Discuss the advancement made in Textile Technology under the Delhi Sultans.

Answer:

The Delhi Sultanate brought India into closer contact with the wider Islamic world, and among the most consequential results was a series of improvements in textile technology that markedly raised productivity in the subcontinent's largest industry.

The principal innovations

• The spinning wheel (charkha) replaced the hand spindle, multiplying yarn output several times over.
• The treadle or pit loom freed the weaver's hands and increased weaving speed.
• The bow-scutch (kaman) for carding cotton improved the cleaning of fibre.
• Sericulture spread, and silk weaving developed at Bengal and Gujarat.
• Carpet weaving was introduced as a new craft under court patronage.

New products and techniques

• Block printing and improved dyeing extended the range of patterned cloth.
• Fine muslins of Bengal and brocades and gold-thread work (zari) were produced for the elite.
• Royal karkhanas concentrated skilled weavers to supply the court.

Impact

• Cheaper yarn and faster weaving lowered costs and widened the market.
• Textiles became India's leading export and a major source of revenue.
• Irfan Habib regarded the charkha's diffusion as among the most important medieval technological changes.

A qualification

• Some devices may have been known earlier and merely spread more widely now.
• Indian dyeing and fine weaving skills were already ancient and unsurpassed.
• The innovations therefore raised productivity rather than creating the industry.

Textile technology under the Sultans thus advanced substantially, chiefly through the charkha, the improved loom and new finishing crafts. As Irfan Habib emphasised, these were modest devices with large consequences, raising output decisively and laying the foundation for the great Indian textile trade of the Mughal age.