About the Book:
The book is the completely rewritten version of the author's doctoral dissertation titled "Social Life and Urban Centres in Eastern India in the 13th and 14th centuries". Its main focus is on the socio-economic life of Bengal that was influenced by the process of urbanization commenced during the foundational phase of Muslim rule in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. With the advent of Muslims many urban centres (towns and cities) sprang up and a bureaucratic centralized sultanat government based on the iqta system (assignment of land) took the place of the many fragmented chiefdoms of feudalism. Driving the natural monetary unit cowrie (conch shell) out of circulation, coined money particularly tankah (i.e. silver coins) came into existence. Sets of foreign institutions such as masjid, madrasah, khanqah (sarai, sufi hospice), langar khana (free kitchen), dar ul shafa or bimaristan (hospital)
, karkhana (workshop) were established. New devices, crafts and technologies such as charka (spinning wheel), saqia (geared wheel). gypsum-mortar, arts of papermaking, sericulture and darning, pragmatic literacy, sang-i-magnutis (lodestone, compass), astrolabe (timekeeping instrument) and so on made their appearances in Bengal society. All the new institutions and devices noted above certainly led to social and economic transformations. Exploring sources hitherto untapped by scholars, the book describes in abundant detail the socio economic and cultural phenomena cited above in its eight chapters.