In one province he found “a laudable practice. A whip is hung up in every mosque, and whoever stays away from worship is beaten by the imam before all the congregation, and fined to boot, the fine going towards the upkeep of the mosque.” The time came when Batûta, clothed with authority, itched to exercise it in the same praiseworthy way.
Batûta now visits Herat, turns north-westward to Meshed, the capital of Khôrasân and holy city of the Shiites, thence travels to Jam, the birthplace of Jami, the Persian poet, and at Tus finds the tomb of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, who died there when on a military expedition. Now, Haroun-al-Raschid was a Sunnite; so the orthodox “place lighted candles on his grave, but the followers of Ali (Shiites) are wont to give it a kick.” One recalls the story of how, when the Indian Emperor had his attention drawn to a dog defiling the grave of a heretic, he remarked that “the beast resembles orthodoxy.” Heterodox or orthodox, according to point of view, here were flourishing colleges filled with students, and saintly men dwelling in secluded cells. To work miracles has always been a distinction of the saint; but the Eastern saint was also permitted to live on to an age incredibly ripe. Batûta is always running across some man of the age attained by old Parr, and upwards. A century and a half is a moderate number of years for these holy beings, and Batûta accepts it as veridical; especially when corroborative evidence is given. But three and a half centuries claimed by a man who is no Struldbrug, but looks not more than fifty, staggers even him. The impostor assures his visitor that every century he grows a fresh crop of hair and cuts a new set of teeth, and that he had been a Râja who was buried at Multân in the Punjâb. “I very much doubted as to what he might really be; and I do so to this day.”
CHAPTER VI
AN EASTERN DESPOT
He waited forty days for the snows to melt on the “Hindu Kûsh—the Slayer of the Hindus, so called because most of the slaves brought from India die here of the bitter cold thereof.” The Afghans were at that time subjects of the Khân of Turkestan (Transoxiana); a turbulent, violent race, impatient of the slightest curb. Bandits attacked the party he joined in the Kâbul pass; but bow and arrow kept them at a distance. Fierce invaders had poured down the mountain passes from Afghanistan from the end of the twelfth century and established a Mohammedan Empire at Delhi.
Batûta passed into Sind. At the Indian border the usual written description of his personal appearance and the object of his visit was sent to the Sultan. There was a system of stations at a short distance from each other, and couriers of the Sultan went to and fro, some on horseback, some on foot. To secure rapid transit, each courier was provided with bells attached to a whip, so as to announce his approach to a station and to warn the courier there to be ready to go on with the royal despatch.
Now, the Mohammedan Sultan of Northern India was a striking illustration of the fact that humanity is not necessarily coupled with generosity. Mohammed Tughlak was renowned throughout the Moslem world for his lavish munificence; but the cold-blooded cruelty of the despot was not less great than his bounty. Batûta not merely wished to see India; he hoped to achieve lucrative establishment at the Moslem Court. At Multân he found a body of adventurers, who sought to place their talents at the service of the Sultan, and awaited his invitation to court. Any shipwrecked sailor, even, had only to make his way to Mohammed Tughlak to be relieved. Batûta has tales of him which we may believe at our pleasure. The Sultan told one of his courtiers to go to the treasury and take away as much gold as he could carry. He took so much that he fell under its weight. The Sultan ordered the coins to be gathered together, weighed, and sent to him. Once he had one of his Emirs put into a balance, and gave him his weight in gold, kissing him, and telling him to bestow alms for his soul’s welfare. He kissed the feet of a “theologian and gatherer of traditions,” and presented him with a golden vase filled with gold coins.
On the way, Batûta saw one of the three brothers whom the Sheik at Alexandria had prophesied he should meet, and found him “a man very much broken by temptations of the devil. He would not allow any one to touch his hand or even to draw near him; and, should anyone’s garb chance to touch his, he washed it immediately.” On the road from Multân to Delhi, Batûta was most hospitably received by the Emirs. But Northern India was no more reduced to order by the Mohammedan Sultan than by the Emperor Sîlâditya in Hiuen-Tsiang’s time. Between Multân and Delhi, while travelling with a party of twenty-two, Batûta found two horse and twenty foot opposing their progress. Our pilgrim was a many-sided man, quite capable of taking his share in a fight. The robbers lost one of their horsemen and twelve of their foot, and then fled from the field.
When Ibn Batûta arrived at the Moslem capital, which was ten miles to the south of the Delhi of our day, he found that the Sultan was not there. But great honour was done to the man whose fame as theologian, jurist, traveller and three-fold hadji had preceded him. He was received and entertained by the Sultan’s Mother and the Vizier, and received a welcome present of money in return for the presents he had brought with him.