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MAY, 1918)
THE FARUQI DYNASTY OF KHANDESH
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use several years' revenue from Berar as well as from his own province, rose in rebellion, and at the same time sent another mission to Firüz, who was now at Dihli, whither he had returned after bringing to a successful conclusion his expedition to Sind. This expedition had, however, exhausted his military ardour, and he was loth to undertake a campaign in the south, where the power of the Bahmanids was now firmly established. He therefore replied tauntingly to the envoys that they had been among those who had rebelled against their sovereign, Muhammad bin Tughlaq, and that if the course of events was not to their liking they had only themselves to blame.
It is clear that Raja Ahmad was a partisan of Bahram. When he left his king's court he turned towards Daulatabad and sought the saint Zain-al-din who, as is evident from Firishta's account of this rebellion, supported Bahram against his cousin and brotherin-law, gave the rebels sanctuary, and behaved towards Muhammad I, after his success as only one whose personal safety was secured by a superstitious veneration for his sanc. tity would have ventured to behave. With the progress of the rebellion we have no further concern. The rebels were defeated and banished to Gujarat, but of Raja Ahmad we are told that he entered the service of Firûz, so that he seems to have been a member of one of the two missions sent to the imperial court, either of that sent to Gujarat in 1363 or, more probably, of that sent to Dihli in 1365-66. 'Abdallah Muḥammad repeats the story of the service rendered to Firuz when he was hungry and weary in the hunting-field and says that he asked Raja Aḥmad to choose his reward, and that he asked for and received a grant of the village of Thalner, known as Karvand. Abdullah Muhammad gives no further details of his history, beyond saying that he established his independence in 1382, and Firishta's brief record of his progress until this yeer may be accepted as correct.
Raja Ahmad perhaps chose Thalner as an obscure corner whence he might safely harass his enemies, the Bahmanids, secure of assistance, in the last resort, from the Imperial power of Dihlf; but that power began to decline from the day of his investiture with his small fief, and the senile incompetence of Firûz and the disorders due to the wrangles and feebleness of his successors were but the prelude to the final crash, the invasion of India by Taimar, which dissolved the frail bonds which bound together the provinces, until the Sayyids, who succeeded the Tughlaq dynasty, could call little but the city of Dihlî their own.
The example of Raja Ahmad in Khandesh was soon followed by his more powerful neighbours, Dilâvar Khan Ghûri in Malwa and Muzaffar I in Gujarât, and Ahmad, instead of raiding the powerful kingdom of the Dakan, was forced to seek alliances which should enable him to maintain a measure of independence, for though the policy of preserving a balance of power might protect his small state from utter extinction he could not hope to preserve his importance if he allowed the bark of his policy to drift down the stream of events with no other guidance than the fluctuating policy of his neighbours. Raja Ahmad, or Malik Raja as he is styled by Firishta, first turned towards Mâlwa, and married his daughter to Hûshang, son and eventually successor of Dilâvar Khân, whose assistance against Gujarat he thus purchased. With Dilâvar's assistance he expelled the officers of Muzaffar I of Gujarat from the town and district of Nandurbar, which were long a bone of contention between Gujarat and Khandesh just as were the Daab of Raichûr between the Bahmani Kingdom
5 Firishta, i, 567.
* Tarikh-i-Firds Shahf, by Shams-i-Siraj 'Aff, p. 261. i Firishta, i, 560.
