Sher Shah of Sur

Sher Shah of Sur (born 1486?, Sasaram [India]—died May 22, 1545, Kalinjar) was the emperor of north India (1540–45) in the Islamic Sur (Afghan) dynasty of 1540–57 who organized a long-lived bureaucracy responsible to the ruler and created a carefully calculated revenue system. For the first time during the Islamic conquest the relationship between the people and the ruler was systematized, with little oppression or corruption.

One of eight sons of Ḥasan Khan, a horse breeder, Farid rebelled against his father and left home to enlist as a soldier in the service of Jamal Khan, the governor of Jaunpur. He later worked for Bahar Khan Lohani, the Afghan ruler of Bihar, who rewarded him for bravery with the title of Sher Khan. After he defeated a Bengal army, he took over the rule of Bihar. In early 1539 he conquered Bengal and, through clever deception, the Rohtas stronghold southwest of Bengal. At the Battle of Chausa on June 26, 1539, he defeated the Mughal emperor Humayun and assumed the royal title of Farid al-Din Sher Shah. In May 1540 at Kannauj he again defeated Humayun; he had driven his foes from Bengal, Bihar, and northern India, and also suppressed the Baluch chiefs on the northwestern frontier. Intent on expanding the sultanate of Delhi, he captured Gwalior and Malwa but was killed during the siege of Kalinjar.

One of the great Muslim rulers of India, Sher Shah rose from the rank of private to become emperor, efficiently administered the army and tax collections, and built roads, rest houses, and wells for his people. Historians view him as generally tolerant of non-Muslims, but his treatment of Puran Mal, the Rajput leader of Chanderi, and his family following the siege of Raisen (1543) and Puran Mal’s eventual surrender has been criticized. Accounts by Abbas Khan Sarwani in the Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi mention that once Puran Mal and his men, anticipating the attack, had slain their women and children, the Afghan army massacred the remaining Hindus. Sher Shah had one of Puran Mal’s daughters and three of his nephews captured live and punished.

Sher Shah’s tomb at Sasaram in present-day Bihar is a red-sandstone mausoleum completed in 1545, months after his death.