to read and write. At a higher level, important texts in various subjects were read by individual pupils with particular scholars who gave instruction ( dars ) in them. A more institutionalised form of higher education, the madrasa, became widely established in Central Asia and Iran in the eleventh century, and from there it spread to other Islamic countries. Usually the madrasa had a building, where instruction was given by individual teachers.
Often there was a provision of some cells for resident students, a library and a mosque. Firoz Tugluq built a large madrasa at Delhi whose splendid building still stands. From Barani’s description it would seem that teaching here was mainly confined to “Quran-commentary, the Prophet’s sayings and the Muslim Law ( fiqh) .” It is said that Sikander Lodi( – ) appointed teachers in maktabs and madrasas in various cities throughout his dominions, presumably making provision for them through land or cash grants. Historiography In addition to secular sciences that came with Arabic and Persian learning to India, one more notable addition was systematic historiography.
The collection of witnesses’ narratives and documents that the Chachnama (thirteenth- century Persian translation of a ninth-century Arabic original), in its account of the Arab conquest of Sind, represents advancement in historical research, notwithstanding the absence of coherence and logical order of latter-day historiography like Minhaj Siraj’s Tabaqat-i Nasiri , written at Delhi c. . Sufism In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, two most influential orders emerged among the sufis : the Suhrawardi, centred at Multan, and the Chisti at Delhi and other places. The most famous Chishti Saint, Shaik Nizamuddin offered a classical exposition of Sufism of pre- pantheistic phase in the conversations ( – ).Sufism began to turn pantheistic only when the ideas of Ibn al-Arabi (died ) commerce.
Despite the Mongol conquests of the western borderlands, in Irfan Habib’s view, India’s external trade, both overland and oceanic, grew considerably during this period. Trade and Urbanization The establishment of the Delhi Sultanate revived internal trade, stimulated by the insatiable demand for luxury goods by the sultans and nobles. Gold coins, rarely issued in India