Recently I drove with my bicycle to Tughlaqabad.
I learned from older travel guides that Tughlaqabad, was taken over by monkeys. But this is not the case anymore, the monkeys moved to the lower parts of the rocks and are now dispersed along the street, whre they get food form the people passing-by.
The origin of the historic city of Tughlaqabad and the Tughlaqabad Fort goes to the
period of the Delhi Sultanate (AD 1191–1526). The Tughlaqs (AD 1321–1414) who
followed the Khiljis (AD 1290–1321) constructed the city of Tughlaqabad
and Tughlaqabad Fort.
History tell us that the foundation of Tughlaqabad was performed by,
the founder of the Tughlaq dynasty. Ghazi Malik once was a slave of Mubarak Khilji, the last Khilji sultan. One day, while walking in the area where the Tughlaqabad Fort is now
located, Ghazi Malik suggested to his master that the high rocks dominating the landscape would be an ideal site for building a fort. The Khilji sultan laughed at his slave and suggested that the slave build a fort there when he became a sultan. When Ghazi Malik, as Ghiyasud-din Tughlaq, founded the Tughlaq Dynasty in 1321, he did just that—Tughlaqabad .
The fort of Tughlaqabad was completed rapidly in a short span of four years (1321–
25). (I take this for na fairy tail, the dimensions are as such that even in modern India it would not be possible to finalize a building of these dimensions in 4 years) The fort’s massive walls and bastions (some as high as 15–30 m, built of
enormous blocks of stone and walls 10 m thick in places) rise the question how the construction was performed in a time without having machines.
Sultanate had to face a number of attacks from hoards of marauding, who
descended on it in waves from the north. During is reign Ghiyas-ud-din, had severe difficulties with raids of Mongols in order to counter the Mongol threat, repeatedly battled them and raised pyramids of enemy’s heads and used elephants to crush the captives to death. The skulls of the killed Mongol marauders were used in the construction material of this awesome fort. ( I did not see any skulls)
The end of Tughlaqabad was not brought about by any foreign invasion, but to the
curse of a Sufi Saint Nizam-ud-din. The quarrel between the the Sufi and
Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq started when Ghyas-ud-din did not allow his people to work for the saint on the construction of a baoli. This angered the saint and led to his famous prophecy “Hunuz Dilli dur ast” (Delhi is yet far away), for the sultan was then out in Bengal. He made another ominous reference to the sultan’s fort when he remarked “Ya rahe usar, ya basé Gujjar” (Either it remains deserted or be peopled by men of the Gujjar tribe). Both these prophecies proved true. Ghiyas-ud-din was killed at a place near Delhi when a shamiana (canopy, marquee) collapsed over him during a reception arranged by his son. The sultan could not reach Delhi alive. His successor chose to build his own fort
and deserted Tughlaqabad. It soon became a haunt for the Gujjars tending their cattle
within the abandoned fort of Ghiyas-ud-din.
It is generally believed that the death of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq wasplotted by his son. One story describes that Muhammad bin Tughlaq (Ghiyas-ud-din’s son and successor) killed his father by building a false wooden balcony, which collapsed and killed Ghiyas-ud-din. The son murdered and ascended the throne of Delhi, thus making the prophecies of Saint Nizam-ud-din come true.
With the sultan's death, the city's short-lived glory to an abrupt end
In this devastated situation it now remains and Delhi government does not take actually any measures to improve. The earlier renovations I had the impression are done without plan and it seems to me that they destroy more of the original than to contribute to a reconstruction of this gigantic fort. How the city inside the fort was looking like will be a mystery forever.
When one enters the fort, the first impression are the guides lying half- sleepy around but than later a profound feeling of emptiness and leaving only cows and donkeys as companions.
TOMB OF GHIYAS-UD-DIN TUGHLAQ
On the southern side of the fort is a causeway that takes one across the (now) dry bed
of a lake to the tomb of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq. The tomb was built by the ruler
himself and is enclosed in a private courtyard with fortified walls. The structure of this
simple but elegant building reminds one of the Alai Darwaza—an elegant gateway
built by the erstwhile Khilji ruler Ala-ud-din Khilji, near Qutab Minar, in his
endeavor to beautify the Qutab complex. The style of the tomb conforms to the Indo-
Islamic style of architecture, which was in vogue at that time and was the hallmark of
the buildings belonging to the period of the Delhi Sultanate.
