The sultan who ate 150 bananas a day could not be affected by any poison

‘They used to eat poison every day.’ An Italian tourist said this about Sultan Mahmud Shah I Begra, who ruled the state of Gujarat in western India for 53 years. The eighth sultan of the Muzaffari Empire ruled Gujarat from 1458 to 1511.

The original name of Sultan Mahmud Shah I was Fateh Khan whose father Muhammad Shah II was the ruler of Gujarat. The mother, Bibi Mughali, was the daughter of Jam Juna, the Sama ruler of Sindh. I don’t know if this decision was Fateh Khan’s father or mother’s, to develop immunity against poison, Sultan Mahmud was fed poison from his childhood.

That is why the Italian traveler and adventurer Lodovico de Verthema wrote: ‘My companion asked how these sultans are poisoned like this. Some merchants replied that their father had poisoned them from childhood.’

According to the Portuguese writer Duarte Barbosa, ‘they would take small doses of poison so that they would not be harmed if an enemy tried to kill them by poisoning them.’

While obvious exaggerations may be dismissed, it is certainly a fact that Mahmoud Begda needed protection as a boy. His father Muhammad Shah II, who was a convert to Islam but also had Rajput blood in his veins, died, and an elder son ascended the throne. Mahmud’s mother, a Sindhi princess, feared her stepson and sought protection for herself and her child through marriage with an influential Sufi brother-in-law. There, Mahmud grew into a young man until, in 1458, he ascended the throne after the death of his half-brother, Mahmud began his 53-year reign with executions and a veritable pool of blood.

Like the most successful kings of his time, Mahmud was a conqueror and an efficient ruler, however, with a pronounced religious fervor. In Sindh, for example, after local chieftains accepted their surrender, he found that their Islam was still deeply embedded in Hindu cultural practice—with the result that some of them were given religious boots. Sent to a camp to retrain them in the faith.

However, some Hindus flourished under Mahmud. His court poet Udaya Raja wrote in the 1460s, for example, a Sanskrit Mahakavya (epic) called the Mahmuda Suratrana-Krita, which compares the sultan to Bhima in strength, Karna in generosity, Rama to Rama. He is also exemplified in showing mercy to others. He himself chose to abandon heaven to take up his abode in Gujarat. While some stories circulate about how the Prophet appeared before the Sultan in a dream, which is indicative. He fights. In Junagadh, its Raja was released after converting to Islam. Elsewhere, the refusers were promptly eliminated.

The Italian traveler Varthema writes about Mahmud: ‘Fifty elephants salute the Sultan when he rises in the morning. Fifty or sixty kinds of bells are played when they eat.’ ‘Their mustaches are so long that they tie them on their heads like women tie their hair. He has a white beard that reaches his navel.’

“They eat poison every day,” he says. However, don’t assume that they get their fill of it. They eat a certain amount.’ ‘If you want to take someone’s life, you bring him naked before you and then eat some fruits and herbs. When their mouths are full of chewing, they throw it all at the person they want to kill. Thus in half an hour he falls dead on the ground. And so he chooses new clothes every day. The used ones are burned.’

Barbosa writes that they were so poisoned that if a fly stung their hand, it would die, and many of the women would die from the same cause. Perhaps the exaggeration can be brushed aside, says historian Manu Pillay. He could eat up to 150 bananas a day, and even liked to keep a tray of samosas nearby when he slept.However, Mahmood was seen by many as a prince of determination and a man of unwavering faith.