The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate

by Abraham Eraly

  —SULTAN ALA-UD-DIN KHALJI

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  The Reluctant Sultan

  Jalal-ud-din Khalji ascended the throne in mid-June 1290. His coronation was held in Kilughari, a suburb of Delhi, not in the city, for he thought it would be imprudent for him to enter the city then, as the dominant Turkish population of Delhi was hostile to him, considering him to be an Afghan usurper, not a Turk. The people of Delhi, observes Barani, ‘hated Khalji maliks … [They] had been for eighty years governed by sovereigns of Turkish extraction and were averse to the succession of Khaljis … They said that no Khalji had ever been a king, and that the race had no right or title to [the throne of] Delhi.’ Though Islam does not discriminate against people on the basis of their race, Muslim communities often did show such prejudices.

  The prejudice of Turks was however misplaced in this case, for Khaljis were actually ethnic Turks. But they had settled in Afghanistan long before the Turkish rule was established there, and had over the centuries adopted Afghan customs and practices, intermarried with the local people, and were therefore looked down on as non-Turks by pure-bred Turks.

  This snobbish aversion of the old Turkish nobility in Delhi for Khaljis did not however last long. Presently, as was to be expected, the nobles generally acquiesced to Jalal-ud-din’s accession and flocked to him, their material interests overriding their tribal prejudice. Besides, as Barani comments, ‘the excellence of Jalal-ud-din’s character, his justice, generosity, and devotion, gradually removed the aversion of the people.’

  Jalal-ud-din nevertheless decided not to take up his residence in Delhi, presumably to avoid rousing the antagonism of the people there, and also because he felt that it would be presumptuous for him to sit on the throne of Balban, his former lord. So he completed the palace complex and gardens left unfinished by Kaiqubad at Kilughari, and took up his residence there. The princes and the nobles too then built their bungalows there, and soon several bazaars also came up there. ‘In three or four years houses sprang up on every side, and the markets became fully supplied,’ reports Barani. The suburb then came to be known as Shahr-i-Nau, the New City.

  Jalal-ud-din was in his seventies when he ascended the throne. His old age and long subservient service under the Delhi sultans made him rather unassertive as a monarch, and this was disappointing to his pugnacious clansmen and relatives, who wanted to flaunt their newly acquired power and status, and advance the interests of their clan. Typically, when Jalal-ud-din first entered Delhi as sultan and went to the Red Palace of Balban, he, instead of riding into the courtyard of the palace, as sultans did, respectfully dismounted at the gate. And on entering the palace he wept bitterly, thinking of the inconstancy of temporal fortunes, and remembering how he had on so many occasions stood before the great sultan in humility and awe, but how now a dreadful misfortune had fallen on the sultan’s family.

  JALAL-UD-DIN’S ACCESSION TO the throne, instead of inflating his ego, instilled in him great humility. Though he, as the warden of the western marches, was reputed for his fierce martial spirit, now, as sultan in his old age, he turned out to be, in the eyes of his clansmen, disgustingly mild, more concerned with his afterlife than with his temporal life. Although Jalal-ud-din on his accession did favour his sons and several of his relatives and clansmen with appointments to important positions in the kingdom, that only fuelled their personal ambitions for even higher positions, and made them still more disgruntled with the sultan.

  Jalal-ud-din’s ostentatious displays of humility were particularly embarrassing to Khalji nobles. He would not punish even those who sought to overthrow him. Thus when Malik Chhajju, a nephew of Balban and the governor of Kara in Uttar Pradesh, rebelled and advanced on Delhi with an army to claim the throne as his inheritance, but was defeated and brought in chains before the sultan, Jalal-ud-din was moved to tears on seeing the prince in bonds, and he not only released him but also entertained him with wine in his private chambers, even spoke appreciatively of the rebel’s loyalty to his uncle. And when one of the sultan’s nobles upbraided him saying that his conduct was ‘unseemly and injudicious,’ he said that he would rather relinquish the throne than ruin his afterlife by shedding the blood of fellow Muslims.

  Similarly, when it was reported to Jalal-ud-din that a group of Turkish nobles in their cups were prattling about overthrowing and killing him—one of the nobles, notes Barani, ‘said that he would finish off the sultan with a hunting knife, and another drew his sword and said he would make mince-meat of him’—his initial response was to dismiss the report, saying, ‘Men often drink too much and say foolish things; do not report drunken stories to me.’ But when these reports persisted, he one day summoned the tipplers to the court, flung down his sword before them and challenged, ‘Is there one among you who is man enough to take this sword and fight it out fairly with me?’ The abashed nobles then pleaded that their ‘drunken ravings’ should not be taken seriously. And the sultan, his eyes ‘filled with tears at these words,’ merely banished them from the court for a year. According to Barani, ‘Jalal-ud-din always treated his nobles, officers, and subjects with the greatest kindness and tenderness. He never visited their offences with blows, confinement, or other severity, but treated them as a parent treats his children.’

  This leniency of the sultan extended even to thieves, whom he often released after taking from them an oath that they would never again steal. Similarly, when a large number of Thugs, a murderous robber band, were captured near Delhi, the sultan’s punishment for them was merely to transport them to Bengal and release them there!

  ALL THIS DISGUSTED the Khalji nobles, and they, according to Barani, ‘whispered to each other that the sultan did not know how to rule, for instead of slaying the rebels he had made them his companions … He had none of the awesomeness and majesty of kings, … [nor the qualities of] princely expenditure and boundless liberality, [nor] the … severity, by which enemies are repulsed and rebels put down.’ In fact, one of his top nobles, Malik Ahmad Chap, the deputy lord chamberlain—whom Barani describes as ‘one of the wisest men of the day’—one day boldly told Jalal-ud-din all this to his face, and warned him that his indulgent conduct would kindle rebellions, for ‘punishments awarded by kings are warnings to men.’ The sultan listened patiently to the harangue, but in the end he said, ‘If I cannot reign without shedding the blood of Muslims, I would renounce the throne, for I cannot endure the wrath of god.’

  This reluctance to shed the blood of fellow Muslims inhibited Jalal-ud-din even in his military campaigns. Thus when he invaded Ranthambhor in Rajasthan, and found that it would be difficult to capture the fort without a lot of bloodshed, he abandoned the campaign. And when Ahmad Chap chided him about it, he said: ‘I am an old man. I have reached the age of eighty years, and ought to prepare for my death. My only concern should be with matters that may be beneficial [to me] after my death.’

  But whatever be Jalal-ud-din’s failings, no one could accuse him of cowardice or timidity, for he was a veteran of very many battles, particularly against fierce Mongols, and had won renown for his valour. Even his detractors, as Barani notes, conceded that Jalal-ud-din ‘was not wanting in courage and warlike accomplishments.’ His disengagement from military pursuits as sultan was not because of cowardice, but because of his assessment of the state of the Sultanate, and of the values and conduct that were appropriate for him in his old age. According to Amir Khusrav, Jalal-ud-din believed that the Sultanate was not strong enough to assert itself decisively, and that therefore the best policy for the sultan would be to rule with tolerance and mildness.

  There is only one recorded instance of Jalal-ud-din behaving tyrannically. This was in the case of Sidi Maula, a bizarre dervish who had, according to Barani, ‘peculiar notions about religion … He kept no servant or handmaid, and indulged in no passion. He took nothing from anyone, yet expended so much that people were amazed, and used to say that he dealt in magic.’ He built a grand hospice in Delhi where a large number of peopl
e were served, twice every day, ‘bounteous and various meals … as no khan or malik could furnish.’

  The dervish was patronised by many of Delhi’s elite, including Khan Khanan, the sultan’s eldest son. But he had many enemies too, and they accused him of planning to assume the role of the Caliph. Jalal-ud-din, a hyper-orthodox Muslim, considered the dervish’s beliefs and practices as abominable, so one day he ordered him to be manacled and brought to him at the royal palace. The sultan then expostulated with him for a while, presumably hoping to induce him to change his ways. But that was of no avail. Jalal-ud-din then, out of sheer exasperation, cried out: ‘Oh … avenge me of this maula!’ Immediately the dervish was set on with a dagger by a bystander, and was then trampled to death by an elephant on the orders of Arkali Khan, a son of the sultan. This sacrilegious act, according to the chroniclers of the age, brought divine wrath on the city in the form of a devastating dust storm—‘a black storm arose which made the world dark,’ states Barani—which was in a while followed by a severe famine.

  DESPITE HIS OLD age, and his generally pacifist attitude, the embers of his fiery old spirit still smouldered in Jalal-ud-din, and they did sometimes flare up. This it did especially when he had to deal with Mongols, his old adversaries. Thus when a vast horde of well over 100,000 Mongols entered India in 1292, he promptly marched out against them, defeated their advance force in a fierce encounter, imposed peace on them on his own terms, and forced their main army to retreat from India. The sultan also gained a religious objective in this encounter, by inducing a few thousand Mongols to become Muslims and settle in a suburb of Delhi, where they came to be known as New Muslims. The sultan even gave one of his daughters in marriage to a Mongol prince, Ulghu, a descendant of Chingiz Khan, who had become a Muslim.

  There were a couple of other major military campaigns during the reign of Jalal-ud-din, but the sultan himself had little to do with them, for they were organised and led by his nephew, Ala-ud-din, the governor of Kara. In the first of these campaigns, towards the close of 1292, Ala-ud-din invaded Malwa and raided Bhilsa town. The campaign yielded a vast booty, which Ala-ud-din then dutifully presented to the sultan, and was in turn rewarded by the sultan by adding Oudh to his fief.

  The success of his Malwa campaign whetted Ala-ud-din’s ambition. Soon he set out on a fresh campaign, to raid Devagiri, the capital city of the Yadava kingdom in Deccan, to which he was lured by the city’s reputation for fabulous wealth. Devagiri, according to Barani, ‘was exceedingly rich in gold and silver, jewels and pearls, and other valuables.’ Ala-ud-din had only a relatively small contingent with him on this campaign, a cavalry force of just three or four thousand and a couple of thousand infantrymen, but the sheer speed and energy of his attack offset that limitation—he stormed into Devagiri in a lightening swift move, overpowered its king, Ramachandra, and seized from him a vast booty, and then sped back to Kara.

  This was the first incursion into peninsular India by a Sultanate army, but its purpose was not to conquer territory, but to gather plunder. And the campaign had, for Ala-ud-din, a secret personal motive also—to obtain funds to finance his plan to usurp the throne of Delhi. In this he was instigated by his officers in Kara, who were formerly, a few years earlier, associated with the rebellion of Malik Chhajju. These officers told Ala-ud-din that the indispensable prerequisite for the success of his usurpation plan was to acquire adequate funds, to recruit a strong army, and to induce desertions from the enemy camp. ‘Get plenty of money, and then it would be easy to conquer Delhi,’ they advised. Ala-ud-din therefore did not seek, as was conventionally required, the sultan’s permission for his Devagiri campaign, nor did he forward to the sultan the booty that he got there. The Devagiri campaign was the prelude to Ala-ud-din’s rebellion.

  THESE ACTIONS OF Ala-ud-din roused the suspicion of the nobles in Delhi about his intentions, and they warned Jalal-ud-din about it. But the sultan gave no credence to those warnings, for Ala-ud-din was his nephew (brother’s son) and son-in-law, whom he had brought up from his childhood and had always treated as his own son. The sultan not only disregarded the warning of the nobles, but even upbraided them for their distrustful attitude. ‘The guileless heart of the sultan relied upon the fidelity of Ala-ud-din,’ notes Barani.

  Meanwhile Ala-ud-din wrote to the sultan apologising for conducting the unauthorised campaign and promising to send all the booty to Delhi. And in Delhi, Ala-ud-din’s brother Almas Beg worked on the sentiments of the sultan by telling him that Ala-ud-din was distraught with anxiety about the possible anger of the sultan, and was thinking of fleeing to Bengal, or even committing suicide. To reassure Ala-ud-din, the sultan then, on Almas Beg’s entreaty, set out to Kara by boat on the Ganga, escorted by a small cavalry force travelling along the river bank on the right side. When the party reached Kara, they found Ala-ud-din’s forces drawn up in battle array on the opposite bank, but this was explained by Almas Beg as the preparation to offer a formal, ceremonial reception to the sultan, and he persuaded him to go over to the riverbank where Ala-ud-din was waiting. The gullible sultan, now in his dotage, then crossed over to where Ala-ud-din stood, escorted by just a few royal attendants.

  ‘The sultan,’ writes Barani, ‘was so blinded by his destiny that although his own eyes saw the treachery, he would not return … [When the sultan disembarked, Ala-ud-din] advanced to receive him … When he reached the sultan he fell at his feet, and the sultan, treating him as a son, kissed his eyes and cheeks, stroked his beard, gave him two loving taps upon the cheek, and said, “I had brought thee up from infancy, why art thou afraid of me?” … The sultan then took Ala-ud-din’s hand, and at that moment the stony-hearted traitor gave the fatal signal … [and his officer assigned for the task] struck at the sultan with a sword. But the blow fell short and cut his own hand. He again struck and wounded the sultan, who then ran towards the river, crying, “Ah thou villain, Ala-ud din! What hast thou done!” … [Then another officer] ran after … [the sultan], threw him down, cut off his head, and bore it dripping with blood to Ala-ud-din.’ All the royal officers who had accompanied the sultan across the river were also then slain. ‘The venerable head of the sultan was then placed on a spear and paraded about … And while the head of the murdered sovereign was yet dripping with blood, the ferocious conspirators brought the royal canopy and elevated it over the head of Ala-ud din.’

  The royal military escort on the opposite bank of the river watched this horrid scene with dismay, but there was nothing that they could do about it, as it would have been suicidal to cross the river and confront Ala-ud-din, as the sultan was already dead, and Ala-ud-din’s army was very much larger than the sultan’s military escort. So the royal contingent quickly retreated to Delhi. Meanwhile the spear-mounted severed head of Jalal-ud-din was sent around for display in the nearby areas, as the proof of Ala-ud-din’s triumph and succession.

  This was in July 1296. Jalal-ud-din had reigned for just six years when he was assassinated.

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  Sikandar Sani

  When the news of the assassination of Jalal-ud-din reached Delhi, his widow, Malika-i-Jahan, immediately placed her youngest son, Qadr Khan, ‘a mere lad’, on the throne, presumably because her eldest surviving son, Arkali Khan, was away in Multan at that time, and the throne could not be left vacant. But this hasty act of the queen—whom Barani describes as ‘one of the silliest of the silly’—created divisions among the Delhi courtiers. And it so upset Arkali Khan that he made no move to aid his mother and defend the family throne.

  Ala-ud-din was at this time hesitating about his next move, but the news of Arkali Khan’s discontent emboldened him to proceed to Delhi right away. As Ala-ud-din set out for Delhi he, in his characteristic spirit of caution and daring, took care to win over the local people to his side by literally showering on them, at every stage along his way to Delhi, gold and silver coins, by using a portable catapult. People in droves therefore flocked to him. A large number of soldiers also joined him along th
e way, so that in a couple of weeks, by the time he reached the environs of Delhi, his army burgeoned into a formidable legion of 50,000 horse and 60,000 infantry. In public perception the future now clearly belonged to Ala-ud-din, so there was a general scramble, particularly among the nobles and the top officers of the Sultanate, to join him. ‘He then won over the maliks and amirs by a large outlay of money, and those unworthy men, greedy for gold … and caring nothing for loyalty … joined Ala-ud-din,’ observes Barani. ‘He scattered so much gold that the faithless people easily forgot the murder of the late sultan, and rejoiced over his succession.’

  Meanwhile Malika-i-Jahan sent an army from Delhi under royal officers to block Ala-ud-din’s advance, but they, instead of opposing him, promptly defected to him, and were, according to Barani, rewarded by Ala-ud-din with ‘twenty, thirty, and even fifty mans of gold. And all the soldiers who were under these noblemen received each three hundred tankas.’ In that predicament Malika-i-Jahan wrote to Arkali Khan in Multan requesting him to forgive her folly of raising her young son to the throne (‘I am a woman, and women are foolish,’ she wrote) and asking him to rush to Delhi and mount the throne. But Arkali—whom Barani describes as ‘one of the most renowned warriors of the time’, and would have probably made a great sultan—declined the offer, as most of the nobles had by then joined Ala-ud-din, and it was too late to stop him. She then sent Qadr Khan, the boy sultan, with an army to oppose Ala-ud-din, ‘but in the middle of the night the entire left wing of his army deserted to the enemy with great uproar,’ records Barani. Qadr Khan then hastily retreated to Delhi, and he and his mother collected whatever treasure they could immediately gather and fled from the city for Multan in the dead of the night.