Diwan-i-Arz

History glossary

Also called: Ariz-i-Mamalik · Topic: Turkic Invasions and the Delhi Sultanate · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

Diwan-i-Arz was the military department of the Delhi Sultanate. It was run by an officer called the Ariz-i-Mamalik (the army's chief recruiting and inspecting officer). The department hired soldiers, kept their records, paid them and checked that they were fit and ready. It was not a separate name for the same thing: Diwan-i-Arz was the department, and Ariz-i-Mamalik was the man who headed it.

It matters because the Sultanate depended on a large cavalry (soldiers on horseback). The Diwan-i-Arz was the office that made sure the troops paid for by the state actually existed and actually turned up.

Explanation

Background: why a separate army office was needed

  • The sultan was the supreme commander. He was the political and military chief in one person.
  • He could not personally check thousands of soldiers spread across the empire.

  • So a separate department was needed to do this checking for him.

  • The army was paid through the iqta system. An iqta was a piece of territory whose taxes a noble collected in place of a salary.

  • The noble, called an iqtadar or muqti, had to keep soldiers ready out of this income.
  • Some iqtadars kept fewer soldiers than promised and pocketed the difference.

  • Someone had to inspect these troops. This was the job of the ariz.

  • Danger from outside. The Mongols kept threatening north-west India in the 13th century. A strong, well-checked army was a matter of survival.

How the department worked and who ran it

  • Head: the Ariz-i-Mamalik. The word arz means "review" or "muster", that is, lining up soldiers for inspection.
  • Main duties:
  • Recruiting soldiers and horses.
  • Keeping records of each soldier.
  • Inspecting the army at regular musters.
  • Fixing and paying salaries.

  • Arranging supplies for the army during campaigns.

  • What the ariz was NOT: he was usually not the commander-in-chief. The sultan himself held that role. The ariz was an organiser and inspector.

  • Place in the government: it was one of the main departments under the council of ministers. The others were:
  • Diwan-i-Wizarat (finance)
  • Diwan-i-Insha (royal letters and records)
  • Diwan-i-Risalat (religious matters and petitions)

How it changed over time

  • Balban (Ghulam / Slave dynasty): he is usually credited with setting up, or thoroughly reorganising, the Diwan-i-Arz.
  • He made the army strong and well-disciplined to deal with the Mongols and with rebels.

  • He tried to remove old and unfit soldiers who were still drawing pay.

  • Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296–1316): the department reached its peak.

  • He kept a large standing army, meaning soldiers kept permanently ready even in peacetime.
  • He paid many soldiers and cavalrymen in cash from a bigger khalisa, the land whose revenue went straight to the sultan's own treasury [1].
  • He brought in dagh, the branding of horses with a state mark. A noble could not then swap a good horse for a poor one at inspection.
  • He brought in huliya (also called chehra), a written description of each soldier. A stand-in could not then pretend to be a listed soldier.

  • These checks put the ariz's office at the centre of his tight control from Delhi.

  • Firuz Shah Tughluq (Tughluq dynasty): he made soldiers' posts largely hereditary and relaxed strict inspection.

  • The army became weaker.
  • This is often given as one cause of the Sultanate's later decline.

Results

  • The sultan got direct control over the army, so he was less dependent on the private troops of nobles.
  • The Sultanate could push back the Mongols and expand its territory under strong rulers.
  • The checks worked only when the sultan was strong. Under weak rulers, fraud and hereditary claims came back.

Time, place and evidence

  • Period: the Delhi Sultanate, c. 1206–1526. The department was most important in the 13th and early 14th centuries.
  • Place: run from Delhi. Its reach went out to the iqtas in the provinces.
  • Key people:
  • Balban, usually credited with founding or reorganising it.
  • Alauddin Khalji, who introduced dagh and huliya.

  • Firuz Shah Tughluq, who loosened it.

  • How we know:

  • Persian court chronicles of the time, especially Ziauddin Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi (14th century). It describes Balban's and Alauddin's army reforms in detail.
  • Barani was a courtier with strong views, so historians read his account with some care.

Don't confuse with

  • Diwan-i-Wizarat: the finance department, headed by the wazir. It handled revenue. The Diwan-i-Arz handled the army.
  • Diwan-i-Insha: the department of royal letters and official correspondence. It was not a military office.
  • Ariz-i-Mamalik vs. commander-in-chief: the ariz recruited, inspected and paid the troops. The sultan himself was the supreme commander.
  • Mir Bakhshi (Mughal): he was the later Mughal officer in charge of the army and the mansabdari records. The Diwan-i-Arz is the Sultanate office, not the Mughal one.

Prelims Hooks

  • Diwan-i-Arz = military department of the Delhi Sultanate. Its head = Ariz-i-Mamalik.
  • Balban is credited with setting up or reorganising the Diwan-i-Arz.
  • Dagh (branding of horses) and huliya / chehra (descriptive roll of soldiers) were introduced by Alauddin Khalji, not Balban. This is a common trap.
  • Alauddin Khalji (1296–1316) expanded the khalisa to pay more soldiers in cash [1].
  • Firuz Shah Tughluq made army posts largely hereditary, which weakened the military system.
  • Main source on these army reforms: Ziauddin Barani, Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi.

Mains Points

  • An answer to the iqta problem. The iqta paid for the army through revenue rights instead of cash salaries. That left room for nobles to cheat on the number and quality of their troops.
  • The Diwan-i-Arz was the centre's check on this.

  • It shows how the Sultanate tried to balance letting nobles collect revenue with keeping the army under central control.

  • Centralisation depended on the ruler. Under Balban and Alauddin Khalji the department was strict. Branding, descriptive rolls and cash pay [1] tied the army directly to the sultan.

  • Under Firuz Shah Tughluq, hereditary posts undid much of this.

  • The same institution produced very different results under strong and weak rulers.

  • Continuity in military administration. The Sultanate ideas carried on into Mughal times:

  • the ariz's records and musters, and Alauddin's dagh and chehra, reappear under the Mughals in the Mir Bakhshi's office and in the dagh–chehra rules of the mansabdari system;
  • the line runs Sultanate ariz → Mughal Mir Bakhshi.
  • This is useful for a GS-I question on continuity and change in medieval Indian administration.

Related concepts

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Sources

  1. 1India — The Khaljis, Delhi Sultanate, Muslim Rulebritannica.com · tier 3