brihaspati wrote:Surinder,
it will go OT here! But if one looks at the early campaigns, one sees - a pattern. The modus operandi was relatively controlled until the death of first wife, and for some time until personal appropriation of the conquered's women started. From then on, the situation deteriorated rapidly - with increasingly outrageous claims, and military misadventures. Just before passing away a disastrous campaign against the Byzantines was ordered on the face of increasing criticism of the follower "hypocrites". Note that success in the children department was limited in spite of nine women [this in spite of claims that great care was taken to do justice to all nine every time one was favoured]. The only success came from first wife, with the only child born to one "right hand possession" afterwards, dying as an infant.
I have a standard suspicion of myths about dead bodies vanishing to climb straight to paradise [not Pandavas - who are clearly stated to have started on the trek alive, and in full sight of relatives] - especially in societies which did not cremate - in that the body perhaps carries traces of diseases that would tarnish a certain desired image when the rituals regarding cleaning and wrapping of the body would be carried out.. [This is about really dead bodies in their advanced age - and not people in their primes - for whom vanishing might mean something entirely different].
The Caliphate history is the same. Seljuk/Mameluk/Fatimid/Ummayid/Abbasid/Ottoman. All have the same pattern. The connection of "madness" and Ottomans is well studied. Delhi sultanate and perhaps to an extent the Mughals show this also.
In TSP, the generals' episodic descent into delusion/paranoia and blunders are well known. The extreme sexual unhealthiness - in psychological terms - of ME and Paki society should be obvious, and their impact on ruling brains must also be self-evident.
The Pakis are fond of their Hijras too - and Afghans their bacchabazi. There are some indications of enforced sex-slavery on captured beautiful boys among the illustrious islamic invaders of India - especially in the early days of expansion in the Punjab. If as it is suspected by some researchers - that the tendency could be genetic - then there is perhaps some lead in the pencil of the hypothesis that such a gene might be active in current Pakjabi jarnails too from the paternal gift.
shivji - also I think there are eye-witness accounts of the late medieval and early modern - of Arabs and their "boy-wives" on camels in kafelas.
GHILMANS AND EUNUCHS
Muslim sultans were very fond of handsome young slaves whom they kept close to their persons as pages, service-boys, bodyguards, special troops and as gay companions. Infatuation for such slaves was a bane of the life of Muslim royalty and nobility in particular, although they considered it to be a fashion. P.K. Hitti has this to say about them, “Ghilman, who might also be eunuchs, were the recipients of special favours from their masters, wore rich and attractive uniforms and often beautified and perfumed their bodies in effeminate fashion. We read of ghilman in the reign of al-Rashid; but
it was evidently the caliph al-Amin who, following Persian precedent, established in the Arabic world the ghilman institution for the practice of unnatural sexual relations. A judge of whom there is record used four hundred such youths. Poets did not disdain to give public expression to their perverted passions and to address amorous pieces of their compositions to beardless young boys.”1
Muslim rulers and nobles in India were not lagging behind in these ‘perverted passions.’ Muhammad Hindu Shah Farishtah in his Tarikh and Khondamir in his Dasturul Wuzra relate the following incident about Mahmud Ghaznavi.
Sultan Mahmud had a passion for slaves possessing handsome faces. His Wazir Abul Abbas Fazl bin Ahmad followed his example. “Fazl, on hearing the reputation of the beauty of a boy in Turkistan, deputed a confidential person to purchase that boy (whose countenance was beautiful as that of the planet Venus), and bring him to Ghazni, according to the mode of conveyance usually adopted for females. When an informer represented to the king these circumstances, his most august Majesty demanded that slave (who was as white as silver) from the minister… The minister made evasive replies, and pertinaciously refused to part with the slave, notwithstanding His Majesty’s absolute power. The king one night visited the minister at his house (without prior notice), where the minister entertained him with respect and hospitality due to the dignity of a sovereign. When the slave (who looked as beautiful as a virgin of paradise) came into the presence of the king, high words passed between him and his minister, and so greatly was the king’s anger kindled, that he issued orders to seize the minister and plunder his house. Soon after this the king departed for Hindustan, and certain evil-disposed amirs tortured the minister so severely with the rack that he lost his life.” After him the old Khwaja Ahmad bin Hasan Maimandi was appointed to the office of Wazir.2
Sultan Mahmud’s “court was guarded by four thousand Turkish good looking and beardless (ghulam turk washaq) slave-youths, who, on days of public audience, were stationed on the right and left of throne,- two thousand of them with caps ornamented with four feathers, bearing golden maces, on the right hand, and the other two thousand, with caps adorned with two feathers, bearing silver maces, on the left…
As these youths attained into man’s estate and their beards began to grow, they were attached to a separate corps, and placed occasionally under the command of rulers of provinces.”3 Shams Siraj Afif’s description of acquisition and distribution of handsome slave boys by Sultan Firoz Tughlaq points to similar arrangement.
The number of royal slaves (bandgan-i-Khas) was usually very large. They were invariably good looking, bought or captured at early age. Many foreign purchased slaves were also similarly chosen. Out of these, a few became favourites of the sultans and sometimes rose to the highest positions in life like Kafur Hazardinari under Alauddin Khalji and Khusaru Khan under Qutbuddin Mubarak Khalji.
During Alauddin Khalji’s invasion of Gujarat, his generals had brought immense booty from there including Raja Karan’s consort Kamla Devi and the handsome slave Malik Kafur Hazardinari. The Sultan fell in love with both. In the words of Farishtah, he converted Kamala Devi to Islam and married her, and treating Kafur as a favourite “tied the sacred thread (zunnar) of his love in his own waist.”4 Khusrau Khan was brought from Malwa under similar circumstances. The rise of these catamites was due as much to their ‘beauty’ and nearness to the king as to their ambition and conspiratorial genius. So long as Alauddin held a firm grip on the administration, Malik Kafur served him with loyalty and won victories on his behalf in lands far and near. Once the king’s health declined and he became dependent upon his dear slave-noble, the latter managed or at least attempted to poison him.5 After Alauddin’s death he gathered all political power into his own hands. Mubarak Khalji in his turn fell in love with his favourite Khusrau Khan. Like Malik Kafur, Khusrau Khan also provided pleasure to Qutbuddin and at the same time marched with armies to preserve and extend his master’s dominions. But when an opportunity came handy he killed his patron. Mubarak Khalji lost his life because of his degenerate nature. In 1318 his favourite slave and Wazir Khusrau Khan led an expedition to the south where he seized much booty. As had happened in the case of Prince Alauddin, the wealth of the Deccan inflamed the ambition of Khusrau Khan and he began to plan to occupy the throne of Delhi. His plans fructified soon enough because of the Sultan’s depravity. Qutbuddin was blinded by the infatuation he had for Khusrau Khan, and unable to bear his separation any longer sent for him from the Deccan. Khusrau Khan was taken in a palanquin post-haste from Devagiri to Delhi where he arrived in a week’s time.
One day Khusrau engaged the king in his intimate company and got him killed.6 The custom of taking favourite slaves in palanquins seems to have been common so that Sultan
Sikandar Lodi (1489-1517) could boast that “If I order one of my slaves to be seated in a palanquin, the entire body of nobility would carry him on their shoulders at my bidding.”7 This statement incidentally conveys an idea of the importance of handsome favourite slaves and also reflects on the status of nobles under autocratic Muslim rulers.
http://voiceofdharma.org/books/mssmi/ch9.htm
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Imagine I ask for 20Rs from you, and you give only 10. Then I claim that the 10 you didnt give is a repayment of the 10 you gave me 
Apart from that Pakis have been admonished for doing Madrassa Math in their fiscal deficit and growth numbers which they reported to IMF (which they had to revise after IMF sent angry letters), And the Pakis claimed that they did so due to lack of trained accountants!
