Organization of Administration under the Bahamani rulers
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The rulers of the Bahmani kingdom accepted Abbasaid-Khalifas as their overlord though, in fact, they were independent rulers and behaved accordingly. The first ruler of the kingdom, Bahman Shah could not get much time to look after the administration as he mostly remained busy in fighting.
Muhammad Tughluq had divided his territories in the Deccan into four provinces. Bahman Shah kept that arrangement as it was except that he appointed his own officers everywhere. Muhammad Shah I divided the kingdom into four Atrafs (provinces) whose capitals were Daultabad, Berar, Bidar and Gulbarga respectively.
Provincial governors called Tarfdars with extensive administrative and military powers were appointed in each of these provinces. Tarfdar collected revenue from his province, organised the provincial army and appointed all civil and military officers of his province. Sometimes Tarfdars were appointed ministers of the king as well.
When the kingdom became further extensive and Mahmud Gavan worked as prime minister, the number of provinces was raised from four to eight. Mahmud Gavan attempted to restrict the powers of provincial governors and, for that purpose, fixed some land as the land of the Sultan in each province which was managed by the officers of the central government. Provinces or Atrafs were divided into Sarkars and Sarkars were divided into Paraganas for the convenience of administration. The lowest unit of the administration was the village.
The head of the state was the Sultan who enjoyed all executive, legislative and judicial powers within the state. There was no legal limit to his powers and some of them called themselves the representatives of God on earth. But, in practice, the powers of the Sultan were limited by the powers and advice of powerful ministers and nobles.
The Sultan was assisted by ministers in the administration. The prime minister was called Vakil-us-Sultanat, the finance minister Amir-i-Jumla and the foreign minister Vazir-i-Asraf. There were two other ministers called the Vazir-i-kul and the Peshwa but their responsibilities were not fixed up.
Sometimes the provincial Tarfdars were also appointed as ministers. The chief judicial officer, after the Sultan, was called the Sadr-i-Jahar. Besides being the judicial officer, he looked after religious affairs and charitable works performed by the state.
Amils, mutasarrif (pargana level revenue collector), karkun (pargana official, accountant), patwari (village accountant), chowdhary (pargana level rural magnate accountable for land revenue collection) were other provincial and local officials. 28) “The new kingdom became the center not only of the nobles of the Deccan but of the amirs of Baroda and Dabhoi in Gujarat as well, and the first thing the new government did was to redivide the jagirs and iqtas in the Maharashtra provinces among the new masters of the country. The policy of Mohammad-bin-Tughlaq to pay the troops directly through the central treasury in cash and to give the commanders iqtas whose income was adjusted against the commanders’ personal salaries caused resentment among the commanders. The officer in charge of province was wali whereas shiq was placed under shiqdar, sadis were governed by amiran-Isadah. The shiqs were further subdivided into hazaris (1000 villages) and sadis (100 villages. He had a large retinue of provincial officials manning the judiciary, army and other departments. The amiran-i-sadah comprised the military commanders responsible for revenue collection. The revenue obtained from the provinces was sent to the central treasury after making provisions for provincial expenditure. Under the Tughlaqs the Deccan provinces or aqalim were subdivided to shiqs (rural districts) and urban districts (madinas or Shahrs. The provincial governor was invested with considerable power and though he owed his position to the sultan he enjoyed some measure of autonomy in the provinces.