Medieval and early modern periods 1206
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In 1191, Mu'izz proceeded towards Hindustan through the Khyber Pass in modern day Pakistan and was successful in reaching Punjab. Mu'izz captured a fortress, Bathinda in present-day Punjab state on the northwestern frontier of Prithvīrāj Chauhān 's kingdom. After appointing a Qazi Zia-ud-Din as governor of the fortress, he received the news that Prithviraj's army, led by his vassal prince Govind Tai were on their way to besiege the fortress. The two armies eventually met near the town of Tarain, 14 miles from Thanesar in present-day Haryana. The battle was marked by the initial attack of mounted Mamluk archers in which Prithviraj responds by counter- attacking from three sides and dominates the battle. Mu'izz mortally wounded Govind Tai in personal combat and himself was wounded, whereupon his army retreated. Second Battle of Tarain On his return to Ghazni, Mu'izz made preparations to avenge the defeat. According to Firishta, the Rajput army consisted of 3,000 elephants, 300,000 cavalry and infantry, most likely a gross exaggeration. Minhaj-i-Siraj, stated Mu'izz brought 120,000 fully armored men to the battle in 1192. Prithviraj had called his banners but hoped to buy time as his banners (other Rajputs under him or his allies) had not arrived. Before the next day, Mu'izz attacked the Rajput army before dawn. Rajputs had a tradition of fighting from sunrise to sunset. Although they were able to quickly form formations, they suffered losses due to surprise attack before sunrise. Rajput army was eventually defeated and Prithviraj was taken prisoner and subsequently executed. When he reached Lahore, he sent his envoy to Prithviraj to demand his submission, but the Chauhan ruler refused to comply. Prithviraj saw through Mu'izz al- Din's stratagem and issued a fervent appeal to his fellow Rajput chiefs to come to his aid against the Muslim invader.
According to Firishta, the Rajput army consisted of 3,000 elephants, 300,000 cavalry and infantry, most likely a gross exaggeration. Minhaj-i-Siraj, stated Mu'izz al- Din brought 120,000 fully armored men to battle. Battle Prithviraj had called his banners and hoped to buy time as his banners (other Rajputs under him or his allies) had not arrived. Mu'izz al-Din received news of this and sent a letter to Prithviraj asking for a truce. Mu'izz al-Din attacked the Rajput army before dawn. Forming his army into five units, Mu'izz al-Din sent four units to attack the Rajput flanks and rear. His flanking attacks failed and the fighting continued. In hopes of causing a break in the Rajput lines, Mu'izz al-Din ordered his fifth unit to feign retreat. The Rajput's charged the fleeing unit and Prithviraj's army lost its cohesion. Ghori's 17 | P a g e
12,000 fresh cavalry attacked and with continued flanking assaults, the Rajput army was eventually defeated, Prithviraj was taken prisoner and subsequently executed.
When the state of Ajmer failed to fulfill the tribute demands as per the custom after a defeat, Qutbu l-Din Aibak, in 1193 took over Ajmer and soon established Ghurid control in northern and central India. Hindu kingdoms like Saraswati, Samana, Kohram and Hansi were captured without any difficulty. Finally his forces advanced on Delhi, capturing it soon after the Battle of Chandwar, defeating Raja Jaichand of Kannauj. Within a year, Mu'izz controlled northern Rajasthan and the northern part of the Ganges-Yamuna Doab . The Kingdom of Ajmer was then given over to Golā, on condition that he send regular tributes to the Ghurids. Mu'izz returned west to Ghazni to deal with the threat to his western frontiers from the unrest in Iran, but he appointed Aibak as his regional governor for northern India. His armies, mostly under Turkic generals, continued to advance through northern India, raiding as far east as Bengal. followed by his conquest of Delhi. An army led by Qutbu l-Din Aibak, Mu'izz's deputy in India, invaded in ca. 1195 – 97 and plundered Anahilapataka. War with the Khwarezmians and supreme leader of the Ghurids In 1200, Tekish died, and was succeeded by Muhammad Khan (who took the honorific name 'Ala' al-Din). Among the first to hear of this were Ghiyath and Mu'izz al- Din. Within weeks the two brothers had moved their armies westwards into Khorasan. Once they had captured Nishapur, Mu'izz al-Din was sent on an expedition towards Ray, but he let his troops get out of control and got little further than Gurgan, earning criticism from Ghiyath which led to the only reported quarrel between the brothers. Ghiyath died at Herat in 1202 after months of illness. Mu'izz, who had quickly returned to Ghor from India, obtained the support of Ghurid nobles, and was crowned as Sultan of the Ghurid Empire at Firuzkuh. Just after his ascension, Muhammad II invaded his domains, and besieged Herat. Mu'izz managed to repel him from Herat and then pursued him to Khwarezm, besieging Gurganj, their capital. Muhammad desperately requested aid from the Kara-Khitan Khanate, who sent an army to aid Muhammad. Mu'izz, because of the pressure from the Kara-Khitans, was forced to relieve the siege and retreat. However, on his way to his domains in Ghur, he was defeated at Andkhud in 1204. Mu'izz, however managed to reach Ghur, and prepared a counter-attack against the Khwarmezians and Kara-Khitans. A revolt shortly broke out in Punjab and the surrounding regions, which forced Mu'izz to make order in the region before mounting a counter-attack against his enemies.
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In 1206, Mu'izz, having settled the affairs in India, left all the affairs in India in hands of his slave Qutbu l-Din Aibak. On his way back to Ghazni, his caravan rested at Dhamiak near Sohawa (which is near the city of Jhelum in the Punjab province of modern-day Pakistan). He was assassinated on March 15, 1206, while offering his evening prayers. The identity of Mu'izz's assassins is disputed, with some claiming that he was assassinated by local Gakhars and others claiming he was assassinated by Khokhars or even Ismailis. Hasan Nizami and Ferishta record the killing of Mu'izz at the hands of the Gakhars. However, Ferishta may have confused the Ghakars with the Khokhars. All the historians before the time of Ferishta agree that the Khokhars, not the Gakhars, killed Mu'izz. Some also claim that Mu'izz was assassinated by a radical Ismaili Muslim sect. In Indian folklore, the death of Mu'izz was caused by Prithviraj Chauhan but this is not borne out by historical documents and Prithviraj died much earlier before the death of Mu'izz. Succession Mu'izz had no offspring, but he treated his Turkic slaves as his sons, who were trained both as soldiers and administrators and provided with the best possible education. Many of his competent and loyal slaves rose to positions of importance in Mu'izz's army and government. When a courtier lamented that the Sultan had no male heirs, Mu'izz retorted: "Other monarchs may have one son, or two sons; I have thousands of sons, my Turkish slaves who will be the heirs of my dominions, and who, after me, will take care to preserve my name in the Khu ṭ bah (Friday sermon) throughout these territories." Mu'izz's prediction proved true. After his assassination, his Empire was divided amongst his slaves. Most notably: Qutbu l-Din Aibak became ruler of Delhi in 1206, establishing the Sultanate of Delhi, which marked the start of the Slave dynasty. Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha became ruler of Multan in 1210. Tajuddin Yildoz became ruler of Ghazni. Ikhtiyar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji became ruler in parts of Bengal. The Delhi Sultanate Background 19 | P a g e
By 962 AD, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in South Asia were under a wave of raids from Muslim armies from Central Asia and Persia. Among them was Mahmud of Ghazni, who raided and plundered kingdoms in north India from east of the Indus river to west of Yamuna river seventeen times between 997 and 1030. Mahmud of Ghazni raided the treasuries but retracted each time, only extending Islamic rule into western Punjab. The wave of raids on north Indian and western Indian kingdoms by Muslim warlords continued after Mahmud of Ghazni, plundering and looting these kingdoms. The raids did not establish or extend permanent boundaries of their Islamic kingdoms. The Ghurid Sultan Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad began a systematic war of expansion into north India in 1173. He sought to carve out a principality for himself by expanding the Islamic world, a tradition common among orthodox (Sunni) and heterodox (Shia) warlords in West and Central Asia from the 9th century onwards. Mu‘izz sought a Sunni Islamic kingdom of his own extending east of the Indus river, and he thus laid the foundation for the Muslim kingdom called the Delhi Sultanate. Some historians chronicle the Delhi Sultanate from 1192 due to the presence and geographical claims of Mu'izz al- Din in South Asia by that time. Mu'izz al-Din was assassinated in 1206, by Ismāʿīlī Shia Muslims in some accounts or by Hindu Khokhars in o thers. After the assassination, one of Mu‘izz slaves, the Turkic Qutbu l-Din Aibak, assumed power, becoming the first Sultan of Delhi.
The Mamluk, literally meaning owned, was a soldier of slave origin who had converted to Islam. The phenomenon started in the 9th century and gradually the Mamluks became a powerful military caste in various Muslim societies. Mamluks held political and military power most notably in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Iraq, and India. In 1206, Muhammad of Ghor was assassinated. Since he had no children, his empire split into minor sultanates led by his former mamluk generals. Taj-ud-Din Yildoz became the ruler of Ghazni. Mohammad Bin Bakhtiyar Khilji got Bengal. Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha became the sultan of Multan. Qutub-ud-din-Aybak became the sultan of Delhi, and that was the beginning of the Slave dynasty. Aybak rose to power when a Ghorid superior was assassinated. However, his reign as the Sultan of Delhi was short lived as he died in 1210 and his son Aram Shah rose to the throne, only to be assassinated by Iltutmish in 1211. The Sultanate under Iltutmish established cordial diplomatic contact with the Abbasid Caliphate between 1228 – 29 and had managed to keep India unaffected by the invasions of Genghis Khan and his successors. Following the death of Iltutmish in 1236 20 | P a g e
a series of weak rulers remained in power and a number of the noblemen gained autonomy over the provinces of the Sultanate. Power shifted hands from Rukn ud din Firuz to Razia Sultana until Ghiyas ud din Balban rose to the throne and successfully repelled both external from the Chagatai Khanate invasions and internal from the rebellious sultanate nobles threats to the Sultanate. The Khilji dynasty came into being when Jalal ud din Firuz Khilji overthrew the last of the Slave dynasty rulers, Muiz ud din Qaiqabad, the grandson of Balban, and assumed the throne at Delhi. Sultans The first Sultan of the Mamluk dynasty was Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who had the titular name of Sultan and reigned from 1206 to 1210. He temporarily quelled the rebellions of Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha of Multan and Tajuddin Yildoz of Ghazni. Making Lahore his capital, he consolidated his control over North India through an administrative hold over Delhi. He also initiated the construction of Delhi's earliest Muslim monuments, the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and the Qutub Minar. In 1210 he died accidentally while he was playing a game of polo in Lahore on horseback: his horse fell and he was impaled on the pommel of his saddle. He was buried near the Anarkali bazaar in Lahore. The second Sultan was Aram Shah, who had the titular name of Sultan and reigned from 1210 to 1211. An elite group of forty nobles named Chihalgani ("the Forty") conspired against Aram Shah and invited Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, then Governor of Badaun, to replace Aram. Iltutmish defeated Aram in the plain of Jud near Delhi in 1211. It is not quite certain what became of Aram. The third Sultan was Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, who had the titular name of Nasir Amir-ul-Mu'minin and reigned from 1211 to 1236. He shifted the capital from Lahore to Delhi and trebled the exchequer. He defeated Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha of Multan and Tajuddin Yildoz of Ghazni, who had declared themselves contenders of Delhi. Mongols invaded India in pursuit of Jalal-ud-din Mangabarni who was defeated at the Battle of Indus by Genghis Khan in 1221. After Genghis Khan's death, Iltutmish consolidated his hold on northern India by retaking many of the lost territories. In 1230, he built the Hauz- i-Shamsi reservoir in Mehrauli, and in 1231 he built Sultan Ghari, which was the first Islamic mausoleum in Delhi. The fourth Sultan was Rukn-ud-din Feroze, who had the titular name of Sultan and reigned from April 1236 to November 1236. He ruled for only seven months and his mother, Shah Turkan, for all practical purposes was running the government. He abandoned himself to the pursuit of personal pleasure and debauchery, to the considerable outrage of the citizenry. On November 9, 1236, both Rukn-ud-din Feroze and his mother Shah Turkan were assassinated by the Chihalgani. The fifth Sultana was Razia al-Din, who had the titular name of Jalâlat-ud-dîn Raziyâ Sultana and reigned from 1236 to 1240. As the first female Muslim ruler in Inda, she initial managed to impress the nobles and administratively handled the Sultanate
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well. However, she began associating with the African Jamal-ud-Din Yaqut, provoking racial antagonism amongst the nobles and clergy, who were primarily Central Asian Turkic and already resented the rule of a female monarch. She was defeated by the powerful nobleman Malik Altunia whom she agreed to marry. Her brother Muiz-ud-din Bahram, however, usurped the throne with the help of the Chihalgani and defeated the combined forces of the Sultana and her husband. The couple fled and reached Kaithal, where their remaining forces abandoned them. They both fell into the hands of Jats and were robbed and killed on October 14, 1240. The sixth Sultan was Muiz-ud-din Bahram, who had the titular name of Sultan and reigned from 1240 to May 15, 1242. During his reign, the Chihalgani became disorderly and constantly bickered among each other. It was during this period of unrest that the Mongols invaded the Punjab and sacked Lahore. Muiz-ud-din Bahram was too weak to take any action against them, and the Chihalgani besiged him in the White Fort of Delhi and put him to death in 1242. The seventh Sultan was Ala-ud-din Masud , who had the titular name of Sultan and reigned from 1242 to 1246. He was effectively a puppet for the Chihalgani and did not actually have much power or influence in the government. Instead, he became infamous for his fondness of entertainment and wine. By 1246, the chiefs had become upset with Ala-ud-din Masud's increasing hunger for more power and replaced him with Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, who was another son of Iltutmish. The eighth Sultan was Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, who had the titular name of Nasir- ud-din Feroze Shah and reigned from 1246 to 1266. As a ruler, Mahmud was known to be very religious, spending most of his time in prayer and was renowned for aiding the poor and the distressed. It was his Deputy Sultan, Ghiyath-ud-din Balban, who primarily dealt with state affairs. The ninth Sultan was Ghiyath-ud-din Balban, who had the titular name of Sultan and reigned from 1266 to 1287. Balban ruled with an iron fist and broke up the Chihalgani group of noblemen. He tried to establish peace and order in India and built many outposts with garrisons of soldiers in areas where there had been disorder. Balban wanted to make sure everyone was loyal to the crown, so he established an efficient espionage system. The tenth and final Sultan was Muiz-ud-din Muhammad Qaiqabad, who had the titular name of Sultan and reigned from 1287 to 1290. Being still young at the time, he ignored all state affairs. After four years, he suffered a paralytic stroke and was later murdered in 1290 by a Khilji chief. His three-year-old son Kayumars nominally succeeded him, but the Slave dynasty had ended with the rise of the Khiljis.
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The architectural legacy of the dynasty includes the Qutb Minar by Qutb-ud-din Aybak in Mehrauli, the Mausoleum of Prince Nasiru'd-Din Mahmud, eldest son of Iltumish, known as Sultan Ghari near Vasant Kunj, the first Islamic Mausoleum (tomb) built in 1231, and Balban's tomb, also in Mehrauli Archaeological Park.
The first ruler of Khilji dynasty was Jalal-ud-din Firoz Shah Khilji. He came to power in 1290 after killing the last ruler of the Mamluk dynasty, Muiz ud din Qaiqabad, at the behest of Turkic, Afghan, and Persian amirs. Jalal-ud-din Firoz Shah Khilji was of Turko-Afghan origin, and ruled for 6 years before he was murdered in 1296 by his nephew Juna Khan, who was also his son-in-law. Juna Khan later came to be known as Ala al-din Khilji. Ala al-din began his military career as governor of Kara province, from where he led two raids on Malwa (1292) and Devagiri (1294) for plunder and loot. His military campaigning returned to these lands as well other South Indian kingdoms after he assumed power. He conquered Gujarat, Ranthambor, Chitor, and Malwa.[39] However, these victories were cut short because of Mongol attacks and plunder raids from northwest. The Mongols withdrew after plundering and stopped raiding northwest parts of the Delhi Sultanate. After the Mongols withdrew, Ala al-din Khilji continued expanding Delhi Sultanate into South India, with the help of generals such as Malik Kafur and Khusraw Khan, collecting large war booty (Anwatan) from those they defeated. His commanders collected war spoils and paid Ghanima, which helped strengthen the Khilji rule. Among the spoils was the Warangal loot that included one of the largest known diamonds in human history, the Koh-i-noor. Ala al-din Khilji changed tax policies, raising agriculture taxes from 20% to 50% (payable in grain and agricultural produce), eliminating payments and commissions on taxes collected by local chiefs, banned socialization among his officials as well as inter- marriage between noble families to help prevent any opposition forming against him, and he cut salaries of officials, poets, and scholars. These tax policies and spending controls strengthened his treasury to pay the keep of his growing army; he also introduced price controls on all agriculture produce and goods in the kingdom, as well as controls on where, how, and by whom these goods could be sold. Markets called shahana-i-mandi were created. Muslim merchants were granted exclusive permits and monopoly in these mandi to buy and resell at official prices. No one other than these merchants could buy from farmers or sell in cities. Those found violating these mandi rules were severely punished, such as by mutilation. Taxes collected in the form of grain were stored in kingdom's storage. During famines that followed, these granaries ensured sufficient food for the army. Ala al-din is also known for his cruelty against attacked kingdoms after wars. Historians note him as a tyrant and that anyone Ala al-din Khilji suspected of being a |
