Machine summary:
The administra• tive machinery, the cultivation of arts and literature, the position of women in the social economy of the people · constitute perhaps a far more valuable test of national eO- TOWth. Western Asia under the Saracens, like Spain under the Moors, enjoyed a system of adrninistration which in its effective distribution of· work and control of details ranks with the best in the modern world and in fact forms the model for most of theadvanced European countries.
The three names which stand forth best in later times are those of Bulban, Toghlak and Feroze and form the chief landmarks in the development of Musulman India · during the period when the Pathans dominated in Hin• dustan.
" Delhi in his time must have been a grand city with its three large forts and thirteen gates, the magnificent reservoir built by Altarnsh, its cathedral Mosque, its huge Minaret and above all its learned doctors, its poets, singers and its maliks, khans and princes.
An accomplished scholar, devoted to learning and arts, anxious to do justice, desirous of earn• ing the title which the 'old Persian King Anushirvan enjoyed-" the Just, " his name is execrated as one of the cruellest tyrants in the history of Musulrnan India; His character is summed up in a sentence by Sheikh Abdul Kadir Badauni, author of " The Compendious History of the World "-the 'Jliuntakhib-ut-Tazcarikh-· who com• piled his work in the reign of Akbar.