Muhammad Bin Tughlauq

Muhammad bin Tughlaq was well known for his wisdom and character. People had a lot of expectations from him and he on the other hand, had the desire for more valuable contribution for his countrymen than his predecessors.

That is why right from the beginning of his rule; he decided to take some bold reformative measures for the improvement as well as safeguard of the country.
In spite of high qualification and knowledge, Sultan Muhamad-bin- Tughlaq suffered from certain qualities of hastiness and impatience that is why many of his experiments failed and he has been called an ill starred idealist. 

Muhammad bin Tughlaq was well known for his wisdom and character. People had a lot of expectations from him and he on the other hand, had the desire for more valuable contribution for his countrymen than his predecessors. That is why right from the beginning of his rule; he decided to take some bold reformative measures for the improvement as well as safeguard of the country.

Transfer of the capital from Delhi to Devagari (Daultabad) has the most controversial step of Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq

According to him, Sultan Muhammad-bin- Tughlaq was disgusted with the life of Delhi because he was getting almost daily many anonymous letters from the people of the city abusing and criticizing him and therefore, he wanted to leave it for good. Whatever may be the fact Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq ordered for the transfer of capital in 1327 A.D.

He ordered his courtiers, officers, leading men including Sufi saints as well as all people of Delhi to shift to Devgiri. Though the inhabitants of Delhi were unwilling to leave their dear land of birth, they had to obey the Sultan’s order. Nobody was allowed to stay at Delhi. According to Ibn Batuta “A search was made and a blind man and a cripple man were found. The cripple man has put to death while the blind man was tied with the tail of horse and was dragged to Daulatabad where only his one leg reached.”

Introduction of Token Currency:

Introduction of token currency was another bold experiment of the Sultan Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq. Since currency or money is a medium of exchange, it is greatly required that to with a huge quantity to serve the purpose of exchange in modern time. Muhammad-bin- Tughlaq’s predecessors depended on gold and silver coins as medium of exchange. But during the time Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq a huge quantity of coins was required for various transactions and there was a dearth of gold and silver coins in the country.

Further he had squeezed the treasury by spending a lot of money in his various experiments including the transfer of the capital. And again he had the ambition to conquer distant countries which would require a good deal of money. Considering all those factors he decided to introduce a bronze coin which was to have the same value as the silver tanka. He was also encouraged by Qublai Khan, the ruler of China and Ghazan Khan, the ruler of Persia who had successfully experimented with a token currency. Muhammad- bin-Tughlaq introduced bronze coins in place of silver and gold but there remained certain defects which made him a big failure in this experiment.

Within a very short time specimens of this coin were found in different parts of the country. A huge amount of forged coins entered into market and government treasury as those were minted secretly by private parties. The government took no steps to prevent this. As a result each house turned to be a mint.

Further, people made payments to the government with new bronze coins and hoarded gold and silver. The government treasury was filled with bronze or copper coins. The new coins also began to be greatly devalued in the markets. Muhammad-bin- Tughlaq could not stop the forging of new coins. Had he been able to do so, he could have been successful.

Finally he decided to withdraw the token currency. He promised to exchange silver coins for bronze coins. In this way a huge amount of new coins were exchanged for silver. But the forged coins which were detected were not exchanged.

These coins Barani says, were heaped up outside the fort and remained lying there for many years.- These above experiments not only brought wastage of money but also affected the prestige of the Sultan.