INTRODUCTION #
The death of Balban followed the decline of the Ilbari dynasty and the rise of the Khilji’s. The Khilji’s continued the policy of centralization of power, expansion of territories beyond the Vind- hayas, combating the Mongols and strengthening the North-West frontier area. Under Alauddin Khilji, the perform in administration, economy and market system was introduced, with relative success. His death followed the decline of the Khilji’s.
JALAL UD DIN FIRUZ KHILJI (1290- 1296 AD) #
Notable Observations #
The Khilji clan was from the Afghan village of Khalj was of most probably Turkish origin but had become Afghan in character. Khilji and the Turkish slaves were partners in many successful campaigns in India. Under Muhammad Ghori, Bengal was won by Bakhtiyar Khalji, who ruled there. They were in many high level posts in the Ghor army and successive armies in India.
Jalaluddin Khilji was a merciful oldman who paid the price of loving his kith and kin too much. During his times, Mongols attacked under Halaku and Ulugh Khan. The later accepted Islam and the happy Sultan gave his daughter to this convert Mongol.
Story of the Old Man JalaluddinThe power that swept away the Slave Dynasty was Jalal-ud-din Firuz Khilji aka Malik Firuz. Kaikubad appointed Malik Firuz in the army at Baran. When Kaikubad debauched himself to paralysis, Firuz marched to Delhi. Meanwhile, Kaikubad was killed and the
nobles placed the three year old son of Kaikubad on the throne. The men (Brothers, sons and nephews) of Firuz dashed in Delhi, captured the 3 year old Sultan of India, defeated the forces and compelled the nobles to surrender, killed the infant king. On 13 July 1290, the dynasty at Delhi had changed and now a new Dynasty that is Khilji Dynasty was there to rule the country and decide its fate.When Jalaluddin set at the throne of Delhi, he was an old man of 70 years and he deputed his brothers, sons and nephews at various “strategic” posts in the government. The old man was not ready to shed more blood, and when Malik Chajju, a nephew of Balban marched with an army to dethrone the new Sultan of Delhi, he was defeated, captured but freed and posted at Manikpur. Jalauuddin was obsessed with mercy. He pardoned all kinds of criminals alike thugs, traitors, conspirators etc. In his time, Mongols attacked once more but this time (under Halaku), negotiations caused the “partial” retreat of the Mongols and not the open war. The next invasion of Mongols was under Ulugh Khan. Ulugh Khan accepted Islam and the old Sultan gave his daughter to him in marriage. He started staying near Delhi and later created all sorts of troubles for the kith and kin of Sultan.
ALAUDDIN KHALJI (1296-1316) #
Alauddin Khilji aka Ali Gurshap killed his uncle at Kara near Allahabad, marched from Kara to Delhi, proclaimed himself the Sultan of Delhi, and ruled for next 20 years. Eliminated the sons of his Uncle. Also eliminated those who helped him to kill his uncle. Thus, he taught a lesson to all traitors.
Prior to him, no Muslim invader had been able to cross the Vindyas, Satpuras and Narmada River and conquer the Deccan plateau. The way to Dec-
can was made open by his people and was never closed for him as well as future generations of the Mohammedans rulers.
Throughout his life, he struggled with the swarms of Mongols, first under Duwa Khan, second under Saldi. Saldi was given a major defeat and 2000 Mongols were made prisoner and were paraded before the Sultan. This was the worst defeat, the Mongols had faced in India. Third attack was under Kutlugh Khwaja. Fourth attack was under Targhi, fifth and further attacks were from Tartaq, Kebek, Iqbalmand Khan.
But Sultan deterred the Mongols every time. He built Siri his capital mainly to deter the Mongols. One important result of these repeated invasions of Mongols in Delhi was that hoards of these nomadic people established themselves near Delhi and accepted Islam. They were called “New Muslims” lived in poverty and misery. Alauddin discovered a conspiracy among them and ordered that all the New Muslims must be eliminated in one day. The order was followed and around 40 thousand Mongols were killed inhumanly leaving the women and child, who were made prisoners and thrown into slavery.
Sultan also sent his powerful army to Kandhar, Ghazni and Kabul to teach a lesson to Mongols. These campaigns crippled the Mongols and they could not gather courage to invade India again till next invasion took place only under Timur during the Tughlaq Dynasty.
Alauddin was absolutely illiterate, not even able to read his name. The military successes took him to a fool’s paradise and he thought of starting a new religion. Then he also dreamt of becoming second Alexander to subdue the earth, ordered the Muslims to take his name in the Namaz and ordered to engrave his name as “Second Alexander” in his coins. However, there were some wise people around who advised him to leave the job of establishing new religions to the prophets and rather than subduing the whole of earth, subdue the parts of India, which were under the infidel Hindus such as the Rajputs of Rajasthan, and rulers of Malwa, Dhar, Ujjain etc.
Once shown the right path, he found out that just Ranathambore was enough to make his lose all his energy. His army besieged the fort of Ranathambore in 1299 to teach a lesson to Raja Hamir, who dared
to give shelter to one of the rebels of the Sultan, named Muhammad Shah. The fort was besieged by the Sultan’s army in 1299 and returned in 1301 exhausted. Only a conspiracy could help him to capture the fort of Ranathambore that too with the help of a Rajput traitor Ranmal. Hamir Dev as well as Muhammad shah was killed and Ranathambore was given to Ulugh Khan. Sultan Returned to Delhi.
Then, one foolish pariah told Alauddin about the beauty of Rani Padmini, the wife of Rawal Ratan Singh. In 1303, the marauding army of Alauddin Khilji, who had coveted Padmani, besieged Chittor. The siege was followed by “Jauhar” wherein Rani Padmani, led the ladies of the fort into death by self-immolation, “to find security from dishonor in the devouring element” as says James Tod. The next morning, the men folk of Chittor rode out to face certain death on the field of honor. Meanwhile Daughter of Raja Karndev, the ruler of Gujarat was taken to Delhi and was married to Khijra Khan, son of Alauddin Khalji. Khijra Khan was made governor of Chittor and its name was changed to Khijrabad.
To subdue Deccan, Sultan sent an army under Malik Kafur, who was Hindu by birth and converted to Islam. The Raja of Devagiri was captured and taken as prisoners. Malik brought the Raja and his son to Delhi. The Sultan treated them with all honor, gave him a royal canopy and a title of “Rai Rayan” (King of Kings) and returned him to Devagiri to rule as a vassal of the Delhi Sultanate. In the following years, he proceeded to Warangal and was able to get the famous Kohinoor diamond from the King Prataprudradev of the Kakatiya dynasty. The next campaign was against Veera Ballala III , the great Hoyasala, who was able to repulse the armies of Delhi Sultanate, but Kafur returned with a great Booty.
Reforms of Allauddin Khilji #
Alauddin introduced the reforms in the army and started the system of branding the horses “Dagh” information about the soldiers “Chehra”. He intro- duced regular muster roll for army. He organized and introduced a countrywide spy system. He was the First Sultan who set up a “permanent Standing Army” of the sultanate.
Alauddin Khilji abolished the system of small Iqtas with a stroke of pen and brought them under the central Government. At the same time, Alauddin
made some harshest hike in tax part. Half of the produce was to be liable to be paid to the Govern- ment, which was disastrous to the peasants. This scale of agrarian tax at 50% was the highest under Khilji among all other sultans. Not only that, Khilji made the Khuts and Muqaddams to pay arrears into a new arrear department called Diwan-i-Mustkharaj. This Mustkharaj reduced these people to beggars literally. As soon as Alauddin died, the system lost into oblivion.
He confiscated the lands granted to nobles and checked free grants of lands. He forbade them to marry among each other’s families and hold cele- brations.
He is known to have established market reform and price regulation through separate markets for food grains, cloths etc. He also created new posts of Diwan-i-riyasat and Shahna-i-mandi to control the markets.
Succession of Alauddin #
Alauddin died in 1316. None of his successors was able to fit in his shoes. Malik Kafur enthroned the 6-year-old child prince Shihabuddin as Sultan of Delhi and became his protector. Malik Kafur killed
two of Sultan’s elder sons. One night he himself was killed by the soldiers in his bedroom. Another son of Alauddin, Mubarak Shah became the acting regent over his younger brother. Soon, he blinded that child and sent him to jail. As soon as he became Sultan, to gather cheap publicity, he released 17 thousands of prisoners and abolished all the taxes and penalties his father had imposed. Mubarak, the young chap of 17 years was a slave of his own desires and orgies. He paid the army 6 months advance salary and distributed the grants indiscriminately. The result was that wine started flowing in Delhi, which was banned by his father. The markets went wrong, commodities became costly. All the market reforms introduced by his father tottered like a building and there was a general corruption in Delhi. Like his father, Mubarak also had a beautiful Hindu pariah from Gujarat whom, he had styled Khusru Khan. One night his favourite Khusru Khan murdered him. Khusru Khan mounted the throne as Sultan Nasirud- din. He ordered mass killing in the Harem of the Sultan and everybody alive was killed. Khusru, a Hindu convert, took the revenge of his forceful cov- ert by eliminating the whole of the Khalji dynasty and this was the end of another dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate in 1320 AD.
