Delhi remained deserted and desolate ( kharab-o-abtar) for two months. After Timur left, Yahya tells us, Delhi and whatever areas he and his troops had passed through fell prey to epidemic and famine, taking a further toll of lives. This would hardly be a sentiment Indians could share. in punishment for its inhabitants’ evil beliefs and vile deeds and conduct” 6. No consolation needed to be extended to such people, for, says Yazdi, “Delhi was laid waste ( kharâb shod). By now immense numbers of slaves had been obtained by ordinary soldiers, and Timur and his nobles took the lion’s share from amongst “the several thousand craftsmen and men of skill” enslaved. Clearly, Yazdi’s “Hindus” included Muslims as well. “Faithless Hindus”, he adds, had gathered in the Congregation Mosque of Old Delhi and Timur’s officers put them ruthlessly to slaughter there on the 29th of December. The “pagan Hindus” ( Henduân-e gabr) having had the temerity to begin immolating their women and themselves, the three cities of Delhi were put to sack by Timur’s soldiers. But large groups of Timur’s soldiers began to enter the city and, like birds of prey, attacked its citizens. He records that Timur had granted protection to the people of Delhi on the 18th of December 1398, and the collectors had begun collecting the protection money. Yazdi, on the other hand, does not have any sympathy to waste on these wretches. Thus reports Yahya, who here inserts a pious prayer in Arabic for the victims’ consolation (“To God we return, and everything happens by His will”) 5. But on the fourth day he ordered that all the people of the city be enslaved and so they were. 123, Yazdi similarly exults (in verse) at the slaughter: “Out of t (.)ĢWhen Timur entered Delhi after defeating Mahmud Toghloq’s forces, he granted an amnesty in return for protection money ( mâl-e amâni). Like Yazdi, he too describes the slaughter of all the enslaved captives in the hands of Timur before his recrossing of the Yamuna to attack Delhi: his estimate of the number of the victims is more moderate, being 50 000 as against Yazdi’s 100 000 4. Those whom he slaughtered were not all infidel Hindus, deserving their fate, as in Yazdi, but both Hindus and Muslims: such as were killed by Timur when he marched towards Delhi “obtained the honour of martyrdom ( sharaf-e shahâdat)”. Timur is simply “Amir Timur” in Yahya, not Ṣâḥeb-e Qerân (Lord of the Conjunction) as in Yazdi. The restraint is understandable, since his patron’s father, Khezr Khan (Kheżr Khân) was appointed to the government of Multan by Timur in 1399, during his return march 3. Naturally, however, while Yazdi exults in his hero’s brilliant successes and atrocities, Yahya’s account is hostile to Timur, though with a certain amount of restraint. But the essential particulars are the same in both: the route of the invasion, the slaughter and rapine, and the return.

Despite some slips in the Indian account, like making Timur go to Multan from Tulamba, or placing his occupation of Delhi late by one month, it does give some dates and details of Pir Mohammad’s attack on Uchh and Multan, 1397-98, which are lacking in Yazdi.

A comparison of the two narratives is quite instructive. It was, therefore, practically contemporaneous with, and is certainly completely independent of, Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi’s Ẓafar-nâma, which was probably completed in 1424-5, and contains the most detailed version from the official Timurid point of view 2. This can be seen from the account of this event in Yahya Sihrindi’s Târikh-e Mobârakshâhi, which was completed in 1434, though the portion containing the account of Timur’s invasion was probably written much earlier 1. 92-94.ġTimur’s image in India before the establishment of the Indian Timurid (“Mughal”) dynasty in 1526, was naturally coloured by the experience of his invasion of 1397-99. The statement that Timur had already released Khezr Khan in (.) Maulawî Muhammad Ilâhdâd, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcut (.) 2 Sharaf’uddîn ‘Alî Yazdî, Ẓafarnâma, ed.1 This is because the work was written for presentation to Mobarak Shah, who ascended the throne on 2 (.).

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