Delhi sultanate (1206–1526) :
Introduction:
The Delhi Sultanate refers to the five short-lived Muslim kingdoms of Turkic and Pashtun (Afghan) origin that ruled the territory of Delhi between 1206 and 1526 CE. The Delhi Sultanate was a Muslim sultanate that was existed between the 13th and 16th centuries. Based in Delhi, the territory of the Delhi Sultanate was mainly confined to the northern part of India and Pakistan, though at its peak, it was in control of much of the Indian subcontinent.
Over the course of its history, the Delhi Sultanate was ruled by five different dynasties – the Mamluk Dynasty, the Khalji (spelled also as Khilji) Dynasty, the Tughlaq Dynasty, the Sayyid Dynasty, and the Lodi Dynasty. When the last sultan of the Lodi Dynasty was killed in battle, the Delhi Sultanate came to an end and led to the foundation of the Mughal Empire.
The five dynasties included:
- the Mamluk Dynasty (1206–1290)
- the Khilji Dynasty (1290–1320)
- the Tughlaq Dynasty (1320–1414)
- the Sayyid Dynasty (1414–1451)
- the Afghan Lodi Dynasty (1451–1526)
Delhi sultanate, principal Muslim sultanate in north
India from the 13th to the 16th century. Its creation owed much to the campaigns of
Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sām (Muḥammad of Ghūr; brother of
Sultan Ghiyās̄ al-Dīn of Ghūr) and his lieutenant
Quṭb al-Dīn Aibak between 1175 and 1206 and particularly to victories at the battles of
Taraōrī in 1192 and Chandawar in 1194.
The Ghūrid soldiers of fortune in India did not sever their political connection with Ghūr (now Ghowr, in present Afghanistan) until Sultan Iltutmish (reigned 1211–36) had made his permanent capital at Delhi, had repulsed rival attempts to take over the Ghūrid conquests in India, and had withdrawn his forces from contact with the Mongol armies, which by the 1220s had conquered Afghanistan. Iltutmish also gained firm control of the main urban strategic centres of the North Indian Plain, from which he could keep in check the refractory Rajput chiefs. After Iltutmish’s death, a decade of factional struggle was followed by nearly 40 years of stability under Ghiyās̄ al-Dīn Balban, sultan in 1266–87. During this period Delhi remained on the defensive against the Mongols and undertook only precautionary measures against the Rajputs.
Under the sultans of the Khaljī dynasty (1290–1320), the Delhi sultanate became an imperial power. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn (reigned 1296–1316) conquered Gujarat (c. 1297) and the principal fortified places in Rajasthan (1301–12) and reduced to vassalage the principal Hindu kingdoms of southern India (1307–12). His forces also defeated serious Mongol onslaughts by the Chagatais of Transoxania (1297–1306).
Muḥammad ibn Tughluq (reigned 1325–51) attempted to set up a Muslim military, administrative, and cultural elite in the
Deccan, with a second capital at Daulatabad, but the Deccan Muslim
aristocracythrew off the overlordship of Delhi and set up (1347) the
Bahmanī sultanate. Muḥammad’s successor, Fīrūz Shah Tughluq (reigned 1351–88), made no attempt to reconquer the Deccan.
The power of the Delhi sultanate in north India was shattered by the invasion (1398–99) of Turkic conqueror
Timur (Tamerlane), who sacked Delhi itself. Under the
Sayyid dynasty (
c. 1414–51) the sultanate was reduced to a country power continually contending on an equal footing with other petty Muslim and Hindu principalities. Under the
Lodī (Afghan) dynasty (1451–1526), however, with large-scale immigration from Afghanistan, the Delhi sultanate partly recovered its
hegemony, until the Mughal leader
Bābur destroyed it at the First Battle of Panipat on April 21, 1526. After 15 years of Mughal rule, the Afghan
Shēr Shah of Sūr reestablished the sultanate in Delhi, which fell again in 1555 to Bābur’s son and successor,
Humāyūn, who died in January 1556. At the Second Battle of Panipat (Nov. 5, 1556), Humāyūn’s son
Akbar definitively defeated the Hindu general Hemu, and the sultanate became submerged in the
Mughal Empire.
The Delhi sultanate made no break with the political traditions of the later Hindu period—namely, that rulers sought paramountcy rather than
sovereignty. It never reduced Hindu chiefs to unarmed impotence or established an
exclusive claim to
allegiance. The sultan was served by a
heterogeneouselite of Turks, Afghans, Khaljīs, and Hindu converts; he readily accepted Hindu officials and Hindu vassals. Threatened for long periods with Mongol invasion from the northwest and hampered by indifferent communications, the Delhi sultans perforce left a large discretion to their local governors and officials.
The Beginning of The Delhi Sultanate :
The Delhi Sultanate was a major Muslim sultanate from the 13th to the 16th century in India. It began with the campaigns of Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sām (Muḥammad of Ghūr; brother of Sultan Ghiyās̄ al-Dīn of Ghūr) and his lieutenant Quṭb al-Dīn Aibak primarily between 1175 and 1206.
It was the victory against the Rajputs that began the established the reign of the Delhi Sultanate.
Until the end of 12th century, it was Prithviraj Chauhan who ruled on the Indian land. During his reign, Prithviraj Chauhan fought many battles out of which both the battles of Tarain fought in the late 12th century were crucial. In both battles, he fought Muhammad of Ghur of the Ghuride dynasty of Afghanistan.
In the first battle of Tarain between Muhammad of Ghur and Prithviraj Chauhan and other Indian rulers that was fought in 1191 A.D, Muhammad of Ghur faced a harsh defeat and had to retreat. And in the second battle that was fought in 1192 A.D., he returned and fought with more reinforcements and a stronger army with an intention to defeat the Rajputs and succeeded in doing so. This defeat ended the Rajputs’ supremacy in north India and gave way for Turkish emperors to establish themselves in the sub-continent.
Political and Cultural History in Detail :
Although the influence of Persian civilization upon that of northern India under the sultans of Delhi has long been treated as a foregone conclusion, attempts to identify the extent of the processes by which that influence was transmitted involve the historian in a web of hypotheses and generalizations (for the historiography of the sultanate, see Hardy, 1960; Rashid; Hasan; Sarkar; Nizami, 1983). As Carl W. Ernst (p. 6) has expressed it, “‘influence’ is nothing but a rather physical metaphor suggesting a flowing in of a substance into an empty vessel. This is hardly a satisfactory model for the complicated process by which people of one culture interpret and put to new uses themes and symbols from another culture.” Because of its origins and subsequent history the sultanate provided for three and a quarter centuries a unique opportunity for the continual transmission to India of a broad range of cultural manifestations emanating from the Persian plateau: language and literature, customs and manners, concepts of kingship and government, religious organization, music, and architecture.
Persian influence in northern India before the sultanate. Islam had already entered India via Sind and up the Indus; by the late 10th century Ismaʿili communities had been established in and around Multan, but they were Carmatians from Bahrain and probably constituted a wholly Arab element. The seepage of Persian influences into northwestern India resulted, in the first instance, from the transfer of political power on the Persian plateau from ʿAbbasid governors to local dynasts. The early Saffarids Yaʿqūb b. Layṯ (d. 265/879) and ʿAmr b. Layṯ (d. 289/902) exercised a loose sway over what are today the Indo-Afghan borderlands, in which dissidents from the Persian plateau had probably established themselves free from ʿAbbasid surveillance (Bosworth). The Samanids (204-395/819-1005) later extended their hegemony over the same area, including the Kabul valley, Gardīz, Ḡazna, and Zābolestān, leading to penetration of these lands by Persian or persianized officials, traders, and adventurers. Under their aegis rebellious slave commanders like Alptigin, Sebüktigin, and the latter’s son Maḥmūd used Ḡazna as a base for raids across the Indus and into Hindustan. A century later the Saljuq vizier Neẓām-al-Molk, in his Sīāsat-nāma (p. 147), described these raids, emphasizing that plunder and adventure, as much as piety, had motivated them. The Ghaznavid Maḥmūd himself (388-421/998-1030) may well have viewed these raids as providing the means to play an active role on the Persian plateau, but after the defeat of his son Masʿūd (421-32/1031-41) by the Saljuqs at Dandānqān in 431/1040 the fulcrum of Ghaznavid power shifted east into the Punjab, and Lahore became the capital of the rump empire. The later Ghaznavids, though ethnic Turks, were wholly assimilated to Persian culture; Persian was the language of the court, and Ghaznavid Lahore must have been a typical Persian city. The first flowering of Persian poetry on Indian soil took place there, led by Abu’l-Faraj b. Masʿūd Rūnī, the panegyrist of Sultan Ebrāhīm b. Masʿūd (451-92/1059-99) and his son Masʿūd III (492-508/1099-1115), and Masʿūd-e Saʿd-e Salmān (Marek, pp. 714-15). It was also in Lahore that ʿAlī b. ʿOṯmān Hojvīrī, whose Kašf al-maḥjūb was one of the earliest accounts in Persian of Sufi theory and practice, finally settled and died (ca. 465-69/1072-77; Hojvīrī, pp. x-xi) .
Although the ethnic origins of the Ghurid, or Shansabanid, dynasty (ca. 390-612/1000-1215) remain uncertain, there can be no doubt that the conquest of Ḡazna by the Ghurids’ Turkish ḡolāms in 545/1150 marked the end of Ghaznavid rule west of the Indus. The last two Ghaznavids, Ḵosrow Shah (547-55/1152-60) and Ḵosrow Malek (555-82/1160-86), controlled only the Punjab, and under their rule the cities there must have experienced further persianization. In 582/1186 the Ghurid ruler Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Moḥammad (558-99/1163-1203) occupied Lahore, where he established a condominium with his younger brother Moʿezz-al-Dīn Moḥammad, to whom he delegated the eastern and southern possessions of the dynasty. Thenceforth Moʿezz-al-Dīn was responsible for the extensive conquests in Hindustan. Delhi was captured in 588-89/1192, Ajmer in 589/1193, and Qannauj in 595/1198; Ghurid suzerainty thus extended in a great arc from Mount Abū in Rajasthan through Gwalior to Bundelkhand. Farther east Baḵtīār Ḵaljī proceeded into Bihar and Bengal in 599-601/1202-04, capturing the cities of Nadia and Lakhnawti (Jūzjānī, ṬabaqātI, pp. 422-32). Following the assassination of Moʿezz-al-Dīn in 599/1206 his territories were partitioned among his principal amirs: Tāj-al-Dīn Yildiz in Ḡazna; Nāṣer-al-Dīn Qobāča in Multan, Uch, and Bhakkar; and Qoṭb-al-Dīn Aybak in Lahore, Ajmer, and Delhi, the last city being held by his lieutenant Šams-al-Dīn Iltutmiš. In Bihar and Bengal the situation remained fluid: Baḵtiār had either died or been assassinated, and successive commanders endeavored to hold those distant provinces and to determine the basis of their legitimacy by dealing with various power brokers in the northwest (Eaton, 1993, pp. 38-39). Eventually Aybak emerged more or less supreme, though he had had to come to terms with Qobāča and probably, contrary to tradition, never assumed the title “sultan.” Nor was his son Ārām Shah able to succeed him after his premature death. His successor was his favorite ḡolām, the far-sighted and resolute Iltutmiš (607-33/1211-36), who is counted the first and among the greatest of the sultans of Delhi.
The Turkish ḡolāms of the Ghurids who laid the foundations of Muslim rule in India were no barbarian conquerors; rather, despite their origins in Central Asia, they were effective agents and purveyors of Persian civilization on the subcontinent. Aybak himself had, as a young slave, been educated by a qāżī (religious judge) in Nīšāpūr, where he had acquired a reputation as a reciter of the Koran (Jūzjānī, I, p. 416). Iltutmiš had belonged to a learned man of Bukhara, who educated him thoroughly before selling him to a merchant, who took him to Baghdad and thence to Ḡazna (Jūzjānī, I, p. 442). Qobāča, too, seems to have been a man of considerable polish; it was in his time that the Čāč-nāma was rendered from Arabic into Persian, and he provided temporary refuge from the Mongols for both Šadīd-al-Dīn ʿAwfī and Abū ʿAmr Jūzjānī. He appointed the latter to a position at the Fīrūzīya madrasa at Uch, which may have been his own foundation (Jūzjānī, I, p. 420). The biographical notices on prominent amirs of the early Delhi sultanate incorporated into Jūzjānī’s Ṭabaqāt-e nāṣerī confirm the impression of a cultivated persianized ruling elite. The earliest surviving buildings erected by the sultans of Delhi also reflect Persian antecedents (see ii, below).
The Ghaznavid and Ghurid invaders constituted a well-defined ruling elite, reinforced by adventurers of all kinds from the Muslim lands farther west. Neẓām al-Molk reported that, after news of the booty that Alptigin had acquired in the Indus frontier region became known, men flocked from Khorasan, Transoxania, and Sīstān to serve under him (Neẓām-al-Molk, p. 146). Few of these early invaders would have brought wives with them, relying principally upon Indian slave women to provide for their domestic needs and bear them sons. Apart from soldiers, little is recorded about early migrants from Persia and the borderlands into what later became the Delhi sultanate. There must have been writers from the Ghaznavid court at Lahore and in the late Ghurid period ʿolamāʾ like Jūzjānī. It can be assumed, too, that among immigrants to northern India there were armorers, metalworkers, tentmakers and furnishers, manufacturers of cavalry gear, and other craftsmen, though none is mentioned in the sources. Merchants must have followed the armies to convert the plunder (often unwieldy and practically useless in the hands of common soldiers) into cash; the vast majority of Indian captives must thus have become objects of commerce. Traders and craftsmen alike most probably came from urban centers in the eastern Persian world and, with bureaucrats and ʿolamāʾ, provided the nucleus of the free, nonmilitary Persian-speaking population of such centers as Multan, Uch, Bhakkar, Lahore, Dipalpur, and Bhatinda in the Punjab, as well as Delhi.
The dynastic history of the sultanate. Iltutmiš was succeeded by five descendants, the last of whom died in 664/1266, but usurpation and murder more often determined the succession at Delhi. In that year his former ḡolām Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Balban seized the throne, ruling for two decades (664-86/1266-87) in grim splendor amid the trappings of “Sasanian” kingship (Nizami, 1961, pp. 95-105); after his death his grandson and great-grandson were soon ousted, and the throne was then seized by the Turkish or turkicized Ḵaljīs (689-720/1290-1320; on this dynasty, see Haig; Nigam; Lal, 1967). After the murder of the last of the line, Qotbá-al-Dīn Mobārak Shah (716-20/1316-20), by his favorite the sultanate was restored by Ḡāzī Malek, governor of Dipalpur (Punjab), who mounted the throne as Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Toḡloq and founded the Tughluqid dynasty (720-817/1320-1414), under which the sultanate of Delhi reached its greatest extent but also experienced the beginning of fragmentation into smaller states. Ebn Baṭṭūṭa described Ḡāzī Malek as a Qarāʾūnā Turk from southern Afghanistan, though in India the term Qarāʾūnā may have meant descendants of Turks by Indian mothers (Ebn Baṭṭūṭa, III, p. 649). Under the Tughluqids, especially Moḥammad b. Toḡloq (725-52/1325-51) and Fīrūz Shah (752-90/1351-88), the Delhi sultanate reached the zenith of its splendor (on the Tughluqids, see Haig; Husain, 1938; idem, 1963). Even before Tīmūr’s devastating raid on Punjab and Delhi in 800/1398-99, however, the Tughluqid state had contracted to a mere shadow of its former self, and the adventurers who ruled after Tīmūr’s withdrawal, Mallū Khan, Dawlat Khan Lōdī, and Ḵeżr Khan, had no claims to legitimacy and controlled little more than the countryside immediately surrounding Delhi. Keżr Khan’s successors came to be known as the Sayyed dynasty (817-55/1414-51), probably because of spurious claims to descent from the Prophet Moḥammad; they were eventually swept away by the Lōdīs (855-932/1451-1526), themselves part of a larger infiltration of Afghan tribes into the Punjab and the Ganges plain, from which local dynasties also eventually emerged in Bengal and Malwa. The most significant legacy of the Sayyeds and Lōdīs was architectural. The last Lōdī sultan was killed at Panipat fighting the invading forces of Bābor.
Although the extent of Persian immigration into India before the 1220s is a matter of guesswork, events during the 13th century undoubtedly contributed to an increase. The garrison towns and administrative centers in the upper Jumna-Ganges plain (e.g., Baran, Etawah, Badaon, Qannauj) must have become even more persianized after the arrival of successive waves of refugees from the west. The first such wave was the result of campaigns by Čengīz Khan in Transoxania and Khorasan in 616-19/1219-22; he actually reached the Indus in 618/1221 and briefly threatened the Punjab (Jovaynī, ed. Qazvīnī, II, pp. 139-42). Many fugitives sought sanctuary in Delhi during the reign of Iltutmiš and undoubtedly stimulated a greater diffusion of Persian customs and values in lands that had previously been unstable marches on the frontiers of the Islamic world. Jūzjānī is an example, having fled from Tūlak south of Herat, arrived by boat in Uch, where he was warmly received by Qobāča, and then passed on to Delhi, where he enjoyed a moderately successful career in the service of the sultanate (Jūzjānī, I, pp. 420, 447).
The Mongol invasion of Persia continued into the 1250s, and it must be assumed that the exodus also continued, though presumably limited to persons of means or possessing marketable skills. A further stage in the spread of Persian influence must have followed Hülegü’s invasion of Persia in 653-56/1255-58; many refugees crossed the Indus during the reign of Sultan Nāṣer-al-Dīn Maḥmūd Shah (644-64/1246-66), and the impetus may have continued during the late 1270s and 1280s after the Negüderis or Qarāʾūnās had occupied Zābolestān in what is now southern Afghanistan, a region that became a bone of contention between Il-khanids and Chaghatayids (see CHAGHATAYID DYNASTY). The latter successfully asserted their hegemony in the borderlands northwest of the Indus and engaged in protracted internal dynastic struggles between Mongol traditionalists and those newly converted to Islam (e.g., ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Tarmašīrīn, 726-34/1326-34). Among the refugees who came to Delhi was the party with which Ebn Baṭṭūṭa traveled in 734/1333. The most prominent member was the qāżī of Termeḏ, who was accompanied by his women and children, three brothers and a nephew, and two notables from Bukhara and Samarqand respectively, each with an entourage of servants and hangers-on (Ebn Baṭṭūṭa, pp. 606-07). This group was probably typical of such refugees, representing high Persian culture. Sultan Moḥammad b. Toḡloq was especially renowned for his hospitality to foreigners (see Jackson), among whom the “Ḵorāsānīs” (a term used indiscriminately in Delhi to include refugees from Persia proper, the borderlands across the Indus, and Turkestan) were especially numerous. Ebn Baṭṭūṭa mentioned the sultan’s practice “of honouring strangers and showing affection to them and singling them out for governorships or high dignities of state” (p. 595). “. . . Well known is his generosity to foreigners, for he prefers them to the people of India, singles them out for favour, showers his benefits upon them . . . and confers upon them magnificent gifts” (p. 671). When the Il-khanate in Persia collapsed in 736/1336 Tughluqid Delhi provided a carrière ouverte aux talents, thus ensuring that Muslim India would become a cultural extension of Persia.
Perhaps more than elsewhere in the Muslim east, the political style of the rulers of Delhi reflected traditional concepts of Persian kingship, for Iltutmiš and his successors lacked any other obvious tradition to draw upon (Hardy, 1978a). Indigenous Rajput polities offered no meaningful exemplars, and it is unlikely that the Turks in northern India retained memories of the steppe imperium of the Oḡuz or Qarakhanids. The ʿAbbasid caliphate had provided a legitimizing mechanism, but its demise in 658/1258 left a mere fictive device. On the other hand, the culture of the courts of eastern Persia, that is, Samanid Bukhara, in whose service Alptigin had grown gray (Neẓām-al-Molk, p. 139), and the persianized milieux of the Ghaznavids and Ghurids offered a dynamic, ultimately Sasanian concept of šāhānšāhī to set against contemporary Hindu notions of kingship or the threatening universalism of the Chinghizids. This concept could be harnessed to the idea, prevalent from the time of the first Mongol incursions across the Indus, that the central functions of the rulers of Delhi were chastisement of the idolaters of Hindustan and defense of the sultanate against the Mongol infidels (Ahmad, p. 12). In his determination to enhance his authority Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Balban, who claimed descent from Afrāsīāb, sought to overawe his turbulent followers with the splendid ceremonial of pre-Islamic Persia (Nizami, 1985, pp. 148-52). It is surely no coincidence that his grandsons were named Kay Ḵosrow, Kay Qobād, Kay Kāvūs, and Fīrūz. The greatest poet of the Delhi sultanate, Amīr Ḵosrow Dehlavī (651-725/1253-1325; see Rypka, Hist. Iran. Lit., pp. 257-59), in his Qerān al-saʿdayn, an account of the reconciliation of Balban’s son Bōgrā Khan, ruler of Bengal, with his own son Moʿezz-al-Dīn Kay Qobād in 686/1287, glorified the external symbols of kingship and authority. ʿEsāmī, with his Fotūḥ al-salāṭīn, composed in the Deccan in 750-51/1349-50, aspired to write the Shāh-nāma of India.
By the time of Amīr Ḵosrow’s death Persian was firmly established as the language of polite learning, diplomacy, and higher administration among the Muslims of the subcontinent. This success owed as much to the diffusion of the Sufi orders throughout northern India, especially during the 14th century, as to elite patronage of panegyric and belles lettres. The process had begun a century earlier, with the establishment of Moʿin-al-Dīn Češtī (q.v.; d. 633/1236) in Ajmer, Ḥamīd-al-Dīn Nāgawrī (d. 675/1276) in Rajasthan, and Qoṭb-al-Dīn Baḵtīār (d. 633/1235) in Delhi (Lawrence, pp. 20-44). From them flowed the great Češtī tradition in India, embodied in Qoṭb-al-Dīn’s disciple Farīd-al-Dīn Masʿūd “Ganj-e Šekar” (664/1265); the latter’s spiritual heir, Neẓām-al-Dīn Awlīāʾ (d. 725/1325), who counted the poets Amīr Ḵosrow Dehlavī and Amīr Ḥasan Sejzī (d. 729/1328) as his friends; and Awlīāʾ’s successor, Nāṣer-al-Dīn Maḥmūd “Čerāḡ-e Dehlī” (d. 757/1356). Other orders, notably the Sohravardīya and the Ferdowsīya, had established themselves after the Turkish invasions, the former chiefly in the Punjab, the latter in Bihar and Bengal (Lawrence, pp. 60-71, 72-79). At the time of Tīmūr’s invasion of Hindustan (800/1398-99) the leading disciple of Čerāḡ-e Dehlī, Moḥammad Ḥosaynī “Gīsū Derāz” (d. 825/1422), abandoned Delhi for the Deccan, where he established himself at Golbarga (Eaton, 1978, pp. 50-52). By that time, however, Sufis had spread far and wide through Muslim territory in India. Their propensity to preserve their conversations (malfūẓāt), letters (maktūbāt), and hagiology (taḏkera) in Persian did much to encourage dissemination of that language. Little survives from before the time of Awlīāʾ, but Sejzī’s Fawāʾed al-foʾād, in which Awlīāʾ’s table talk over about fifteen years is recorded, is perhaps the most important example of the malfūẓāt genre. Ḥamīd Qalandar, in his Ḵayr al-majles, attempted to do the same for Čerāḡ-e Dehlī but lacked his predecessor’s talents as a mystic and as a poet.
Sīar al-Awlīāʾ by Amīr Ḵord, though not properly a taḏkera, is in the taḏkeratradition, containing biographical notices on the early Češtīs, especially Awlīāʾ. Although Amīr Ḵord wrote during the reign of Fīrūz Shah Toḡloq, he had access to much older oral and probably written material that is now lost. Moḥammad-Akbar Ḥosaynī, the son of Gīsū Derāz, also composed a malfūẓāt of his father’s conversations, Jawāmeʿ al-kālem, which includes important material on earlier Češtī shaikhs. Other orders developed their own literary traditions, among which the Maktūbat-e ṣadī of the Ferdowsī shaikh Šaraf-al-Dīn b. Yaḥyā Manerī “Maḵdūm-al-Molk” (d. 782/1381) was particularly celebrated. Without such works and the spiritual dynamism of the Sufi orders that inspired them, it may be doubted that the Persian language and the Persian cultural ethos would have pervaded Hindustan so deeply during the sultanate period.
A painting of west gate of Firozabad fort, near Delhi. This fort was built by Feroz Shah Tughlaq in the 1350s but destroyed by later dynasties.
The Administration of the Delhi Sultanate :
The Delhi Sultanate was administrated and governed as per the laws stated in the holy Quran. This Quranic law was the supreme law of the empire. The Caliph was the supreme leader according to the Islamic theory. And all the Muslim rulers in the world were to be his subordinates.
1. Sultan – The head of the Sultanate :
The head of the administration of the Sultanate was the king or the Sultan himself. The Sultan was embodied with all the powers in his will and his will would be the law of the country. Since there was no principle of hereditary succession the Sultan had the power to nominate the heirs of his choice and they would be recognized by all other nobles.
All the Muslims were allowed in the Sultan’s office but that was only theoretically, in reality, the Sultanate was open only for the immigrant Turkes. In the later period, the Sultanate became even more restricted allowing only the members of the royal family.
Following the Islamic theory, the Sultans of Delhi were considered to be the messengers of Allah, i.e. God and it was their duty to enforce the laws stated in the Holy Quran.
2. Wazir or The Prime Minister :
The Wazir exercised the Sultan’s power and rules and regulations laid down by him. The Wazir appointed all the important officers of the state under the name of the Sultan. In the absence of the Sultan, it’s the Wazir who took care of everything.
He advised the Sultan in the matters of administration and always kept him updated about the sentiments and needs of his people. The Wazir handled all the financial matters; he was also the superintendent of the civil servants and commanded the military establishment. All the requirements of the army were to go through him.
3. The Army Master or Diwan-i-Ariz :
Diwan-i-Ariz controlled the military establishment. Diwan-i-Ariz recruited the troops for the army. The Sultan was the commander-in-chief of the army. He mostly looked after the discipline of the army and their equipment and their requirements on the battlefield that were then informed to the Wazir.
4. The minister for foreign affairs or Diwan-i-risalt :
He was the minister responsible for the foreign affairs and handled the diplomatic correspondences, the ambassadors, and the envoys received from the other rulers.
5. Minister of the department of religions or Sadr-us-Sudur :
The Sadr-us-Sudur was the minister who handled the religious department, endowment, and charity. He was to enforce the Islamic rules and regulations and it was his duty to ensure that all Muslims strictly followed these rules and regulations.
Economy :
The village during the Sultanate period remained as in the ancient period a self-contained unit of economic life. The cities flourished under the Sultans. The testimony of Ibn Battuta who visited the subcontinent in the first half of the fourteenth century shows that there were rich sea ports in Gujrat, Deccan and Bengal. There were also flourishing cities all over the subcontinent.
Agriculture: Throughout the sultanate period agriculture was in a prosperous condition. All the foreign travelers who visited the subcontinent during the period speak highly of the fertility of the soil which made it possible for the cultivators to grow two crops every year. Among grains and fruits wheat, barley, millet, peas, lentils, mangoes, jackfruits, black-berries, oranges, coconuts and bananas are mentionable. Malabar was noted for its spices, such as ginger and pepper. In Bengal Ibn Battuta passed through orchards which were similar to those along the banks of the Nile. Among the products of Bengal he mentions rice, millets, beans, ginger, mustard, onion, garlic, cucumber, egg-plant, coconut, betel nut, banana, jackfruit, pomegranate, sugarcane, and honey. There was also abundance of buffaloes, cows, sheep and domestic fowls.
Industries: The subcontinent was famous for various industries among which metal-work, sugar, indigo and paper were famous. The textile industry was the most flourishing as it is today although the variety of cloth was originally limited. Gujrat, Cambay, Malabar and Calicut were famous for their silk and cotton textiles which were exported to the Red Sea ports and Western Europe. Bengal was also famous for the volume and variety of fine textiles. Other factories included metal work industries and ivory products, etc. There were also several metal-work industries like sword-making and the manufacture of basins, cups, steel guns, knives and scissors.
Trade: The subcontinent had a long tradition of inland and foreign trade which was further developed after the arrival of the Muslims. The trading classes were Muslim in the north and banias of Gujrat. Foreign Muslim merchants called as Khurasanis also played an important role in handling the trade. Between the producers and traders there was a clan of brokers. There were also money-lenders and bankers known as mahajans who lent out money on interest. The imports consisted mainly of articles of luxury for the upper classes and supply of horses and mules. The exports on the other hand included numerous articles and commodities such as food, grains and clothes. Among agricultural products wheat, millet, rice, lentils, scents and medicinal herbs were exported in large quantities. From Bengal cotton and sugar were exported. Textiles both silk and cotton were important items of export.
Trade Relations: The area which depended most on supplies from the subcontinent included the islands in the Pacific Ocean, the Malayan islands and the east coast of Africa. Commodities from the subcontinent also reached European markets. The Arabs carried these articles to the Red Sea and thence to Damascus and Alexandria from where these were marketed in the Middle Eastern countries and Europe.
Revenue System :
The revenue system was in accordance with the Islamic theory and duly inherited from the Ghaznavids. It was, however, compatible to the local conditions of India. The state demand on agricultural produce was the main source of income. The general rate of the state demand was one-fifth of the income which was increased by Ala-ud-Din Khalji to one-half due to administrative reasons. Tax could be paid in both cash and kind. Village headmen helped the local officials in collection of taxes and received their commission. There were also tributary chiefs whose obligation to the state fluctuated in proportion to the strength of the central Government. Officials in far-flung areas were often paid in the form of assignments of the revenue accruing from certain areas called iqta. Among the other sources of income were import duties, the ghanimah (the spoils of war), the imposts on mines and treasure-troves and jaziyah, i.e., tax levied on non-Muslims in return of which they were provided assurance for security of life and property by the government. Contemporary historians do not make any mention about zakat but their silence denotes that zakat was voluntarily paid by Muslims as a religious duty. Fiqh-i-Firoz Shahi mentions a separate treasury for zakat.
Military System :
The army was administered by ariz-ul-mumalik. He was not the commander-in-chief but the controller-general. He exercised great influence over the state. His duties were to keep up the strength and the efficiency of the army and provide equipment, horses and ration. His office maintained the descriptive roll of each solider. He distributed salaries to the troops. Even the officers of the court who held military ranks received their salaries from his office. Cavalry was the most important part of army. Elephants also served in the army. To tackle with the Mongol army, a large standing army was concentrated in the centre. There were also paik (foot solders) but they were not as significant as cavalry. Gun powder was also used at the end of this period. A corps of engineers was maintained to act as sappers and miners. Every army had a corps of well-trained scouts and a unit of surgeons and ambulances. A large number of forts were built to make the defense strong.
‘The army of Alaudeen on March to Deccan’ , a 20th-century artist's impression.
Architecture under the Delhi Sultanate :
The early rulers of the Delhi Sultanate are often viewed as iconoclastic pillagers, best known for their indiscriminate destruction of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples. They enacted Islamic prohibitions of anthropomorphic representations in art, which had been common at the time. However, the fusion of indigenous and Muslim customs and styles under the Delhi Sultanate gave rise to the beginnings of Indo-Islamic art and architecture, which reached its zenith in later years under the Mughal emperors. The Sultanate’s greatest contribution to the fine arts of India lies in their advances in architecture.
The Qutb Minar and the Alai Darwaza: One of the earliest and best known of the Delhi Sultanate architectural monuments, and also the tallest minaret in India. Its accompanying gateway, the Alai Darwaza, bears the first surviving true dome in India.
The Qutb Minar :
Qutb-ud-din Aibak, the governor of Delhi and, subsequently, the first sultan of the Delhi Sultanate (ruling from 1206–1210 CE), started the construction of the Qutb Minar in 1192, which was completed after his death by his successor Iltutmish. Made of fluted red sandstone and marble, the Qutb Minar is the tallest minaret in India, standing at a height of 238 feet. It comprises several superposed flanged and cylindrical shafts , separated by balconies supported by Muqarnas corbels (an architectural ornamentation reminiscent of stalactites employed in traditional Islamic and Persian architecture). The walls of the minaret are covered with Indian floral motifs and verses from the Quran.
Religion :
Muslim dynasties rose and fell but Islam as a unifying force sustained the Muslims throughout these centuries. The ulema and sufis played a dominant role in the preservation of Islam. In the capital cities where the upper-class of Muslim society lived, ulema were the custodians of religion. Among the masses the Sufis worked most assiduously, generation after generation, to preserve the inner spirit of Islam and won thousands of converts from the indigenous communities. Islam in the subcontinent was, indeed, not spread by political power but through the missionary activities, as the heaviest concentration of Muslims in present Pakistan and Bangladesh (East Pakistan) was away from the influence of metropolitan cities of Delhi, Agra and Lahore. The saints of Islam excelled the Hindu priests and monks in piety, foresight and in every aspect of morality due to which Islam spread almost in every core and corner of the country. It were the sufis and saints of Islam who consummated the process of conquest, moral and spiritual, by establishing dargahs and khanqahs on the ruined sites of Hindus and Buddhist worship. By and by Hindus who had been venerating these sites gradually forgot their past and easily transferred their allegiance to the Muslim pirs and walis who were really paragons of compassion, courtesy and kindness. All the Sufis, pirs and walis who were the religious men of lofty character started coming to the Subcontinent in larger numbers in the wake of Muslim conquerors and some of them arrived even before the military and political conquests.
Judicial System :
Judiciary comprised four types of courts: diwan-i-mazalim (Court of complaints and justice), presided by the rulers or his representative known as Amir-i Dad; qazi courts; the courts of muhatasibs especially to deal with certain offences against religious ordinances. These courts gained more power and prestige under the Tughluqs and later under Aurangzeb; and the police (shurta) courts. Along with the system of dispensation of justice by the king or his representatives an important designation was that of qazi who dispensed with the civil disputes among Muslims. With diwan-i-siyasat the king, his military commander and expert jurists dealt with rebellion and treason.
There was a grass root networking of qazi (judges) on provincial and local level. Kotwal (head of the city police) also acted as a court of first instance of the criminal cases. The muhtasib was regarded as the upholder of the public morals and protector of the rights of the weak against the strong. He supervised the markets and inspected weights and measures.
Education :
Knowledge was highly advanced and endorsed in Sultanate era. The government took keen interest in the establishment of necessary institutions of learning. Education was common, free and widespread. Individual scholars and men of learning received stipends and rewards from the state so that they could carry on teaching in specialized branches of learning to students who flocked round them because of their erudition. For advanced students universities and colleges called madrissas were set up by sultans and munificent persons. Only the names of a few famous ones have come down to us. However, their extent can be easily gauged by the evidence of Ibn Battuta who found a thousand institutions of higher learning in the city of Delhi alone.
Literature :
Sultanate era witnessed the rise of Persian as the court language. The real credit of important developments that took place in the field of poetry, prose, biography, political & moralistic literature and historiography really goes to Sultans who were great patrons of learning and literature. The early men of letters followed trans-Indus tradition led by Sadid-ud-din Muhammad Aufi and Muhammad bin Mansur Quraishi generally known as Fakhr-i Mudabbir while indigenous tradition began to take shape with Amir Khusrau.
History: The Muslims introduced the art of historiography and made valuable contributions in the field of history. Fakhr-i Mudabbir, Hasan Nizami, Minhaj-us-Siraj, Afif, Khusrau, Yahya, Isami and Zia-ud-din Barani were the important historians who wrote in a distinguished style from their personal knowledge since they held high official positions and generally participated themselves in several events of the time. Barani though regarded as the historian with the most obvious bias is the most interesting amongst them. He wrote history as an artist and arranged his material without showing any monotony and emphasizing the characteristics o various rulers and reigns. Fakhr-i-Mudabbir was the author of Adab-ul-mumluk wa Kifaya-ul-Mamluk, (Rules of the Kings and the Welfare of the subjects) in which he seems to be distinguished scholar-statesman. In this book he has drawn not only the administrative pattern set up at Ghazni – following the models of Baghdad and Bukhara but also prescribed minutely the lines for the administrative and military organization of a Muslim state. Fakhr-i Mudabbir was really gifted with pratical idealism, moderation and good sense.
Poetry: Hasan was an important poet who wrote beautiful prose. His Faw’aid al-Fu’ad is considered as a literary classic of the period that is based upon Malfuzat or say the table talk of Nizam-ud-Din Auliya. Amir Khusrau wrote ghazals and masnawis which are among the finest in Persian literature. Celebrating the reign of Qutb-ud-din Mubarak Shah, Amir Khusrau wrote in Persian poetry Nuh Sipihr and challenged the poets of Iran, and eloquently sang of his native land, its flowers and learned people. Badr of Chach, a poet of repute flourished at the court of Muhammad-bin Tughluq.
Prose: Sadid-ud-din Muhammad Aufi wrote Lubab-ul-Albab, a collection of biographies of Persian poets, Jawami’ ul-hikayat, a great store-house of anecdotes and translated the famous collection of short stories entitled al-Faraj ba’d-ush-shiddat. Zia Nakhshabi wrote in simple and eloquent prose a romantic mathnavi Gulrez and Tuti Namah while his Silk-us-Suluk is well known in mystic circles. Summaries of Tuti Namah have been translated in Turkish, German, English and many Indian languages.
Sansikrit: Persian was not the only language that flourished in that era, as Sansikrit was also in its full bloom in which most of the Hindu religious and philosophical literature was produced. Under the patronization of the Muslim rulers ancient Hindu books Ramayana and Mahabharta were translated from Sansikrit into regional languages such as Bengali. During Sultanate era was the great revival of Jainism which produced teachers like Hemachandra Suri. There were numerous Jain writers of Sanskrit, some of whom were duly honored by Muslim Sultans like Muhammad Tughluq. In Kangra under the orders of Firuz Tughluq, Sanskrit books dealing with astronomy and music were translated into Persian with the help of Brahman scholars. Maladhar Vasu translated the Bhagavata into Bengali under the patronage of Sultan Hussain Shah. Among the early Hindi poets the most prominent was Chandbardai, the author of Prithvi Raja Rasan.
Jagaayak wrote Alhakhand which presents the picture of Rajput life in the 13th and 14th centuries. It was the age of Bhakti movement whose leaders used to write in Hindi. Kabir of Kabir Panthi sect wrote in Hindi which had great mass appeal. In South Marathi, Tamil and Telegu languages developed. Indeed the sultanate era was an age of remarkable literary renaissance.
Cultural Developments :
During the Sultanate era an exotic Indo-Muslim culture came into being which was the blend of Arabic, Turkish, Afghan, Persian, Central-Asian and Indian traditions. Initially, the conquests from Afghanistan culturally influenced the northern India as Lahore, which turned into a smaller Ghazni and later Delhi became the most significant cultural centre in the Muslim East. After the fall of Baghdad in 1258, Delhi became the most important cultural center of Muslim East. When the centers of learning in Central and Western Asia were devastated, Delhi turned out to be the bulwark of Muslim power. It generously afforded refuge to the talented Muslims who came in increasing numbers and added to the splendor of the court of Delhi. Balban had great regard for these distinguished refugees. The next reign was that of Ala-ud-din Khalji famous for patronage of men of letters. Muhammad Tughluq and Firuz Tughluq were also keen supporters of learning. The cultural life of the Sultanate received a fresh stimulus during the reign of Sikandar Lodhi. It was undoubtedly on the foundations laid by the sultans of Delhi that the great edifice of cultural development was erected by the Mughal rulers.
Medicine :
Muslims practiced and patronized the Indo-Muslim medicine popularly known as Yunani Tibb. Zia-ud-din Barani in his historical accounts mentions the names of important physicians of the time of Balban and Ala-ud-din Khalji. The most prominent among them were Maulana Badr-ud-din and Maulana Hamid Mutris, both from Damascus. They were teachers as well as practicing physicians. Barani also mentions Hindu physicians like Man Ghandra and Raja, the surgeon. Avicenna’s al-Qanun was an important text on medicine, as it had been throughout European medical colleges, in the entire sultanate era.
Works on Medicine :
Important works on medicine were written under the royal patronage. Muslim writers and practitioners drew upon both the foreign and indigenous sources. The earliest existing work on medicine was Majmu’ah-i-Zia’i written by Zia Muhammad during the reign of Muhammad Tughluq. Important books like the Tibb-i-Firuz Shahi and Rahat-ul-Insan were dedicated to Firuz Tughluq who built many hospitals for the public. In Kashmir, books on medicine entitled Kifayah-i-Mujahidiya and Tashrih-i-Mansuri were composed during the reign of Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin. During the reign of Sikandar Lodhi Tibb-i-Sikandari was written by his wazir, Mian Buhwah who was at liberty to draw on the works of ancient Hindu authors. This book remained the standard text book on medicine in the sub-continent for a long time.
Food :
The Muslim food in Sultanate era was predominantly Central-Asian. It has still endured for centuries in Muslim culture of sub-continent as so many dishes in India and Pakistan are Central-Asian. However, the olive oil was replaced by ghee. Dishes were simpler as compared to those of today. Even Turkish dishes like qormah, mutanjan and pula’u were not so common. A popular dish was sakba comprising various kinds of meats.
Ceremonies and Festivals :
Among the ceremonies the most important were those associated with ‘aqiqah, bismillah, circumcision, marriage and funeral. These were Muslim and Central Asian in form. Among the religious ceremonies pilgrimage to the shrines of saints particularly on the occasion of anniversaries called urs was common as it is even today. The two eids have always been great occasions for widespread rejoicing. Shab-i-barat was and is still observed by night vigil and display of fire-works. Besides these religious and social festivals the common people enjoyed witnessing royal cavalcades, coronations, and receptions with momentous rejoicing and marry making.
Games :
Among the games and pastimes chaugan (polo), riding, racing, hunting and archery were popular among the Muslim nobility and the upper classes. Indoor games like chess and back gammon were common. There were a class of jesters and buffoons to entertain the elite and the rich.
Major Achievements :
The Sultanate era was a unique epoch of Muslim achievements. Firstly, because a small minority which was just the ratio of one to thousands conquered, established control and administered the vast Indian land in a very brief period of time. Secondly, the young Sultanate dynasty successfully checked the Mongol attacks which had ruined older, stable empires from Central Asia to borders of Egypt and Crimea. Thirdly, the efficient system of administration proved to be the foundation for the great Mughal Empire. They built great buildings that motivate our aesthetic sense and inspire our imagination up till now. The era produced great men of letters, poets, musicians, artists, architects and craftsmen that added to the cultural richness of the subcontinent.
- The Delhi Sultanate’s greatest contribution to Indian fine arts , however, was the introduction of Islamic architectural features, including true domes and arches , and the integration of Indian and Islamic styles of architecture.
- Built by the first sultan of Delhi, the Qutb Minar is the tallest minaret in India, the walls of which are covered with Indian floral motifs and verses from the Quran.
- The Alai Darwaza is the main gateway on the southern side of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in the Qutb complex; built in 1311 CE, it features the earliest surviving true dome in India.
- There is little architecture remaining from the Sayyid and Lodi periods, but a few fine examples survive in the Lodi Gardens in Delhi, including the tomb of Mohammad Shah, the last sultan of the Sayyid Dynasty , built in 1444.
Mamluk/Slave Dynasty (1206–1290):
The concept of equality in Islam and Muslim traditions reached its climax in the history of South Asia when slaves were raised to the status of Sultan. The Slave Dynasty ruled the Sub-continent for about 84 years. Qutb-ud-din Aibak, Shams-ud-din Iltutmush and Ghiyas-ud-din Balban, the three great Sultans of the era, were themselves sold and purchased during their early lives. The Slave Dynasty was the first Muslim dynasty that ruled India.
Muhammad Ghuri had no son so he raised thousands of slaves like his sons. Ghuri had the habit to buy every talented slave he came across. He would then train them in the way royal children were trained. During Ghuri’s regime, slaves occupied all key positions in the government machinery. Three favorite slaves of the Sultan were Qutb-ud-din Aibak, Taj-ud-din Ildiz and Nasir-ud-din Qubachah. He appointed them governors of Delhi, Ghazni and Lahore, respectively. Ghuri never nominated his successor but it was obvious that the successor was to be one of his slaves.
When Ghuri died in 1206, the amirs elected Aibak as the new Sultan. Aibak first shifted his capital from Ghazni to Lahore and then from Lahore to Delhi. Thus he was the first Muslim ruler who ruled South Asia and had his headquarters in the region as well. Aibak could only rule for four years and died in 1210. He was succeeded by his son Aram Shah, who proved to be too incompetent to hold such an important position. The Turk nobles invited Iltutmush, one of the slaves and son-in-law of Aibak, to assume charge of the state affairs. Iltutmush ruled for around 26 years from 1211 to 1236 and was responsible for setting the Sultanate of Delhi on strong footings.
After the death of Iltutmush, a war of succession started between his children. First Rukn-ud-din Firuz sat on the throne for seven months. He was replaced by Razia Sultana. Another son of Iltutmush, Bahram, took over from Razia Sultana in 1239. Next, Masud, son of Rukn-ud-din Firuz, became Sultan from 1242 to 1245. Finally the youngest son of Iltutmush, Nasir-ud-din Mahmud became Sultan in 1245. Though Mahmud ruled India for around 20 years, but throughout his tenure the main power remained in the hands of Balban. On death of Mahmud, Balban directly took over the throne and ruled Delhi. During his rule from 1266 to 1287, Balban consolidated the administrative set up of the empire and completed the work started by Iltutmush.
Prince Muhammad, who was trained as the successor of Balban, was killed in one of the battles against Mongols during his fathers’ lifetime. This created a vacuum for a good successor and it was not possible for the incompetent rulers who followed Balban, to meet the administrative standards set by their predecessor. Balban was succeeded by his seventeen years old grandson, Kaiqubad. Kaiqubad started spending his wealth on pursuits of pleasure. The practical affairs of the government went into the hands of Malik Nizam-ud-din. Nizam-ud-din murdered all the nobles and princes who were against him. Later on, differences arose between Kaiqubad and Nizam-ud-din and Kaiqubad killed Nizam-ud-din. Kaiqubad suffered a stroke and was paralyzed. His nobles replaced him by his three years old son Kaimurs. On June 13, 1290, Firuz, a Khalji Malik and the Ariz-i-Mumalik appointed by Kaiqubad, took over the throne from the infant Sultan and declared his independence with the title of Jalal-ud-din Khalji. With this the rule of the Slave Dynasty came to an end.
The most important institution that developed under the Slave Dynasty was the institution of Chalgan or the Forty. Chalgan were a corps of highly placed and powerful officers, whom Iltutmush had organized as his personal supporters. They were like the cabinet for the Sultan. However, during the days of civil war between the successors of Iltutmush, the Chalgan started looking for their personal gains and played one prince against the other. During this era they became very strong. Each one of them started considering himself as the deputy of the Sultan. When Balban assumed charge as Sultan, he murdered some of them while others were banished from the kingdom. There is no doubt that by crushing their power, Balban strengthened his rule, but actually he destroyed the real power of the slave dynasty.
Qutbuddin Aibak (1206 – 1210):
The Early Turkish Empire, which lasted from 1206 to 1290 A.D. popularly known to the students of history as “The Slave Dynasty” and sometimes known as the Pathan or Afghan dynasty. It is generally believed that the dynasty derives its name from Qutbuddin who was originally a slave.
” No Slave ascended the throne unless he got manumission from his Master “
Qutbuddin Aibak got a letter of freedom from the nephew and successor of his royal Master.
The early Sultans of Delhi were Turks and not Afghans or Pathans. Qutbuddin Aibak was brought from Turkistan and sold to Qazi Fakharuddin of Nishapur. The author of the Nishat Namah says, ” No slave bought at a price has ever become a king except among the Turks.” The accession of Qutbuddin to the throne of Delhi, has established this fact that Islam makes no distinction between master and servant.
Sultan Muhammad Ghuri had left no male issue and so his empire was divided among his Turkish slaves who were trained up in the art of warfare and administration.
Of all the slaves of Muhammad Ghuri, Qutbuddin Aibak played the most important role in the history of Indo-Pakistan. Qutbuddin was purchased early by Qazi Fakhruddin Kufi of Nishapur who gave him the best education and most efficient training.
Out of Ghuri’s thousands of slaves, Aibak, because of his character and qualities, became one of his master’s favorite. Aibak steadily rose through the ranks and eventually became a General. Like his owner Ghuri, Aibak performed his greatest deeds while still a subordinate. He was responsible for most of the conquests of Northern India and was appointed as Ghuri’s Viceroy to Delhi. When Ghuri died in 1206, the Turkish Amirs and Generals elected Aibak as the new Sultan. It was he who shifted the capital first from Ghazni to Lahore, and then from Lahore to Delhi, and thus is considered as the first Muslim ruler of South Asia.
After the death of his master, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak came to power and celebrated his crown in Lahore with the title of Sultan. Hearing this news, Taj-ud-Din Yalduz, the ruler of Ghazna revolted against him and marched towards Punjab which resulted in the capture of Lahore by Yaldus. Sultan Aibak met Yalduz and forced him to retreat and made Lahore his capital after regaining it. Other generals of Mohammad of Gaur also claimed the throne. Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha stood against Aibak whereas Ali Mardan raised a voice against him in Bengal. Instead of opening war on all the fronts, Aibak adopted a reconciliatory policy to pacify the insurgents. He married the daughter of Yalduz and wedded his own daughter to Shams-ud-Din Altumish and second daughter to Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha. These political “kinships” brought about the message of peace for him from these adversaries.
The reign of Qutb-ud-Din Aibak :
Aibak ruled only for four years after the death of his master Shahab-ud-Din Ghauri. But his administrative qualities can be seen in the life of Ghauri who showered his favors on him due to his valor and loyalty. He was declared as prince crown of the empire by the Sultan in 1205 AD when the later was killed on the bank of River Indus. Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid and Qutab Minar in Delhi (built in the commemoration of Khawaja Bakhtiyar Kaki, a famous Sufi saint of his time and which was completed by his successor), and Adhay Din ka Jhonpra Mosque at Ajmer are the remarkable monuments of Qutb-ud-Din Aibak. Being a man of good taste, he patronized the writers like Fakhruddin, the author of Tarikh-e-Mubarak Shahi and Hasan Nizami, the writer of Taj-ul-Muasir. It is surprising that he had to meet no military power in his reign partly because his tenure was too short and partly due to his reconciliatory policy towards his opponents especially Taj-ud-Din Yalduz who was the strongest rival. Qutb-ud-Din Aibak died in 1210 AD when, playing polo, he fell down from the horse and died of the subsequent wounds. His tomb lies in Anarkali Bazar of Lahore.
Career of Qutb-ud-din :
Qutb-ud-din Aibak was born of Turkish parents in Turkistan. He was sold as a slave in his childhood and after passing through few hands was purchased by Sultan Muhammad of Ghur. Very soon he drew the attention of his master by his talent and superb swordsmanship. He was offered with several responsible posts gradually. He was very faithful to his master Muhammad Ghori and was with him throughout his Indian campaigns.
Owing to his meritorious services, he was assigned with the charge of his Indian conquests after the second battle of Tarain in 1192 A.D. It was Qutb-ud-din who consolidated and extended his conquests in India. In 1206 A.D., Qutb-ud-din was formally invested with viceregal powers and promoted to the rank of Malik by Sultan Muhammad of Ghur.
After the death of Muhammad, the people of Lahore invited Qutb-ud-din to ascend the throne. The title of Sultan was conferred upon him later on by Ghiyas-ud-din, the Sultan of Ghur. Of course formal letter of manumission was not granted to him. Though he did not struck coins or read the khutba in his name but remained as the defacto Sultan of his master’s territories in India.
Qutb-ud-din as a Sultan :
Qutb-ud-din ascended the throne of Delhi in A.D. 1206 and became the first Turkish Sultan of Delhi. But, the throne of Delhi was not a bed of roses for him. He had to face many challenges from in and outside the country. He could not depend on the loyalty of all his Turkish officers who were jealous of him. The Rajput’s, on the other hand though vanquished in north India were eagerly waiting for a possible opportunity to strike.
Moreover, he had to face strongest opposition from Taj-ud-din Yeldoz and Nasir-ud-din Qubacha, the two more contenders for the throne of Delhi. Yeldoz was the ruler of Ghazni and Qubacha was of Uch and both had matrimonial relations with Qutb-ud-din. Yeldoz was his father-in-law and Qubacha was his brother-in-law as he had married one sister of Qutb-ud-din.
Besides, there were two more contenders also for the throne of Delhi. They were nobles like Baha-ud-din Tughril Khan and Bakhtiyar Khalji but to the good fortune of Qutb-ud-din they were dead by then. According to historians like Professor K.A. Nizami, this was due to the weak position of Qutb-ud-din over the throne of Delhi as Muhammad of Ghur did not decide anything about his succession in India before his death; therefore each of his governors and lieutenants was left free to decide his own course of action.
This may be a fact but as the struggle for supremacy was the order of the time, the question of legal sanction behind the throne of Delhi has nothing to do with that. Besides, there was another great danger for him from outside. Khwarizm Shah Ala-ud-din Muhammad, the ruler of persia had desired to capture Ghazni and Delhi.
His Achievements :
In the face of these difficulties, Qutb-ud-din stood with determination. After all he himself was a gifted soldier and a great military leader. He decided to keep himself free from the policies of Central Asia. He had to move with caution. He first strengthened his position in Delhi and Lahore. He tried to persuade some Turkish nobles to accept his subordination. He gave his sister in marriage to Qabacha and his daughter to Iltutmish and secured their support. Yeldoz who was his father-in-law did not accept his claim over Delhi. In the meanwhile an interesting situation arose which went in favour of Qutb-ud-din.
Yeldoz who was the ruler of Ghazni, was pressurized by Khwarizm Shah to leave the throne of Ghazni. Yeldoz had no way out. He left Ghazni and proceeded towards Punjab. Qutb-ud-din faced him and forced him to return back. Qutb-ud-din even occupied Ghazni but was forced to leave it after forty days when Yeldoz reached back there. But he did not allow Yeldoz to occupy any Indian territories further.
Qutb-ud-din had to face some internal problems as well. Ali Mardan Khan, the ruler of Bengal and Bihar was dethroned and imprisoned by some Khalji nobles and they had offered the throne to Muhammad Sheran who had promised to rule Bengal independently. However, Ali Mardan escaped from prison, reached Delhi and requested Qutb-ud-din to interfere in the affairs of Bengal.
Qutb-ud-din accepted his prayer and deputed Qaiwaz Rumi Khan, a noble to settle the matter. Rumi Khan used both force and diplomacy to win over the Khalji nobles of Bengal. He convinced them to accept Ali Mardan as the governor of Bengal under the Suzerainty of Delhi. Thus, finally, Ali Mardan became the governor of Bengal and agreed to pay annual tribute to Qutb-ud-din.
However Qutb-ud-din could not pursue the policy of extension of his kingdom. He remained busy in defending his independent position. The affairs in the north-west and Bengal in the east were his primary concerns. That is why mostly he remained at Lahore instead of Delhi. But he could not live long. While playing polo, he fell from his horse and shortly died in 1210 A.D.
A modern artist's impression of the accident that caused Aibak's death
Estimate of Qutb-ud-din :
Qutb-ud-din Aibak was the real founder of Turkish rule in India. He was the key man behind Muhammad’s success in India. After the death of Sultan Muhammad, he” consolidated his Indian conquests by adding some more victories to his credit. He established his supremacy over his Turkish nobles by following a policy of war and diplomacy. He succeeded in putting down Yeldoz and Qubacha, the two contenders for the throne of Delhi.
Qutb-ud-din rose to a high position from the life of a slave. He proved to be the most capable slave among the slaves of Sultan Muhammad. He was a self-made man who rose to the status of Sultan by his own merit and services. He possessed the qualities of both head and heart. He had the good qualities of loyality, generosity, courage and sense of justice.
He was a good diplomat and possessed practical wisdom. He saved the infant Turkish kingdom by following a policy of war and diplomacy. He was also a seasoned soldier and a military leader of high ability. As an individual he was both generous and cruel. But he was not a good administrator as he ruled the country as a military jagir which lacked the elements of stability.
He was intolerant in the matters of religion. He had destroyed some Hindu Temples and had constructed mosques out of the materials of the temples. However he had left his tasks unfinished as he died shortly in 1210 and perhaps could not provide stability to his rule. He also could not make Delhi entirely free from the coveted eyes of Yeldoz and other Turkish nobles. These tasks were completed by Iltutmish, his son-in-law and successor. But he had paved the way for the independence of Delhi and had claimed to be the founder of Turkish rule in India.
Death :
Aibak could not rule for long and died in 1210 after falling from a horse while playing polo. He is buried near the Anarkali Bazaar in Lahore, where a new tomb was constructed over his grave around 1970.
Though his tenure as a ruler was only four years, and most of them were spend in dealing with the revolts of nobles like Taj-ud-din Ildiz, Nasir-ud-din Qubachah and a few Hindu chiefs, yet he established a firm administrative system. He restored peace and prosperity in the area under him and roads were free from thieves and robbers. He started the construction of Quwaat-al-Islam Mosque at Delhi. He also laid the foundation of the Qutb Minar, which was completed by his successor Iltutmush. Aibak was known as Lakh Baksh because of his generosity. He was also a pious Muslim. Historians have praised his evenhanded justice. He patronized Nizami and Fakh-i-Mudabbir, both of whom dedicated their works to Aibak. His successors, who ruled India till 1290, were also slaves like him and the dynasty is known as the Slave Dynasty.
Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish (1211 – 1236) :
Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish ascended the throne of Delhi in 1211. He belonged to the reowned Ilbari tribe in Turkistan. His intelligence, sagacity and handsome appearance excited the jealousy of his brothers who sold him into slavery in infancy.
Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish received his early education and training in the cultured family of the Cheif Justice of Bokhara. Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish had helped Sultan Muhammad Ghuri in quelling there billion of the turbulent Khokhar tribe of the punjab and in recognition of his service he was manumitted by his master at the Sultan’s order.
Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish found himself confronted with innumerable dangers and difficulties. He had to fight against Tajuddin Yalduz, the ruler of Ghazni, and Nasiruddin Qubacha of Sind, who were asserting their independence.
The hereditary succession of Aram Shah was refused by the Turkish nobility of Delhi, as he was an incompetent and unpopular ruler. Iltutmish was invited from Badaun to assume the leadership of Sultanate. Aram Shah refused to abdicate but was defeated and deposed by Iltutmish in 1211. Iltutmish was the real founder of the Delhi Sultanate. He made Delhi his seat of governance in preference to Lahore and proved to be a strong and capable ruler who enjoyed a long reign of twenty- six years. When Iltutmish ascended the throne, the country was full of rivals and hostile chiefs, and the rebellious nobles and the vanquished Rajas and Ranas were threatening the existence of the Sultanate of Delhi. The situation was better handled by Iltutmish and his foresight energy and military skill, proved himself equal to the situation. He suppressed the rebellious nobles with an iron hand,crushed the power of the rivals like Yildiz and Qabacha and recovered the lost provinces. He secured the Sultanate of Delhi diplomatically from the Mongol invasion by warding off their invasion. He not only saved the empire and rescued his people from danger, but also added the provinces of Malwa and Sind to the dominions of has master. In consideration of his contribution to the growth of Muslim rule in India, Iltutmish may rightly be called the real founder of the Sultanate of Delhi. The contribution of Iltutmish to the monetary system of the Sultanate was very great. It was he who introduced the Silver Tanka and the Copper Jital, the two basic coins of the Sultanate period. Besides, he was a builder as well as a conqueror and an administrator, and left monuments both at Delhi and Ajmer displaying his taste in architecture. Iltutmish was a pious Muslim. However, he was intolerant towards the Shias. His treatment of Hindus was also not enlightened. He continued to persecute them. In short, his reign was thus a perpetual series of efforts towards the expansion of an originally small territory. In 1235, Iltutmish made an attempt to bring the Khokhars under his subjugation, but the Khokhars showed no signs of appeasement.
Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish took a strong action against those Qutbi nobles who had revolted against him and refused to recognize his sovereignty. Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish was obliged to wage war against Yalduz. Yalduz was defeated in the field of Tarain (1216).
After the overthrow of Yalduz, Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish take action against Nasiruddin Qubacha who had occupied Lahore. Nasiruddin Qubacha was repelled from that city by Iltutmish in 1217 and his power was finally crushed in 1228.
Exhausted by continuous warfare, Iltutmish fell sick, returned to Delhi and breathed his last in April, 1236. He was buried in the magnificent tomb which he had got constructed for himself in Delhi.
Early Career :
Iltutmish’s full name was Shams-ud-din Iltutmish and was born in a Turkish family in Central Asia. His family belonged to the Ilbari tribe of the Turks. He was handsome and intelligent and loved by his parents. His brothers being envious had sold him as a slave to a slave merchant named Jamal-ud-din. He took him to Delhi and sold him again to Qutb-uddin-Aibak.
He received training as a soldier and learnt reading and writing as well. Very soon he proved his talent and became a great warrior. It is said that Muhammad of Ghur was much impressed and recommended him to Qutb-uddin-Aibak in these words: Treat Iltutmish well, for he will distinguish himself. His words become true. Under Aibak, Iltutmish rose from position to position and just before his Sultan-ship he was the governor of Badaun. Aibak made him his son-in-law by giving him his daughter in marriage. However with a stroke of good fortune and hard work he became the Sultan of Delhi and ascended the throne in 1211 A.D. after the death of his great master.
His Early Difficulties :
Iltutmish ascended the throne of Delhi at a time of crises. The difficulties which his master Aibak had faced were not yet over. Therefore, he did not find the throne a bed of roses. He had to face a number of difficulties at home and from outside. After Aram Shah there were dangerous rivals like Taj-ud-din Yeldoz of Ghazni and Nassiruddin Qubacha of Uch’s upper Sind & Multan.
Yeldoz reasserted his sovereign power over Hindustan and treated Iltutmish as his vassal. Qubacha, the governor of Multan had marched upto Lahore by declaring his independence. Ali Mardan, the governor of Bengal and Bihar had declared his independence immediately after the death of Qutb-uddin.
The Rajput states like Ranthambhor, Jalor, Ajmer, Gwalior and others had stopped paying tributes and also had declared their independence. Thus the Sultanate of Delhi was in a precarious position when Iltutmish ascended the throne. It looked like almost non-existent. But Iltutmish was a man of high courage and determination. He accepted the challenge and faced the problems bravely.
Defeat of Yeldoz :
The most formidable enemy of Iltutmish was Taj-ud-din Yeldoz of Ghazni. At first owing to internal problems he did not like to direct conflict with Yeldoz. He admitted him as his-overlord and remained in his book for some time. After Aram Shah issue was over, he made preparations to face Yeldoz. In the mean while Yeldoz was defeated by Khwarizm Shah and fled to India. In India, Yeldoz defeated and drove Qubacha and occupied Lahore and Punjab. According to Ferishta, he succeeded in occupying the Punjab upto Thaneswar.
Iltutmish considering it as the right time attacked Yeldoz and a battle between the two took place in the historic battle field of Tarain in 1215 A.D. Yeldoz was defeated and put to death. With this all connections with Ghazni were cut off and Iltutmish felt more secured. But he did not attack Qubacha and allowed him to rule over Multan. Punjab only came to the occupation of Iltutmish.
The Mongol Invasion :
During the reign of Iltutmish, the greatest danger to the country was the possible invasion of Mongols under the leadership of Chengiz Khan. It was in 1221 A.D., Chengiz Khan; the Mongol hero appeared at the border of India by following Jalal-ud-din Mangbarni, the defeated Shah of Khwarizm empire. Mangabarni fled into Punjab, took shelter there by making a matrimonial alliance with the khokhar chief of Punjab. Chengiz Khan on the other hand halted on the bank of the river Indus and observed the activities of Mangabarni. He also sent a message to Iltutmish not to give shelter to Mangabarni.
Mangbarni proceeded towards Lahore and sent an envoy to Iltutmish with an appeal for help and shelter. Iltutmish was a very wise and clever ruler and he knew this would provoke Chengiz Khan and as a result the country would face a great Mongol invasion. So he refused to give any help or shelter to Mangbarni and requested to withdraw from the Punjab.
So he diverted his attention and proceeded towards Multan and inflicted a crushing defeat upon Qubacha. This attitude of Iltutmish perhaps gave satisfaction to Chengiz Khan who withdrew instead of invading India. And due to this wise policy of Iltutmish, not only Delhi was saved from Mongol raids but also Qubacha was punished by Mangbarni.
Defeat of Qubacha :
Nasir-ud-din Qubacha was another formidable enemy of Iltutmish. But by the time his power had been reduced due to the reverses. He was severely suffered by the attack of Yeldoz and Mangabarni one after another within a very short period. After the attack of Mangabarni, Qubacha was almost ruined. Iltutmish, thought it the right time to attack and finish Qubacha once for all.
For this purpose, he sent two armies, one from Lahore to attack Multan and the other from Delhi to invade Uch. During the capture of Uch, Qabacha being defeated took shelter in the fort of Bhakkar which was besieged by the Delhi Army. At last finding no way out, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the river Indus. As a result Sind and Multan were annexed to the empire of Delhi Sultanate.
Suppression of Revolt in Bengal :
Bengal another distant province in the east was under the authority of Delhi Sultan during the reign of Qutb-ud-din Aibak. But she had declared her independence soon after the death of Aibak. Iltutmish on the other hand was busy in the Frontier provinces in west and had no time to divert his attention to Bengal. But soon after the completion of his work in the west with the death of Qubacha, he thought of invading Bengal.
By then the ruler of Bengal was Sultan Ghiyasud-din. Iltutmish sent an expedition against Bengal and himself followed the same. Sultan Ghiyasuddin submitted without any fighting recognised the suzerainty of Delhi and agreed to pay the annual tribute. But within a very short period of this Glriyasuddin again revolted and declared Bengal independent.
This time Iltutmish by sending an Expedition to Bengal defeated and killed Sultan Ghiyasuddin. He appointed his son Nasir-ud-din Muhmud as the governor of Bengal. After Nasirud-din’s departure there was again another rebellion in Bengal under the leadership of Balka Khalji. This was in 1230 A.D., Iltutmish proceeded to Bengal in person defeated and killed Balkha Khalji and Bengal was annexed to Delhi Empire.
The Conquest of Rajput Kingdoms :
After the death of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, the Rajput states had declared their independence. Iltutmish, as he was busy in northwestern frontier had no time to pay his attention to the Revolts of Rajput states. The Rajput Kingdoms such as Ranthambhor, Jalor, Mander Kalinjar, Gwalior, Ajmer, Bayana, Thangir and many other had raised the standard of rebellion and put an end to the Turkish supremacy. Iltutmish dealt with them one after another and re-annexed those states.
Investiture of Khalifa :
Iltutmish was the first Sultan of Delhi, who received the Investiture of Khalifa. In 1229 A.D. the Khalifa of Baghdad, A1 Mustansir Billah, bestowed on Iltutmish the titles of “Sultan-i- Azam” or the Sultan the great and “Nasir-amir-al-Mommin” or the Deputy of the leader of faithful. This investiture not only guaranteed his right to the throne but also increased his power and prestige in the Muslim world. As a mark of commemoration of this event, Iltutmish introduced a coin inscribing his name thereon as the representative of Khalifa. This was a great achievement of his life.
Some other Conquests of Iltutmish :
Iltutmish is said to have conquered some more kingdoms such as Ajmer, and Gwaliar which were left unconquered during his campaign against Rajput states. Kanauj and Benaras were reoccupied in 1231 A.D. In 1239 A.D. he annexed Malwa and Ujjain to his empire. As a result, Iltutmish made the Turkish empire in India as vast as it was during the time of Aibak.
Extent of Delhi Sultanate under Iltutmish
Administration :
Iltutmish occupies the most prominent place among the Turk Ilbari sultans. In his 20 years’ rule, he not only pacified the military upraises against him but also expanded his empire from Sindh, Ranthambor, and Malwa to Nirbada. “The Forty” were the forty slaves of Iltutmish who were elevated from slavery to the high-profile ranks in his court. One of these Negro slaves, Jalal-ud-Din was bestowed with extraordinary favors of the Sultan and was promoted to the office of Amir-ul-Umara (chief of the chiefs). Their influential role excited the envy of the provincial governors plotted against them in the days to come. He is accredited for his coinage in silver and copper called Taanka and Jital respectively. He also introduced Iqtadari system which was the division of the empire into small parts to grant salaries of the officials.
Architecture :
Qutab minar was finished in the age of Iltutmish. Haud-e-Shamsi, Jamea Masjid Qutabi, and Mehrabi Jali are the notable constructions in his age.
His Last Days and Death:
Iltutmish fell ill in 1235 A.D. due to continuous military operations. During his last expedition against Bayana, he was attacked by severe illness and was brought to Delhi immediately for treatment. But he could not recover from such illness and struggling with life for about a year he breathed his last 1236. With his death the country lost a great ruler and also there came to an end the long twenty-five years glorious reign of Delhi Sultanate.
His devoutness and piety have been quoted by the chroniclers who call him a saint. When Khawaja Qutab-ud-Din Bakhiyar Kaki, a famous Sufi of his day died, no one was eligible to lead his Namaz-e-Janaza (the funeral prayer) because according to the will of Bakhtiyar Kaki, it should be led only one who had never missed the four “Sunnah of the Asr Prayer” and had never committed Zina (rape) in his life. After waiting sometimes, Shams-ud-Din Iltutmish stepped ahead and led the funeral prayer of the saint. He was succeeded by his sons and the universally famous daughter Razia Sultan in the later years.
Character and Achievements of Iltutmish :
“The history of Muslim sovereignty in India, properly speaking, begins with Iltutmish. It was he who gave the country a capital, an independent state, a monarchical form of government and a governing class. Among his other achievements, beautification of the city of Delhi as well as execution of a better administration in the country were important”
Iltutmish has occupied a place among the outstanding rulers of Medieval India. From the life of a slave he rose to the status of the Sultan of Delhi by his talent, meritorious services and good luck. When he ascended the throne, the Sultanate of Delhi was almost non-existent as most of the states under the Sultanate had declared their independence and the politics at Delhi had plunged into crises. But as he was a brave soldier and shrewd statesman, he could easily save the Sultanate from the impending dangers.
He destroyed the powers of Yeldoz and Qubacha and made his position safe on the throne of Delhi. He saved the country from a great Mongol invasion by adopting wise policy and not allowing the enemy of Chengiz Khan to take shelter at Delhi. After making his position safe at Delhi, he made a series of campaigns against Rajput States and the ruler of Bengal and Bihar and annexed those kingdoms to the empire of Delhi Sultanate. As a result of his conquests and annexation, the Turkish empire of Delhi became vast and the political unity of the country was achieved.
He decorated the city of Delhi with construction of mosques and the famous Qutub Minar. He also invited scholars, Muslim saints, artists and artisans to Delhi to make the city developed both culturally and industrially. Iltutmish trained a band of good slaves numbering forty and placed them in responsible posts for better and efficient administration. He is said to have introduced new silver and copper currency which were two basic coins of the sultanate period. He was very much religious in his personal life and observed the Islamic rites with a sense of respect and devotion.
His greatest achievement was the grant of Investiture by Khalifa to him. This not only gave a guarantee to his right to throne of Delhi but also made him one of the prestigious men in the Muslim world. However, he was intolerant towards the Hindus. He destroyed some famous Hindu Temples like Mahakala Temple of Ujjain and hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindus. But his deeds for the establishment of Muslim rule in India have made him the founder of Delhi Sultanate.
Razia Sultana (1236 − 1240) :
Daughter of Iltutmush, Razia Sultana was the first female Muslim ruler of South Asia. She was a talented, wise, just and generous woman. She was a great administrator and was well versed in governmental affairs. She was not only a good leader in the battlefield but herself was also an excellent fighter. As the most capable son of Iltutmush died during his own life, and the rest were incompetent to govern, Iltutmush nominated his daughter, Razia Sultana, as his successor on the throne of Delhi. Whenever Iltutmush had to leave his capital, he used to leave Razia Sultana in charge of the affairs in Delhi. But when Iltutmush died, Rukn-ud-din Firuz, one of his sons, occupied the throne and ruled for about seven months. Razia Sultana, with the support of the people of Delhi, secured the throne after defeating her brother in 1236.
Razia Sultana established complete law and order in her country. To rule the country, she abandoned her femininity and adopted a masculine getup. She used to dress as a man when appearing in public, be it in court or on the battlefield. She made an Ethiopian slave named Jalal-ud-din Yaqut her personal attendant and started trusting him the most. This challenged the monopoly of power claimed by the Turkish nobles.
The Turkish nobles resented having a woman as their ruler, especially when she started challenging their power. They began conspiring against her. In 1239, the Turkish governor of Lahore rebelled against Razia Sultana. However, when she marched against him, he first fled and then apologized. Then the governor of Bhatinda revolted. When Razia Sultana was trying to suppress the rebellion in Bhatinda, her own Turkish officers deposed her from the throne of Delhi and made her brother Bahram the Sultan. Razia Sultana married the governor of Bhatinda, Malik Altunia, and with his help tried to reoccupy the throne. She was defeated by the Turkish nobles and was compelled to flee away. A peasant who had offered her food and shelter while fleeing from an encounter killed her in her sleep. She died in 1240.
Detailed History :
Islam liberated men and women from the shackles of slavery and made them masters of the world. The history of the Mamlukes illustrates this observation. In the 9th and 10th centuries, there was a brisk slave trade down the Volga River, near the Caspian Sea. The Vikings raided Europe with unrelenting ferocity in search of booty and slaves. Eastern Europe, fossilized as it was between local fiefdoms, was a particular target of these raids. Men, women and children were captured in northern and eastern Europe, brought down the Volga River and sold to Muslim and Jewish merchants. Ibn Fadlun gives a graphic picture of the deplorable conditions in the Viking slave ships.
The root word in Arabic for Mamluke is m-l-k (malaka, to own). The European slaves were in great demand in Muslim courts because the men made excellent soldiers and the women were sought for their fair skin. Young Mamluke men were trained in special camps as bodyguards, taught the precepts of Islam and inducted into the army. The Spanish court of Cordoba as well as the Fatimid court in Cairo employed Mamluke bodyguards. However, it was with the rise of the Turks that the Mamlukes came into their own. The Turks displaced the Arabs and the Persians from the centers of power in Asia during the 9th and 10th centuries and became kingmakers. As the Mamlukes were inducted into the armies and the Turks dominated the armed forces, the slaves came to be referred to as Mamluke Turks. Some of the slaves were from Turkish tribes (prior to their conversion to Islam) in which case there was both an affinity of blood with their Turkish owners as well as an affinity of profession.
According to the Shariah, a Muslim may not hold another Muslim as a slave. Therefore, as the Mamlukes became Muslim, they became free men and women, with full privileges accorded to all believers. In an age when the path to kingship led through the army, the Mamlukes were not only great soldiers but were in close proximity to the center of power. Through their exploits they rose through the court ranks, married the daughters of the sultans and themselves became kings and sultans. Islam had taken them from the slave ships of the Vikings to the luxurious thrones of Asia and Africa. It was from the ranks of these Mamlukes that the 13th century dynasties of India and Egypt emerged.
Razia was the daughter of Altumish, a Mamluke who was a slave of Qutbuddin Aibak, Turkish sultan of Delhi. Altumish demonstrated such extraordinary abilities as a soldier that he was rapidly promoted to be a general officer in the army. Qutbuddin gave his own daughter in marriage to Altumish. After the death of his father-in-law, Altumish ascended the throne of Delhi (1211). He proved himself to be not only a first class soldier but an outstanding statesman as well. When Genghiz Khan descended upon Central Asia (1219), Altumish kept him out of India through consummate diplomacy and a determined military posture. Delhi and Lahore were saved from the ravages of the Mongols. Altumish had three sons and one daughter, Razia. The sons proved to be incompetent, more interested in wine and song than in the affairs of the state. Altumish therefore nominated his daughter to be his successor, against the advice of some of his courtiers and kadis. In accordance with her father’s wishes, Razia ascended the throne of Hindustan in the year 1236.
Altumish was an exceptional monarch not only because he rose from being a slave to become the sultan of one of the most powerful dynasties of the age, but because he broke with tradition and nominated his daughter as his heir-apparent in recognition of her merit and ability over his sons who were incompetent. Razia immediately faced a challenge from her brother Ruknuddin who had killed his own brother to intimidate Razia and force her to abdicate. Razia, a consummate politician, went public and in the Jamia Masjid of Delhi, appealed to the general populace for justice. The common folk displayed their intrinsic love of fair play. Ruknuddin was arrested for the murder of his own brother, tried before a Shariah court and executed.
Razia wasted no time in establishing her authority as the sovereign of Hindustan. She ordered coins minted in her name as “Pillar of women, Queen of the times, Sultana Razia, daughter of Shamsuddin Altumish”. The juma’a khutba was read in her name. However, her authority was not legitimate until the Caliph in Baghdad accepted it. Even though he had lost all of his dominions in Asia to the Mongols, the Caliph was still the spiritual and titular head of Sunni Islam and he carried the title of Emir ul Momineen (leader of the believers). Only he could bestow legitimacy upon a sultan. Razia, a Turk and a Sunni, declared her allegiance to the Abbasid Caliph with the following proclamation: “In the time of Imam al Mustansir, Emir ul Momineen, Malika Altumish, daughter of Sultan Altumish, she who increases the glory of Emir ul Momineen”. The Caliph recognized her as the “Malika” of Delhi (1237), in part because he needed a Sunni bulwark to the east of the vast territories now controlled by the Mongols, who were closing in on Baghdad itself.
A great deal of information about Sultana Razia has come down to us through the writings of Ibn Batuta, one of the greatest world travelers, who visited and lived in India (1335-1340) a hundred years after Razia. According to him, Razia rode the horse into battle dressed like a soldier, administered justice, conquered new territories and presided over the affairs of state. But the jealousy of men knows no bounds. To the Turkish generals and noblemen, the ascension of a woman to the throne was a difficult pill to swallow. Razia was young, beautiful and unmarried. Many of the noblemen made marriage proposals to her. She spurned these proposals. Instead, she fell in love with an African slave of the court, Jamaluddin Yaqut, who was the keeper of the royal stables. The rumor mill of Delhi, fanned by the jealousy of spurned and disappointed generals, went to work. Her case was brought before the kadis of Delhi. Accusations were made that she had gotten too close to a man. The kadisruled that Razia had violated the Shariah and should therefore step down, get married and retire behind the veil. They nominated a Turkish general Altuniya as her successor. Undaunted, Razia marched out of Delhi Fort to meet the general in battle. As fate would have it, she was defeated and was taken prisoner. Razia was not only a splendid monarch; she was also a beautiful young woman. The victorious Altuniya fell in love with his prisoner and married her. The two advanced together towards Delhi to recapture the city that was hers as her father’s legacy. Unfortunately, once again, the combined forces of Razia and Altuniya suffered defeat. Razia fled the battlefield. Exhausted and hungry, she took refuge in a farmer’s hut. As she slept, the farmer noticed that his guest, who was dressed like a man, wore a garment embroidered in gold. He killed her in her sleep but was caught by the townspeople as he tried to sell the gold ornaments.
In an obscure lot in the old city of Delhi lies buried this stalwart lady. The alleys to her tomb lead a visitor through decrepit buildings and nauseous open gutters. A simple inscription marks the entrance to her tomb, hidden from the gully. Encroachments have all but consumed the site, blocking the sun from her wistful tomb. Her husband Altuniya lies by her side and the graves of two infants of unknown origin lie near their feet. Such is the fate history has accorded to one of the most celebrated women the world has known.
Ibn Batuta records how the common folks venerated their queen. By the year 1335, when Ibn Batuta visited Delhi, her grave had become a venerated tomb and a place of pilgrimage. A beautiful mausoleum with a dome had been erected on her grave. India was by now a land influenced by Sufi movements and Razia had become a saint. No wonder!
Razia had triumphed in her tragedy. She had changed history. The common man and woman saw in her one of their own who rose from being the daughter of a slave to becoming the first Muslim queen of one of the most powerful empires in the world. She rose like a star and like a meteorite she fell, illuminating the world both in her rise and in her fall. She demonstrated in her brilliance that a woman could be the head of a Muslim state, in spite of the constraints put upon her by tradition and custom. Women throughout the ages would invoke her name in defense of their rights and her name would forever be inscribed indelibly in the lyrics and folklore of the vast subcontinent of India and Pakistan and in the languages of distant lands in all continents.
Childhood & Early Life :
Razia Sultan was born as Raziya al-Din in 1205 in Budaun, India, to Shams-ud-din Iltutmish as his only daughter. She had three brothers. Her father had come to Delhi as a slave working under Qutb-ud-din. He had impressed the ruler with his hard work and valor so much that Qutb-ud-din appointed him as a provincial governor. He went on to play a significant role in the governance and Qutb-ud-din eventually gave him his daughter in marriage.
After Qutb-ud-din's death his son Aram Baksh inherited the throne in 1210. However he proved to be an incompetent ruler and Iltutmish took over the throne with the backing of the Amirs—the Turkish nobility,
Iltutmish was not only a very efficient ruler, but also a very liberal minded person. He saw to it that all of his children, including Razia, received good training in martial arts and administration. He also observed that all of his sons were incompetent and more interested in enjoying the pleasures of life while his daughter was highly skilled and competent. He broke away from Muslim tradition and named Razia as his heir apparent, becoming the first sultan to appoint a woman as his successor.
The First Female Successor for the Throne :
Iltutmish arrived at the Delhi sultanate as a Turk slave. He grew to be a great favorite of his master, Qutb Al-Din Aibak, the first Sultan of Delhi and so was married to the sultan’s daughter Qutub Begum becoming an actual part of the ruling family. With Qutb-Al-Din Aibak, he had a son Nasiruddin Mahmud and a daughter Jalalat-Al-Din Raziya. When Raziya was still a child, her grandfather Aibak died and her father became second Sultan of Delhi.
During the final years of his life, Sultan Iltutmish had to make an important decision. Whom would he hand-over the administration of the sultanate? Based on qabliyat (i.e. capability), Iltutmish would have chosen his son Nasiruddin Mahmud, who at that time also ruled as governor of Bengal. Yet, under mysterious circumstance, Nasiruddin Mahmud died and Iltutmish was at a loss. None of his other sons, born from his other wives, were too young to be crowned his successor.
His daughter Raziya had already shown her capability of managing the sultanate. When her father left for business or campaigning affairs, she took charges as a competent regent with the assistance of the Sultan’s trusted minister. She had become a well-educated woman, both in formal education as in the Qu’ran. Moreover, she was skilled in martial arts and, thus, an excellent trained warrior, rode both horses and elephants with an exquisite accomplishment and exercised authority with great dignity.
Without consulting the ulama (i.e. scholars within the Muslim law), Iltutmish appointed his daughter Jalalat-Al-Din Raziya as his successor, for he saw “the signs of power and bravery” in her. Whenever someone questioned his decision he would reply: “My sons are devoted to the pleasures of the youth, and not one of them is qualified to be king […]. After my death, you will find that there is none more competent to guide the state than my daughter.” As such, Iltutmish became the first Sultan to appoint a woman as his heir apparent.
As a woman, Raziya was not given full support from the noblemen. She only managed to secure her control over the throne by dividing the opposition. After her official accession, many nobles opposed her. Ultimately, she won the majority over and the kingdom slumbered into peace again. She could extend the power of the state widely through the obedience and submission of maliks (i.e. kings) and amirs (i.e. state leaders).
By building a system of roads, she could easily inform herself of the affairs in the distant parts of the empire. She linked towns up with villages and built small forts as guard posts around these routes. In addition, she established schools, academics, research centers and public libraries where both Islamic tradition manuscripts and Hindu works shared places. Only one of the many examples that showed that Raziya considered the Muslim community and the Hindu community on an equal footing.
Raziya was clearly a devoted leader for her empire and subjects. She listened to her people’s complaints and demands, trying to reserve herself as a guiding hand among them instead of an indifferent ruler. By stating her title to be officially Raziya Sultan, rather than Raziya Sultana, she underlined her rightful credibility as a powerful sovereign leader of the Sultanate of Delhi. As her desire was to keep close relations with her people, Raziya Sultan substituted her female attire with that of a man’s head-dress and tunic, abandoned the veil and rode out on elephant without purdah (i.e. covering of the face).
Accession & Reign :
Shams-ud-din Iltutmish died on 30 April 1236. Even though Razia was his appointed heir apartment, the Muslim nobility was not in favor of appointing a woman as a sultan. Thus her brother Rukn ud din Firuz was seated on the throne instead.
Rukn ud din Firuz proved to be very incompetent as a ruler. Iltutmish's widow Shah Turkaan ran the government for all practical purposes while the so-called ruler immersed himself in pursuit of pleasures. After just six months, on 9 November 1236, both Ruknuddin and his mother Shah Turkaan were assassinated.
Razia came to power on 10 November 1236 and ascended the throne with the name of Jalâlat ud-Dîn Raziyâ. Upon becoming the sultan, she adopted men’s attire and gave up the veil in a move which shocked the conservative Muslim society.
She quickly began establishing her authority and ordered for coins to be minted in her name as “Pillar of women, Queen of the times, Sultana Razia, daughter of Shamsuddin Altumish”.
She proved to be a good ruler, a just and benevolent sultan who genuinely cared about her subjects. A skilled and brave warrior, she led in battles and conquered new territories and attempted to strengthen her kingdom. She was also a good administrator.
She was also a religiously tolerant sultan who established schools, academies, and public libraries that included the works of ancient philosophers along with the Qur'an. Hindu works in the sciences and literature were also reportedly studied in the institutions.However, her accession to the throne did not go well with the Turkish nobles who were jealous that a woman could become the sultan. They made a plan to revolt against her and hatched a conspiracy. The leader of this conspiracy was Malik Ikhtiar-ud-din Aitigin who had risen from the office of the governor of Badaun.
In accordance with the plan, Malik Ikhtiar-ud-din Altunia the governor of Bhatinda and her childhood friend, first raised a revolt. She courageously commanded an army against him, but was defeated and taken prisoner by Altunia. After Razia’s capture, her brother, Muizuddin Bahram Shah, usurped the throne.
Major Works :
Razia Sultana was the first and last female ruler of Delhi Sultanate. A very brave woman, she defied Muslim tradition to ditch the veil and lead her horse into the battlefields. She is also credited to have been a just and generous ruler who genuinely cared about her subjects. Unfortunately her reign did not last long and she fell victim to conspiracies by jealous rivals.
Personal Life & Legacy :
- As sultan, she showed considerable favoritism towards an Abyssinian slave, Jamaluddin Yaqut. This fuelled rumors that she was in love with him—it has been debated for centuries whether the two were lovers or not. Yaqut was killed in the battle between Razia and Altunia.
- After her capture by Altunia, she was incarcerated at Qila Mubarak at Bathinda. Altunia and Razia were childhood friends, and some sources also suggest that they were deeply in love once upon a time. She was treated royally even as a prisoner and eventually the couple got married.
- Razia and her husband decided to take back the kingdom from her brother. However they were defeated at the ensuing battle and fled Delhi. While escaping with their lives, they fell into the hands of Jats who robbed and killed them on 13 October 1240.
After Sultana Raziya Iltutmish’ third son Bahram Shah ruled Delhi only for two years 1240-1242. He was considered only as de jure ruler, while Naib-e-mamlakat (the regent) was de facto ruler. Bahram Shah lost his life after failed attempt to assert his authority once on the throne.
Masud Shah son of Raknuddin but was disposed after Balban and Nasiruddin Mahamud’ Mother, Malika-e-Jehan, conspired against him and established Nasiruddin Mahamud as the new Sultan.
Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud (1246-1266) :
Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud (1246-1266) was an amiable and pious king who led the life of a Saint. He was honoured with the title of “Ulugh Khan” by the Sultan. Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud was generous, compassionate. simple and God fearing. Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud died in 1266 after a reign of 20 years.
Nasiruddin Mahmud was the posthumous child of the eldest son of Iltutmish named Shahzada Nasiruddin. Due to the intense love for eldest son, Iltutmish gave same name to his eldest son to his grandson. Iltutmish wanted the young baby to be considered his son and not grandson for dynastic reasons. So we should not be surprised at the fact he was called the son of Iltutmish all his life. Nasiruddin was a young lad of seventeen at the time of accession to the throne. He had no ambition to become a king but was rushed to the capital disguised as a woman along with his mother and was placed on the throne by the conspirators, who had killed Masud Shah. Balban was one of the patrons of Nasiruddin.
Nasiruddin was an educated and intelligent man of gentle and pious nature. He was devoted to his faith and lived a virtuous life. He had never more than four living wives and no concubines. He kept himself busy with religious activities. He was also a good calligraphist, as a past time, he used to write copies of the Quran which gave currency to the popular belief that he made his living by selling his scripts alone. He adopted an attitude of complete self surrender towards the man in power and played a role of puppet in their hands. Rather it would be more appropriate to say that Nasiruddin was the constitutional Chief Executive of the Turkish oligarchy. That is why he became more acceptable to all the nobles who were left free to settle the matters of state between themselves. As for as the independent status of Nasiruiddin is concerned, Isami tells us that sultan expressed no opinion without their (Shamsi nobles) permission. He did not move his hands or feet except at their orders. He stares clearly that Ulugh Khan (Balban) served the king and controlled all his affairs. The king lived in the palace and Ulugh Khan governed the empire.
asir-ud-din Mahmud’s accession to the throne after Razia’s death and as a matter of fact while she was away from Delhi in connection with checking revolts, the ‘Corps of forty’ had made Bahram Shah, (1240- 1242) the son of Iltutmish as the Sultan of Delhi.
The ‘Corps of Forty’ pressurised the Sultan to work according to their dictates. The Sultan, however, tried to exert himself which cost him his life.
After Bahram Shah, the ‘Corps of Forty’ managed to make Masood Shah (1242-46) the Sultan of Delhi. The Sultan was forced to delegate all his power to the ‘Corps of Forty’. A conspiracy was hatched against the Sultan and he was murdered. After the deposition of Masood, the ‘Corps of Forty’ made Nasir-ud- din the youngest son of Iltutmish, as the Sultan of Delhi. Balban one of the ‘Corps of Forty’ became so powerful that he assumed all the real powers of the Sultan. Nasir-ud-din remained the Sultan in name only.
The new Sultan knew the power of the Turkish nobles and was aware of the fact that his two predecessors who had dared to challenge the authority of the nobles were murdered. Balban was the ‘Naib’ or the Deputy to the Sultan and enjoyed vast powers. He married his daughter to the Sultan.
An estimate of Nasir-ud-din :
Some historians hold the view that Nasir-ud-Din was a religious minded man. He had no wordly desires or ambitions. Several anecdotes became popular about him. It is said that he earned his living by copying the ‘Quran’ and selling it.
Again it is stated that his wife prepared his meals. One day, her fingers were burnt and she requested the Sultan to keep a maid-servant. But the Sultan refused to do soon the plea that he was simply a trustee of the state and therefore, could not utilise public money for his personal convenience. It may also be remembered that his wife was the daughter of Balban, his ‘Naib’-holding the most important post.
It is stated by several historians that such claims are exaggerated. According to P. Saran, the Sultan was very much afraid of the Turkish nobles and therefore kept himself aloof from active politics. It is accepted that he possessed the virtues of continence, frugality and practical piety and simplicity but more than that the circumstances had forced him to behave like that. He knew the power of the Turkish nobility.
Therefore, as Prof. K.A. Nizami writes, “The surrender was absolute” the Sultan did nothing which could provoke the displeasure of ‘forty.’ According to historian Islami,” He expressed no opinion without their prior permission; he did not move his hands or feet except at their order. He would never drink nor go to sleep except with their knowledge. “In the words of Thomas, “Mahmud (Nasir-ud-Din) seems, like the sons of Iltutmish to have been but little fitted to dominate over his own turbulent nobles or to coerce imperfectly conquered native, races, nominally subject to his “sway.”
Ghiyasuddin Balban (1266-86) :
Ghiyas-ud-din Balban was born in a well-to-do Turk family of the Ilbari tribe. The Mongols captured him when he was a child. They sold him to Khwajah Jamal-ud-din Basri in Baghdad. Later he was brought to Delhi where Iltutmush purchased him. From the beginning he was in the good books of his master and eventually became one of the Chalgan, a group of the forty most important nobles of the court. During the rule of Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, he became the most powerful amongst the Chalgan. While Nasir-ud-din spent most of his time engrossed in religious affairs, Balban was the real ruler. Nasir-ud-din married Balban’s daughter, which made the latter even more powerful. After the death of Nasir-ud-din, Balban became the Sultan in early 1266.
Balban considered himself, the king, as the deputy of God on earth. He believed that the king should be very powerful so as to frighten everyone around him. He organized his court on the pattern of the courts of Irani kings. Nobody could even dare smile in his court. Smartly dressed well-built soldiers armed with unsheathed swords marched along beside him wherever he went. A number of rulers and princes who had taken refuge in his court were supposed to stand obediently in the court. Some ambassadors even used to faint when he entered his court. Balban established the department of intelligence. He spread his spies throughout the country and used them to gather information about all political developments and conspiracies. This helped him in taking action to stop trouble before it started.
As a Sultan, Balban adopted a blood and iron policy. He knew that during the twenty-year rule of Nasir-ud-din, the Chalgan had become very strong. Each one of them started to consider himself as a second to the Sultan. They did not like the growing power of Balban and were jealous of his ascent. After becoming Sultan, Balban decided to crush the power of the Chalgan. He had some murdered while others were banished to far off places.
When Balban ascended the throne, the Mewatis, Jats and Rajputs had become strong and often revolted against the government. The Mewatis lived near Delhi and had become so bold that they used to plunder the people living right outside the four walls of Delhi. When the royal forces were sent against them they took refuge in the jungles. Balban ordered his forces to crush them even if they had to completely destroy the forests.
During Nasir-ud-din’s rule, the Mongols had advanced many times and plundered Lahore. In order to check the Mongol invasion, Balban built new forts and ordered the repair of the old ones between the river Indus and Delhi. He deployed the best of his troops on the northern borders to check the Mongols. His policies paid off, as he managed to stop the Mongol threat from advancing into his territories.
In the last days of Balban, Tughral Baig, the governor of Bengal, revolted against him. Bengal was far away from Delhi and the Sultan was very old. An army sent by Balban was defeated. In spite of his old age, Balban decided to lead an attack against the rebellion leader. He re-conquered Bengal and hanged thousands who took part in the revolt. He appointed his son Bughra Khan as the governor of Bengal and warned him that he would meet the same fate if he ever revolted against him.
The greatest setback for Balban in his entire life was the death of his favorite son, Prince Muhammad, during the war against the Mongols. He realized that without his son, the centralized monarchy that had been built up with such care was bound to dissolve again, as it had at the death of Iltutmush. This realization broke him. He never recovered from the death of Prince Muhammad and died in 1287.
In short Balban put the Muslim rule on firm footings. He completed the task started by Iltutmush. He made the Muslim rule in India so strong that it lasted in one form or the other till 1857.
Early Career :
Balban like his master Iltutmish was born in a Turkish family of Ilbari Tribe. He was kidnapped by the Mongols in his early youth and was sold to a slave trader named Khwaja Jamal-ud- din. He took him to Delhi where he was purchased by Iltutmish. During his stay at Delhi, Iltutmish was very much impressed by the intelligence and ability of Balban and enrolled him as a member of the famous corps of the forty slaves.
During the reign of Raziya Sultana, he was promoted to the post of Amir- i-Shikar (Lord of the Hunt). He was loyal to Raziya in his early days. But later on he joined hands with the nobles who deposed Raziya Sultana from the throne of Delhi successfully. The next Sultan was Bahram Shah who gave him the Jagir of Rewari and Hansi in lieu of his service to him.
He played the role of a kingmaker. As a great warrior, he also successfully repelled a Mongol invasion during the period of Bahram Shah. Similarly he was instrumental in deposing Masud and raising Nasir-ud-din Mahmud to the throne of Delhi. Nasir- ud-din rewarded him by offering the post of principal adviser to the Sultan. He also strengthened his relations with Sultan by his daughter in-marriage to him.
The Sultan being pleased with the loyalty and devotion of Bulban, bestowed on him with the title of Ulugh khan and made him Naib-i-mamlikat or the Deputy Sultan. This was perhaps due to the fact that Nasir-ud-din was weak and incompetent and was relying more on him for the management of state affairs. As a result, the real power gradually passed into the hands of Balban.
His power and popularity grew more and more. He put down a number of internal rebellions and also checked the external aggressions especially of Mongols. The Sultan Nasir-ud-din felt him indispensable. As Nasir-ud-din had no heir to the throne, he had nominated Balban to be his successor. Nasir-ud-din Mahmud died in 1266 and Balban ascended the throne by assuming the title of Ghiyasuddin Balban.
His Early Difficulties :
Balban had to face a number of problems after his accession to the throne. The affairs of the state had fallen into confusion as well as the prestige of the crown had sunk low due the misrule of weak and incompetent successors of Iltutmish. The powers of the nobles had increased and the majority of the members of the famous Forty had become disloyal to the throne. They were proud, arrogant and were jealous of Balban. In the words of Barani, “Fear of the governing power which is the basis of all good governments and the source of the glory and splendor of the state, had departed from the hearts of all men, and the country had fallen into a wretched condition.”
The royal treasury was empty and the army was not well-organised. The Mongol invasion was imminent as well as the internal rebellions were raising their heads at regular intervals. Such was the critical stage, when Balban had been given the responsibility to face and fight. However he proved himself to be more than an equal for them.
Restoration of the Crown’s Prestige :
Balban had realized that without the restoration of crown’s prestige which had sunk low during the rule of weak successors of Iltutmish, no better and effective government could be possible. He also knew that this could be restored through the policy of absolute despotism. He believed that absolute despotism alone could exact obedience from his subjects and ensure security of the country.
He also knew that in order to be a successful despot one must follow the policy of theory of kingship. The concept of theory of kingship is that the right to rule is given by the God and not by the people and for his actions whether good or bad, the ruler is answerable and accountable to God but not to the people he rules.
Balban at first made out his concept of theory of kingship to his subjects. Secondly he emphasized on external dignity and prestige as essential for kingship. He maintained a great distance from the people and denied to meet the common people. He organised his court on the Iranian model and followed the etiquette and Ceremonials of the Persians very strictly.
Having a long beard on his long face and wearing a very big crown on his head, he sat on the throne with the dignity of the great Sassanid kings. He maintained his dignity by grim and serious looks. He appointed tall and fearsome body-guards who stood round him with their swords drawn and dazzling in the sun.
He ordered for Sijda (prostration) and paibos (feet- kissing) as the normal form of Salutation for the king. He prohibited drinking, jokes, laugh and even smile among the courtiers and officers. He himself also gave up wine and merry-making. He also dismissed all low-born persons from important offices of his administration. Thus Balban by displaying his power, authority and dignity struck terror in the hearts of the people and made them submissive. This was a right step at that time for the restoration of the crown’s prestige.
Destruction of the Forty :
The Forty a select body of Turkish nobles was created by Iltutmish for better and effective administration. The members of this body were chosen on the basis of loyalty and meritorious service. But after Iltutmish, the members of the Forty enjoyed unlimited power due to his weak and incompetent successors. They considered the Sultan just a puppet in their hands. Balban clearly knew that in the path of his despotism, the Forty would be a great obstruction.
And without its destruction, he could not achieve his goal. So he planned to bring them under control by destroying their organisation. At first, he promoted the junior Turks to important positions and placed them on par with the Forty. Secondly, he inflicted severe punishments on the members of the Forty for minor offences and reduced their importance in the eyes of the people.
He flogged Malik Baqbaq, the governor of Badaun and a member of the Forty, publicly for beating his servant to death. Haibat Khan, another influential member of the Forty and governor of Awadh, had killed a man while he was drunk with wine. He was flogged with 500 stripes and was handed over to the widow of the deceased whom he paid 20,000 tankas to get himself liberated.
He was so much insulted that he never came out of his home till death. Similarly Amir Khan, governor of Awadh was hanged at the city gate for his failure to curb a rebellion in Bengal. Sher Khan, another influential member of the Forty, excited jealousy of Balban who poisoned him to death. In this way he finished some of his great enemies and others surrendered at his feet for the safety of their life and honour. This was in fact a bold step in the direction of his royal despotism.
The Spy system :
Balban organised an efficient system of espionage as an instrument of his despotism. He appointed reporters and news- writers in every department, in every province and district to collect information’s of various happenings in the state. They did it with utmost honesty and secrecy. They were severely punished if they failed in their duties.
The news reporter of Badaun was hanged over the city gate because he failed to report in time regarding the misconduct of Malik Baqbaq. They were highly paid and were independent of the control of the governors and commanders. They were also rewarded for their daring services. With the result, internal rebellions could not take place and even the nobles could not meet for discussions. Balban through this system of espionage could keep effective control over the government and people. Law and order was perfectly established throughout his reign.
Re-organisation of Army :
Balban re-organised his army and made it strong and efficient as it was the main pillar of his despotic government. He appointed Imad-ul-Mulk who was a competent vigilant officer, as the Diwan- i-Ariz (minister of war) in charge of the army. The minister in charge of the army was made independent of the financial control of the Wazir and he enjoyed full confidence of the Sultan.
The lands, given in Jagir to the military personnel since the time of Aibak and now enjoyed by their widows, sons and successors were taken back and they were paid pensions in cash. Of course, the young men whose predecessors were in military service were asked to retain their Jagir but they were not allowed to collect revenue. They were also paid in cash but the revenue from their land was collected by the government. But it is said there was a lot of reactions against this order.
However, Balban did not introduce any revolutionary change in the military organisation. But certainly he raised the efficiency and morale of the Army. With the help of a strong and powerful army he could successfully suppress the internal rebellions and external aggressions.
Suppression of Rebellions :
During the reign of Balban, Some severe rebellions took place which he put down with a strong hand. The most dangerous rebellious men were the Mewatis, the people of Mewat, who were very often plundering the vicinity of Delhi. As there were jungles around Delhi, it was covenant on their part to plunder and escape.
Balban closed the western gate of the capital and cleared off the jungles around Delhi and built roads to facilitate movement. He sent his army against the Mewatis and massacred them. He constructed four forts around Delhi and garrisoned them with Afghan soldiers. Similarly he crushed the rebellions of the Hindus of the Doab region and their chiefs were cowed down.
The people of Katehar also revolted against him. Balban ordered his soldiers to attack and set fire to their houses and to wipe out their adult male population. Their women and children were made slaves. Barani says, after this incident, the kateharias never raised their heads and the entire region became safe for the travellers.
Rebellion in Bengal :
Bengal was a part of the Delhi Sultanate and its governor, Tughril Khan was a slave of Balban. Tughril Khan was very courageous and ambitious and was loyal to the Sultan in the beginning. But in 1279 he declared the independence of Bengal and defied the authority of Balban. Most probably, he was encouraged by the old age of Balban as well as frequent Mongol invasions. But Balban was not the man to leave him so easily. He sent an expedition under Amin-Khan against him. But Amin-Khan was defeated by Tughril. This enraged Balban so much that he ordered Amin-Khan to be hanged publicly.
Balban also sent another army under a military officer named Bahadur. He was also driven back by Tughril Khan. At last Balban proceeded in person against Tughril. When Tughril heard of the approach of Balban, he fled away towards east but was captured and put to death. His followers were also mercilessly put to death. Then he appointed his own son Bughra Khan as the governor of Bengal and returned back to Delhi.
Mongol Invasion :
The Mongol invasion was frequent on the border and it was a constant headache to Sultan Balban. In the western border, Lahore was then under the sphere of Mongol influence and Sind and Multan were always exposed to their invasion. Sultan Balban, therefore, adopted a number of measures for the safeguard of the western borders.
He built a line of forts along the frontier and garrisoned them with able-bodied Afghan soldiers, secondly he appointed Sher Khan, a distinguished warrior as the commander of the army at the border. She Khan was successful against the Mongols on a number of occasions. But due to the unfortunate death of Sher Khan in the year 1270, the Mongols started their plundering raids without any fear. Balban appointed experienced Amirs in charge of frontiers, but they failed to check the Mongols.
At last he divided the frontier region into two parts. One part which consisted of Sind, Multan and Lahore was kept under the charge of his eldest son, Prince Muhammad Khan. The second part which consisted of the province of sunam and Samana was given to his second son Bughra Khan.
Prince Muhammad though successfully repelled the Mongol invasion twice in 1279 and 1285, but he himself became a victim of the Mongols in his third encounter with them. Prince Muhammad died fighting in the battle field in the year 1286. This was the greatest shock to Balban. Though he re-occupied Lahore from the Mongols, but he could not recover himself from the shocks of his son’s death. Prince Muhammad was his most favorite son.
Death of Balban :
Balban’s health gradually declined after the shock of his son’s death. He was old and was at quite advance stage of his life. Realizing his end he summoned his youngest son Bughra Khan, the governor of Bengal to Delhi. But Bughra apprehending some danger did not turn up. Balban then nominated Kai Khusrav, the son of his eldest son prince Muhammad as his heir. He died in 1287 at the age of eighty.
Estimate of Balban :
It can be said undoubtedly that Balban was one of the greatest Sultans of Delhi. He to his credit, guided the destinies of the Sultanate for a long period of forty years, twenty as prime minister and twenty as Sultan. By ascending the throne at a time of confusion and crises, he did everything right and appropriate for the restoration of crown prestige and good governance of the state.
By following the divine right theory of kingship he maintained a great distance from the common people. He set up a magnificent court and displayed his power and authority with kingly dignity. He did everything to strike fear in the heart of the people and officers in the administration. Thus he could restore the status and prestige of the Sultan.
Next he was successful in destroying the power and influence of the corps of forty which was the greatest obstruction in the path of his royal despotism. He even did not mind to inflict severe exemplary punishments to them for their slight offence and mistakes. Further by organizing an efficient espionage system, he was successful in establishing law and order in the country.
He kept the nobles under control and strengthened the Central Government. He was also a good administrator and he had strong sense of justice. Peace, protection and consolidation of the empire were the prime objectives of his administration. According to Dr. Iswari Prasad, “A great warrior; ruler and statesman who saved the infant Muslim state from extinction at a critical time, Balban will ever remain a great figure in medieval Indian history.
It was Balban who saved the country from the frequent Mongol raids. It was he who consolidated the empire by bringing Rajput States to the fold of Sultanate of Delhi and by rendering a good administration. Dr. Iswari Prasad has remarked further that the successful career of conquest of the great Ala-ud-din was possible because of the consolidation work of Balban.
Balban was a great patron of learning and education. He had provided scope and facilities to a large number of learned men migrated from Central Asia. The great Persian poet Amir Khusru and Amir Hosan flourished during his time. His son Prince Muhammad was a learned man and was greatly inspired by those two great poets. Besides he was a very affectionate father. He dearly loved his sons and relations. The shock of his son’s death practically killed him. He was also very much religious and had great respect for the Ulemas.
Nevertheless he had some grave defects in his character. Balban was often harsh and cruel. He did not forgive anybody even for small offence. He did not care for the means for the achievement of his goal. Balban did not live the men of low birth and he had great hatred for Indian Muslims. He always insisted on high birth and appointed the men of Turkish origin in army. For that he could not raise a vast and strong army. However he was one of the greatest Sultans of Delhi Sultanate.
Death, Legacy and succession :
Balban died in 1287, after 20 years of rule as a general & Minister and 20 years as a Sultan of Delhi. Balban was the first king who understood the conditions and requirements of being a Sultan of Delhi and fulfilled them practically. He is known as one of the severest kings of India. He introduced Sijda or Zaminbosi and Paibosi practices of the Persian courts in India. People would Kneel down and touch the ground with their head to greet the Sultan {Sijda / Zaminbosi} and kiss the feet of Sultan {Paibosi}.
He forwarded the Iranian Theory of Divine Rights, that Sultan is the representative of God on Earth. He executed the “Corp of Forty” and ended its influence.
To counter the Mongols, he organized his military. For this he made some changes like abolition of the post of the Naik and creating a new department of military affairs known as Diwan-i-arz. The in charge of Diwan-i-arz was Ariz-i-Mumalik.
He kept Hindus away from army or other authorities. He instructed the Ulemas to confine themselves to the religious affairs only.
Balban had destroyed the powerful group of slaves called “Chihalagani” who were true inheritors of Iltutmish. His hopes for his own succession were focused around his eldest son who died before him. His second son, Bugara Khan, who was governor of Bengal, was offered the throne but Bugara Khan preferred to stay at Bengal. In irritation, Balban left the throne to his deceased son’s son named Kaikubad, a young lad of 17 years as his heir apparent.
After his death in 1287, Kaikubad was “placed” on the throne. Kaikubad, the young chap was carefully brought up under his grandfather. This young man had been taught of all the good things and none of the bad things. All of a sudden, he found himself as master of India and now everything his youth desired was available to him.
The result was that he indulged in so much of drinking and debauchery, that he found himself struck with paralysis.
The Kingdom crippled and a series of murders followed. The heirs designate of Balban, the son of the Martyred Prince Kaikubad, who was declared king at the age of 3 years was killed. There was a war of the races in Delhi, all the Turks, Afghans and Pathans were now to try their sword to decide the fate of India.
Legacy :
Muiz ud din Qaiqabad (1287-1289) the son of Bughra Khan, to the throne in 1287. Kaiqubad was killed by the Khiliji family, which saw end of Slave dynasty and beginning of Khiliji dynasty at Delhi throne.
The Slave Dynasty Sultans covered a period of 84 years. During this period, eleven Sultans ruled successively in Indo-Pakistan of the Sultans, Qutubuddin, Iltutmish and Balban were the prominent and the most successful.
The authority of the Sultans was established over the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Bihar, Gwalior, Sindh and some parts of Rajputana and Central India.
