3 - Non-Agricultural Production and Urban Economy

Summary

NON-AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

The Delhi sultanate lacks any description of its economic resources of the kind that Abū'l FaẒl supplies for the Mughal empire in his Ā'in-i Akbarī. Only a very incomplete sketch can, therefore, be offered of its mineral and craft production.

Of salt, the cheapest mineral, the Sāmbhar lake formed a major source in northern India, so much so that the word namak (salt) was joined to its name. Quite surprisingly, in spite of the Salt range (‘Koh-i Jūd’) being frequently mentioned in our authorities, there is no description of the mines until Abū'l Fazl offers one c. 1595. Since, however, the mines are mentioned by Yuan Chwang, it is quite likely that they continued to be worked during the time of the sultans.

Among the metals, iron ore of an exceptionally high grade was mined in India and was used to produce damascened steel which had a worldwide reputation. The mining areas lay scattered in the hilly region beginning with Gwalior and extending to the tip of southern India. The Cutch iron was probably responsible for the fame of the swords of Korij; and the Geniza records of the eleventh and twelfth centuries show that the Deccan exported iron and steel to the Middle East. But other mining localities can only be identified on the basis of the A'īn-i Akbari and our seventeenth-century sources. One may suppose that they were largely the same. Similarly, the Rajasthan mines probably yielded copper in the period of the sultanate, just as they did under the Mughals.