CBSE Class 7 Answered

The term ‘mansab’ means an office or rank, and a person who occupied this office or held the rank came to be known as a ‘mansabdar’. A mansabdar maintained horsemen or soldiers depending on his rank in the court. Some of the important features of this system were

1. An official in the royal service was given a rank or a mansab depending on the nature of his work. While a mansabdar of a lower level could maintain up to ten horsemen, the mansabdar of the highest level could keep seven thousand horsemen.
2. The mansabdars were appointed by the king. The king had the power to promote or dismiss them.
3. The king paid his mansabdars in the form of jagirs. The revenue collected from the jagir could be used to pay the horsemen.
4. Mansabdars had the right to collect only a fixed amount of revenues from their jagirs and had no power to administer them.