The roads were covered with flowers, the houses adorned with the
richest stuffs, and the streets resounded with music.
He was a man of great learning, and a great patron of learned men; he
was a great founder of churches, had prayers read in them at the
prescribed times, and always went to prayers five times a day
himself.[10] He was rigidly temperate himself in his habits, and
discouraged all intemperance in others. These things secured him
panegyrists throughout the empire during the twenty-seven years that
he reigned over it, though perhaps he was the most detestable tyrant
that ever filled a throne. He would take his armies out over the most
populous and peaceful districts, and hunt down the innocent and
unoffending people like wild beasts, and bring home their heads by
thousands to hang them on the city gates for his mere amusement. He
twice made the whole people of the city of Delhi emigrate with him to
Daulatabad in Southern India, which he wished to make the capital,
from some foolish fancy; and during the whole of his reign gave
evident signs of being in an unsound state of mind.[11] There was at
the time of his father's death a saint at Delhi named Nizamuddin
Aulia, or the Saint, who was supposed by supernatural means to have
driven from Delhi one night in a panic a large army of Moghals under
Tarmasharin, who invaded India from Transoxiana in 1303, and laid
close siege to the city of Delhi, in which the Emperor Ala-ud-din was
shut up without troops to defend himself, his armies being engaged in
Southern India.
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