write a note on the internal and external trade during the sultanate period.
Answers
Answer:
The first few Muslim Sultans could not devote their attention to trade and commerce as they were preoccupied with the problem of securing their position. Balban is the first Sultan who got dense forests cut; roads built and secured form the danger of bandits.
Answer:
During the sultanate period Hindus occupied an important role in foreign and domestic trade, although foreign Muslim merchants, known as khurasani, also had a large share of it. Seeing the success of the Muslim horsemen, they started to substitute horses for elephants. The export items included large quantities of food-grains and cloth. The agricultural products were wheat, millet, rice, pulses, oilseeds, scents, medicinal herbs, and sugar. Some of the countries around the Persian Gulf depended on the subcontinent for their entire food supply.
During this period there was development of textiles, various items of metal work, sugar, indigo and paper. Bengal was the main center of the textile industry, but Gujarat lead as supplier of the export trade during the sultanate period.
Metal industries were the manufacture of swords, guns, and knives, as well as household needs such as trays and basins. Manufacture of sugar was also carried on on a fairly large scale. Delhi was the center of paper making market.
These industries were mainly privately owned, but the government equipped and managed large-scale karkhanas, or factories, for supplying its requirements. The royal factories at Delhi sometimes employed as many as four thousand weavers for silk alone. The example of the sultan of Delhi was followed by the rulers of the regional kingdoms.