Razia Sultan and Balban: The Later Slave Sultans of Delhi

Razia Sultan: The Only Woman to Rule the Delhi Sultanate

Razia Sultan's Accession: Iltutmish's Choice and Ruknuddin Firuz

Iltutmish worried over his succession in his last years. His eldest son, Nasiruddin Mahmud, had died in 1229, and he thought none of his other sons fit to rule. When he left for Gwalior in 1231, he put his daughter Razia in charge of Delhi, and she managed so well that he had a decree drawn up naming her his heir. He persuaded the nobles and the theologians (ulama) to accept her. Choosing a woman over sons was a new step.

When Iltutmish died in 1236, the nobles raised his son Ruknuddin Firuz instead. Ruknuddin left the government to his mother, Shah Turkan, and revolts broke out. Razia then appealed to the people of Delhi at the congregational prayer. A crowd seized Shah Turkan, the army and nobles placed Razia on the throne, and Ruknuddin, after less than seven months as Sultan, was imprisoned and probably executed in November 1236.

Reign of Razia Sultan: Her Rule, Yaqut and the Turkish Nobles

Razia had to fight her brothers and the powerful Turkish nobles from the start. The wazir, Nizam-ul‑Mulk Junaidi, who had opposed her, backed a revolt of nobles against her; she defeated it, and Junaidi fled. She then ruled as earlier Sultans had done.

• In public: She gave up women's dress, held court with her face unveiled, hunted and led her army in war, and struck coins in her own name.
• Order and war: She sent an expedition against Ranthambhor to control the Rajputs and established law and order across her kingdom.
• Her own men: She tried to build a party of nobles loyal to her, and made Jamaluddin Yaqut, an Abyssinian (Habshi) noble, master of the royal stables (amir-i-akhur), a post Turks had held.
• Revolt in the capital: In March 1237 a band of Qarmatians attacked worshippers in the Jama Masjid of Delhi and was put down by the people of the city.
• Gwalior and the Mongols: In 1238 her army took back Gwalior; the same year she received the son of Hasan Qarlugh of Ghazni with courtesy but refused him an alliance against the Mongols.

The Turkish nobles turned against her. They accused her of breaking the rules of feminine modesty and of being too friendly with Yaqut, a non-Turk. Behind the charge lay their real fear. A Sultan who chose her own officers would not be the puppet they wanted. Her reign marked the beginning of the struggle for power between the monarchy and the Turkish chiefs, called the Forty or the Chahalgani.

Fall and Death of Razia Sultan (1240) and Razia Sultan Tomb

Revolts broke out at Lahore and Sirhind. Razia herself led an army to Lahore and made its governor submit. The events that ended her reign then followed quickly.

1. Tabarhinda: Altunia, the governor of Tabarhinda (Bathinda), rebelled; on her march against him her own army rose, killed Yaqut and imprisoned her.
2. Bahram Shah: In Delhi the nobles placed her half-brother, Muizuddin Bahram, on the throne in April 1240.
3. Marriage: Razia won over her captor, Altunia, married him and marched on Delhi with him.
4. Defeat: Bahram defeated them in October 1240, and Razia was killed while in flight near Kaithal.

NCERT dates her reign 1236 to 1239; other accounts place her capture at Tabarhinda in April 1240. Her grave, said to have been built by Bahram, is at Bulbuli Khana near Turkman Gate in Old Delhi; near Kaithal, a later tomb marks the place where her original grave once lay. The traveller Ibn Battuta found a dome over it in the fourteenth century, with people coming there to seek blessings.

Chahalgani: The Forty and the Weak Sultans (1240 to 1265)

Chahalgani System: The Turkan-i-Chahalgani or the Forty

The Chahalgani, Persian for "the forty", were the leading Turkish nobles of the Sultanate, most of them slaves bought and raised by Iltutmish. Iltutmish had treated them with great respect. After his death, proud of their power, they wanted a puppet on the throne whom they could control. Balban was himself one of these forty Turkish slaves of Iltutmish.

After Razia the Sultans were weak, and real power lay with the nobles until Balban gathered it to himself. Bahram Shah was given a regent, the naib-i-mamlakat, whom he had killed, and the nobles quarrelled among themselves. In 1241 a Mongol army under Tair Bahadur reached Lahore; no help came from Delhi, the governor fled, and the Mongols sacked the town. In 1242 Bahram was killed by his own army.

Balban as Naib of Nasiruddin Mahmud: The Road to the Throne

Balban was an Ilbari Turk. As a boy he was captured by the Mongols and sold as a slave, and in 1232 he was brought to Delhi and bought by Iltutmish. He began as a water-carrier, became the Sultan's personal attendant, and under Razia was master of the hunt (amir-i-shikar). Under Masud Shah he rose to amir-i-hajib. He is also known by his title, Ulugh Khan. As a commander he raised the Mongol siege of Uch in 1246, put down the Chandela chief of Kalinjar in 1247 and recovered Gwalior from the Rajputs, though his siege of Ranthambhor failed.

In 1246 Balban helped Nasiruddin Mahmud, a younger son of Iltutmish, to the throne and became his naib, or deputy, marrying one of his daughters to the young Sultan. In 1253 rival Turkish chiefs ousted him and put Imaduddin Raihan, an Indian Muslim, in his place. Within about eighteen months Balban won over his opponents, Raihan was dismissed and later killed, and Balban even took the royal parasol (chhatr).

Nasiruddin Mahmud died in 1265. Some historians believe Balban poisoned him and did away with his sons to clear his own way to the throne. With Balban's accession began an era of strong, centralised government.

Balban Theory of Kingship: Zill-i-Ilahi, Sijda and Paibos

Balban's Theory of Kingship: The Sultan as the Shadow of God

Balban raised the prestige and power of the crown because he believed it was the only way to meet the dangers inside and outside the kingdom. He held that the Sultan was the shadow of God, Zill-i-Ilahi, and the deputy of God, Niyabat-i-Khuda. The historian Barani sums up his aim as fear of the ruling power, which Balban saw as the basis of all good government.

Birth mattered in that age, so Balban claimed descent from Afrasiyab, the legendary king of Iran. He kept a magnificent court and went out surrounded by bodyguards with drawn swords. He never laughed or joked in court, and gave up wine so that no one would see him in a light mood.

• Sijda: Prostration before the Sultan.
• Paibos: Kissing the Sultan's feet.
• Nauroz: The Persian New Year festival, which he introduced at his court.

These Iranian ceremonies were thought un-Islamic, yet few objected. The Mongols had swept away most Muslim states of Central and West Asia, and the Delhi Sultanate stood almost alone as a champion of Islam.

Balban and the Turkish Nobility: Noble Birth and Exclusion

Balban stood forth as the champion of the Turkish nobility. He would not give an important post to anyone who did not belong to a noble family, which in practice shut Indian Muslims out of power. He once refused to receive an important trader because the man was not high-born. The historian Barani put these words in his mouth: "Whenever I see a base-born ignoble man, my eyes burn and I reach in anger for my sword."

Championing the Turks did not mean sharing power with them. Balban would share it with no one, not even his own family, and would not hear criticism even from his supporters. His aim was to break the power of the Chahalgani and lift the monarchy above them.

Balban's Blood and Iron Policy and Administration

Breaking the Chahalgani: Spies, Justice and Punishment

Balban set out to break the Chahalgani for good. He did not hesitate even to poison his cousin, Sher Khan, to gain this end. At the same time he won the confidence of the public with strict impartial justice, sparing not even the highest who defied him.

• Justice: The fathers of the governors of Badaun and Awadh were given exemplary punishment for cruelty to their personal slaves.
• Spies: He placed spies (barids) and news-writers in every department; they answered only to the Sultan and kept him informed about his officials.
• Fear: Nobles were punished harshly for any fault, so that none dared ill-treat even a slave.

Diwan-i-Arz and Balban's Military Reforms

Balban built a strong central army, both to put down disorder at home and to repel the Mongols in the Punjab. The ariz's department (diwan-i-arz) recruited, equipped and paid the army, and it was Balban who first set up a separate department of this kind in India. Alauddin Khalji later gave it close attention and added the branding of horses (dagh).

He reorganised the military department and pensioned off soldiers no longer fit for service. Many of these troopers were Turks who had come in Iltutmish's time and held land grants for service; they protested, and Balban had to relent in part. He also tried to take back iqtas held by men who no longer served. Old holders were to be pensioned off with forty to fifty tankas, and widows and children who had kept their forebears' iqtas were to lose them for a living allowance. On the advice of the old kotwal of Delhi, Fakhruddin, the old nobles kept their lands.

Blood and Iron Policy: Mewatis, the Doab and the Bengal Revolt

Law and order had broken down around Delhi. In the Ganga-Yamuna doab and Awadh, robbers infested the roads, Rajput zamindars had built forts and defied the government, and the Mewatis plundered people up to the outskirts of Delhi. The western gates of the city were shut at the afternoon prayer. Balban met them with a policy of blood and iron.

• Mewat: The Mewatis were pursued and put to death without mercy.
• Badayun: Rajput strongholds were destroyed, jungles cut down and colonies of Afghan soldiers settled to guard the roads.
• Bengal: Tughril, the governor, submitted and then declared independence; Balban hunted him down in 1280 and savagely punished his family and followers.

The Bengal war lasted three years and was Balban's only distant campaign. He then made his son Bughra Khan governor of Bengal. After Balban's death, Bughra Khan preferred to rule Bengal rather than risk his life for the throne of Delhi, and his line ruled Bengal for about forty years.

Balban and the Mongols: Defence of the North-West Frontier

Mongol Threat under the Later Slave Sultans: Lahore, Multan and the Beas

The Mongol threat shaped Balban's rule. In 1245 the Mongols besieged Multan, and only a quick march by Balban saved it. While he was fighting Raihan's party, the Mongols took and held Lahore, and some Turkish nobles, among them Sher Khan, the governor of Multan, went over to them. Delhi's frontier fell back from the river Jhelum to the Beas.

As Sultan, Balban combined force with diplomacy. He repaired the forts of Tabarhinda, Sunam and Samana and posted a strong force to stop the Mongols crossing the Beas, while he himself stayed at Delhi. He sent feelers to Halaku, the Mongol Il-Khan of Iran, and received his envoys with great honour. Balban tacitly left most of the Punjab to the Mongols, and they in turn made no attack on Delhi.

The frontier stayed unsettled, and Balban had to send almost yearly expeditions to keep the Mongols in check. He won Multan back and gave it as a separate charge to his eldest son and heir, who was killed in 1285 holding the Multan-Beas line against the Mongols.

Death of Balban, Balban Tomb and the End of the Slave Dynasty

Balban died in 1286, by NCERT's date; other accounts give January 1287. He named his grandson Kaikhusrau, son of the dead prince, as heir, but after his death the kotwal of Delhi raised another grandson, Qaiqabad, the son of Bughra Khan. Qaiqabad gave himself to pleasure and was struck down by paralysis. His infant son Kayumars was raised in his place, and in 1290 Jalaluddin Khalji took the throne, ending the line.

Balban's tomb stands in the Mehrauli Archaeological Park in Delhi. Built in rubble masonry around 1287, it is important in the history of Indo-Islamic architecture because the true Islamic arch first appeared in India here. The Khaljis who followed are covered in Alauddin Khalji's conquests and market control.

Sources

• NCERT: Exploring Society, India and Beyond (Class VIII), Cultural Currents
• NCERT: Medieval India (Satish Chandra, Class XI, earlier edition), The Delhi Sultanat
• Delhi Tourism (Govt of NCT of Delhi): Eight Cities of Delhi, Mehrauli
• District Kaithal (Govt of Haryana): History
• Haryana Tourism: Tomb of Razia Sultan, Kaithal
• Wikipedia: Razia Sultana
• Wikipedia: Ruknuddin Firuz
• Wikipedia: Muiz ud din Bahram
• Wikipedia: Masud Shah
• Wikipedia: Malik Altunia
• Wikipedia: Jamal-ud‑Din Yaqut
• Wikipedia: Mamluk dynasty (Delhi)
• Wikipedia: Balban
• Wikipedia: Tomb of Balban
• Wikipedia: Muiz ud din Qaiqabad
• Wikipedia: Shamsuddin Kayumars
• Wikipedia: Amir Khusrau
• Wikipedia: Emperor of India
• Wikipedia: Din-i Ilahi
• UPSC: Civil Services Examination question papers