kushan nomads. South Asia was once again reunified a few centuries later as the Gupta Empire and reached its zenith under Chandragupta II. However, the Gupta system of decentralized rule, whereby vassal princes were treated as partial allies rather than direct central administration, made defense against the eventual Hun invasion nearly impossible. Regional princes, or Rajputs (ruling class who saw themselves as descendants of the Kshatriya), begin to dominate various regions in North India and reassert Hinduism as the defining social and religious system.
Probably the oldest continuously inhabited region in Delhi, the area is around the Qutb Complex (see map, right) is the site of Delhi’s oldest fortified city, Lal Kot (see remains of the fortifications, above), founded by the Tomar Rajputs.
The Turkic Muslims. invaded the city of Lal Kot in 1192 and brought in Islamic Sultanate rule.
Ẕiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī, (1285-1357), the first known Muslim to write a history of India. He resided for 17 years at Delhi as nadim (boon companion) of Sultan Muḥammad ibn Tughluq. Using mainly hearsay evidence and his personal experiences at court, Baranī in 1357 wrote the Tārīkh-e Fīrūz Shāhī (“History of Fīrūz Shāh”), a didactic work setting down the duties of the Indian sultan toward Islam. In his Fatawā-ye jahāndārī (“Rulings on Temporal Government”), influenced by Sufī mysticism, he expounded a religious philosophy of history that viewed the events in the lives of great men as manifestations of divine providence. According to Baranī, had the Delhi sultans followed his guidelines for the good Islamic ruler had prospered, while those who had deviated from those precepts had failed.
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