The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (11 page)

Meanwhile Shah Turkan, ‘in blind fury and vindictiveness’, set about avenging the indignities that she had suffered in the royal harem at the hands of the high-born wives of Iltutmish, by putting some of them to death in an ignominious manner, and by subjecting others to various gross humiliations. She even blinded a young son of Iltutmish and had him later put to death, fearing that he might grow up to be a threat to Firuz. She also hatched a plot to kill Raziya. In that environment of gross misrule several provincial governors broke out in rebellion, and when Firuz marched out against them, Raziya cleverly manipulated public sentiment in Delhi and incited a popular uprising against Shah Turkan. The people of Delhi, writes Siraj, ‘rose and … seized the royal palace and made the mother of the sultan a prisoner.’ And when Firuz, deserted by many of his officers, returned to Delhi, he too was imprisoned, and presently put to death. The reign of Firuz, according to Siraj, lasted just six months and twenty-eight days.

RAZIYA WAS THEN proclaimed the sultan by public acclaim. According to Isami, a mid-fourteenth century chronicler, when Firuz was overthrown,
and the nobles were discussing to whom they should give the crown, Raziya, ‘waved her scarf from a window and said to them, *‘Here I am, the daughter of his majesty; the crown befits my head. It was I whom the king had chosen as his heir-apparent … Since you set the crown on the head of another person against the king’s orders, you have came to grief … [Give the crown to me for a few years to test my ability.] Should I acquit myself as a ruler better than a man, you might keep me on the throne. Should you see things otherwise, you may remove the crown from my head and give it to whomsoever you please … [On hearing Raziya, the nobles concluded that] a daughter is better than an ill-bred son. Many a woman has been the vanquisher of men in battle; many a man has owed his position to a woman. If this daughter of the king is raised to the throne … she would prove to be better than the sons of the king.’ So they offered the throne to Raziya. And in November 1236 she ascended the throne, assumed the title Raziya-ud-din, and issued coins bearing that title.

But Raziya’s accession was resented by some of the provincial governors, who then threateningly converged on Delhi with their armies. But Raziya managed to sow dissension among the governors, so the confederacy collapsed before it could do any harm, and the confederate nobles scattered. Several of the fleeing nobles were then captured and executed by royal officers. Raziya’s energy and decisiveness in dealing with the crisis earned the admiration of several of the vacillating nobles, and won them over to her side.

Raziya then broke free from the conventional constraints of harem ladies, and one day three years after her accession, ‘threw off the dress and veil of women, put on a tunic and cap, and thus appeared in public. When she rode on elephant all men clearly saw her,’ records Siraj. And ‘she rode on horseback as men ride, armed with a bow and quiver, and surrounded by courtiers. She did not veil her face,’ adds Battuta.

These practices of Raziya were most offensive to the orthodox Muslim nobles of the Sultanate, who were under the sway of ancient prejudices, and they decided to oust her. But they bided their time, waiting for an opportunity or excuse to overthrow her. A good part of Raziya’s persona as sultan involved her posturing as a man. But her biology betrayed her. She could pretend to others to be a man, but not to herself. And it was her yearning for intimate male companionship that eventually brought about her downfall—that, and her attempts to reduce the power of The Forty by selecting several of her principal officers from outside that elite group.

One of Raziya’s favourite officers was Jalal-ud-din Yaqut, an Abyssinian, whose elevation to the post of
Amir-i-Akhur
, Master of the Stables, a very high office, was deeply resented by Turkish nobles, especially as she was suspected of having an amorous relationship with him. A conspiracy was then hatched by a group of nobles headed by Aitigin, the Lord Chamberlain, to depose
her. They did not however dare to move against her in Delhi, as she enjoyed decisive popular support there. But in the summer of 1240, when she was on a campaign against a provincial rebel in southern Punjab, the conspirators swung into action, killed Yaqut and the other close associates of Raziya who had accompanied her on the campaign, and threw her into prison in the Bhatinda fort. And in Delhi they raised Muiz-ud-din Bahram, Iltutmish’s third son, as sultan.

But Raziya was only down, not out. Not yet. She now used the lure of high office to entice Altuniya, the governor of Bhatinda, who was her captor, to ally with her. She married him, and together they advanced on Delhi with an army. But fortune no longer favoured her. In the ensuing battle her army was utterly routed by the Delhi forces. ‘Not even one horseman remained with her,’ states Isami. She and Altuniya then fled from the battlefield, but they both fell into the hands of the local people. There are three different versions of what happened then: according to Siraj, both of them were forthwith killed by their captors, but Sirhindi states that their captors ‘despatched them in fetters to the sultan, who put them both to death,’ and Battuta claims that it was a peasant who killed Raziya, to steal her ornaments.

Raziya had reigned for three years and six days. She was buried on the banks of Yamuna, and a small tomb was erected there to mark her grave. In time the tomb became a place of pilgrimage, as it was ‘considered a place of sanctity,’ states Battuta. ‘Sultan Raziya was a great monarch,’ comments Siraj. ‘She was wise, just, and generous, a benefactor to her kingdom, a dispenser of justice, the protector of her subjects, and the leader of her armies. She was endowed with all the qualities befitting a king. But she was not of the right sex, and so in the estimation of men all her virtues were worthless.’

BAHRAM ON HIS accession assigned, presumably as previously agreed with the nobles, the highest executive power in the Sultanate to Aitigin and designated him as Naib-i-Mamlikat, regent of the kingdom. But if the nobles expected Bahram to be a mere figurehead, a puppet in their hands, they were soon disabused of that fancy. Bahram was a bizarrely schizophrenic person, gentle and shy as well as savage and bloodthirsty. He was, according to Siraj, ‘a fearless, intrepid and sanguinary man … [but was also] shy and unceremonious, and had no taste for gorgeous attire which kings love to wear, nor for the belts, accoutrements, banners and other insignia of royalty.’

As sultan, it was Bahram’s vicious side that was most evident—he was brutally repressive towards nobles, even towards his benefactors. Thus when Aitigin, who was primarily instrumental in placing him on the throne, offended him by marrying one of his sisters, and took to the practice of keeping an elephant and a band at the entrance of his mansion, as at the entrance of
the royal palace, Bahram had him promptly executed. These tyrannical acts of Bahram sent a shiver of anxiety through the nobles—an ‘uneasy feeling spread like an epidemic’ among the nobles, states Siraj. The politics of the Delhi Sultanate at this time was a dizzying whirl of Byzantine conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, in which life was nightmarish for those in the inner circle of power. The only solution to their awful predicament was to depose the sultan, the nobles decided, and one day in the summer of 1242, they, according to Isami, ‘bound him hand and foot in fetters and threw him into prison,’ and later had him murdered. Bahram had reigned for just over two years.

The nobles then assembled at the tomb of Iltutmish and chose Ala-ud-din Masud, a grandson of Iltutmish, to ascend the throne. Masud at the time of his accession was, according to Siraj, ‘a generous and good-natured prince, possessed of many estimable qualities.’ However, after a year or so of his reign he fell under evil influences, and turned into a bloodthirsty tyrant. He ‘acquired the habit of seizing and killing his nobles,’ reports Siraj. ‘He became confirmed in his cruelty; all his excellent qualities were perverted, and he gave himself up to unbounded licentiousness, pleasure, and hunting … [Moreover] he was given to depravity.’ So in June 1246 the nobles once again seized control of the situation, deposed Masud and threw him into prison, where he soon died, or was murdered. Masud had reigned for four years.

The nobles then enthroned Iltutmish’s youngest son, Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, an affable and devout prince, who, according to Isami, ‘ruled the country righteously, not like the other foolish princes.’

With the accession of Nasir-ud-din Mahmud began the slow process of restoring the political stability of the Delhi Sultanate, which had been in an awful state of turmoil for a decade after the death of Iltutmish. But Mahmud, a mild and unassertive prince, himself had virtually nothing to do with this transformation. The crucial role in it was played by Ghiyas-ud-din Balban, an eminent Turkish noble, who assumed supreme power in the Sultanate on Mahmud’s accession, and wielded that power for forty years, from 1246 to 1287, first as the regent of Mahmud for two decades, and then, on Mahmud’s death, as sultan, for another two decades. During this entire period there was only one brief interruption in his career, during his regency, when he was out of power for about two years, due to the manoeuvres of his political rivals.

Mahmud, who was about seventeen years old at the time of his accession, had no aptitude for governing, no interest in it either, and was content to leave that responsibility entirely to Balban. Mahmud ‘was a mild, kind, and devout king, and he passed much of his time making copies of the Holy Book,’ notes Barani, a mid-fourteenth century historian of the Sultanate. Mahmud lived very frugally. It is said that once when his wife asked him to take some money from the treasury and buy a slave girl to do the domestic work in the royal quarters, he rejected the request saying that the treasury belonged to the people, and was not for the personal use of the sultan.

These retiring, saintly qualities, though commendable in themselves, were unsuited in a sultan in the turbulent environment then existing in the Sultanate. Though Iltutmish had made a serious effort to systematise the administration of the Sultanate, what he achieved was altogether lost in the chaos that followed
his death. ‘During the reigns of his sons, the affairs of the country had fallen into confusion,’ observes Barani. ‘The treasury was empty, and the royal court had but little in the way of wealth and horses. The Shamsi slaves had become khans, and they divided among themselves all the wealth and power of the kingdom, so that the country came under their control.’

But these nobles themselves were divided into various cabals and were forever at each other’s throat. ‘None [of the nobles] would give precedence … to another,’ continues Barani. ‘In possessions and display, in grandeur and dignity, they vied with each other, and in their proud vaunts and boasts every one exclaimed to the other, “What art thou that I am not, and what will thou be that I shall not be?” The incompetence of the sons of Iltutmish, and the arrogance of the Shamsi slaves, thus brought into contempt that throne which had been among the most dignified and exalted in the world.’

The worst period in all this was the decade long interregnum between the death of Iltutmish and the accession of Mahmud, when royal authority was often impudently flouted by provincial governors and top nobles, some of whom nurtured the ambition of becoming sultans themselves. Besides that, there was at this time the persistent problem of resurgent Rajput rajas challenging the authority of the sultan to regain their independence. There was also the problem of turbulent hill tribes and bandits freely roaming around in the countryside, menacing traders and travellers as well as the common people. And above all, there was the ominous presence of Mongols in the northwest, threatening to engulf the Sultanate. The future of the Sultanate looked most uncertain.

The Delhi Sultanate at the time of Mahmud’s accession covered a broad swath of land in North India, but the territory had not yet been consolidated into a viable, stable state. Indeed, before Balban took charge of the situation soon after Mahmud’s accession, the Sultanate was in grave danger of disintegrating into total chaos. Balban stabilised the situation substantially, despite the jealousies and intrigues of rival nobles.

DURING ALMOST ALL the twenty years of Mahmud’s reign Balban served as the regent of the Sultan, and bore the grand title Ulugh Khan (Great Khan). ‘He, keeping Nasir-ud-din as a puppet, carried on the government, and used many of the insignia of royalty even while he was only a Khan,’ reports Barani. The rule of Mahmud was in fact the rule of Balban.

Balban began his career in India as a slave of Iltutmish, who purchased him in Delhi in 1233. He was of the lineage of a clan of chieftains in Turkistan, but was enslaved as a child and brought to Gujarat by a slave trader. There he was bought by a Turk who, according to Siraj, ‘brought him up carefully like a son. Intelligence and ability shone out clearly in his countenance … [so he
was] treated with special consideration’ by his master, who eventually brought him to Delhi and sold him to Iltutmish. Balban, according to Battuta, ‘was short in stature and of mean appearance.’ But his high mental stature and talents more than compensated for his poor physical appearance. Iltutmish, Siraj notes, regarded Balban to be ‘a youth of great promise, so he made him his personal attendant, placing, as one might say, the hawk of fortune on his hand.’

Balban rose rapidly in the service of the Sultanate, and in time became a member of The Forty, the elite band of Turks serving the sultan. And even in that elite group Balban stood out, surpassing the other nobles by his ‘vigour, courage and activity.’ Raziya appointed him as her Chief Huntsman, an important and confidential post. ‘Fate proclaimed that the earth was to be the prey of his fortune, and world the game of his sovereignty,’ comments Siraj. Later, when Bahram became the sultan, he raised Balban to the post of Master of the Horse. ‘The steed of sovereignty and empire thus came under his bridle and control,’ remarks Siraj. ‘His success was so great that other nobles began to look upon him with jealousy, and the thorn of envy began to rankle in their hearts. But it was the will of god that he should excel them all, so that the more the fire of their envy burnt, the stronger did the incense of his fortune rise from the censer of the times.’ In 1243 Balban was appointed Amir-i-Hajib, Lord Chamberlain, by Sultan Masud.

Balban’s star rose even more rapidly when Masud was succeeded by Mahmud, especially after the sultan married his daughter. Balban was then appointed to the premier post of Naib-i-Mamlikat, and he in turn filled most of the key positions in the government with his nominees, and appointed his brother Kashli Khan as Lord Chamberlain. These posts were not, however, sinecures, for Balban demanded credible performance from all his officers, just as he himself worked untiringly.

But the very success of Balban created its own problems, for it roused the envy of rival nobles, who then worked in secret to oust him from his high office. The prime mover in the plot against Balban was Raihan, the Wakil-i-dar, superintendent of the sultan’s household establishment, a position that gave him easy access to the royal family. A wily conspirator, he won the support of the sultan’s mother and several disgruntled nobles, and, craftily working behind the scenes, he gradually roused resentment in Mahmud himself against Balban’s dominance. And eventually, in the winter of 1252–53, he persuaded the sultan to shift Balban out of Delhi and send him to his fief, and also to remove his brother, Kashli Khan, from his office. It was the hope of the conspirators that Balban would resist these slights, and thus give them the opportunity to destroy his power altogether. But to their disappointment, Balban obeyed the royal order without a murmur. Discomfited, Raihan then struck a second
blow, and got the sultan to transfer Balban abruptly from his fief to another fief. But once again Balban obeyed without protest.

But Balban was not withdrawing from power politics, only biding his time. Presently, the envy of the nobles about Balban came to be overshadowed by their growing resentment over Raihan, a Hindu convert to Islam, lording over them, the Turkish nobles. A group of these nobles then appealed to Balban to return to Delhi. In the ensuing manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres, and in the face of the threat of a military conflict between rival factions, the sultan was persuaded by his advisers to dismiss Raihan from the court and reappoint Balban and his brother to their previous posts.

The sultan acted on that advice, and Balban returned to his old office in January 1255, after having been out of it for about two years. He then held that post till Mahmud’s death in February 1266.

MAHMUD WAS THE only one of Iltutmish’s descendants to have a long reign—of twenty years—while all the others ruled only for short periods, the shortest reign, of just seven months, being that of Rukn-ud-din Firuz, the first successor of Iltutmish. In fact, among the five descendants of Iltutmish who sat on the throne of Delhi—three sons, one daughter, and one grandson—all except Mahmud were overthrown and killed by the nobles.

Mahmud however was sultan only in name, for during virtually his entire reign it was Balban who actually ruled the kingdom. So Balban’s accession to the throne on the death of Mahmud was a natural and inevitable transition, from being the de facto ruler to being the de jure ruler. Mahmud is said to have designated Balban to succeed him; the choice was in any case inevitable, for no prince of Iltutmish’s lineage was then alive, and a ruler of the calibre and experience of Balban was essential at this time to prevent anarchy from engulfing the kingdom.

Balban reinforced his entitlement to the throne by claiming to be a descendant of Afrasiyab, the legendary Turkish royal hero, and thus placing himself well above all the other nobles of the Sultanate (his potential rivals) in social status. And this claim of royal lineage by Balban was a crucial determinant of the nature of his rule, for it enabled him to assume an exalted posture as sultan, and to adopt a demeanour and conduct to match the high pedigree that he claimed and the high office that he occupied.

The primary characteristics of Balban as sultan were his high sense of responsibility and unremitting hard work. He would not allow carelessness or sloth to erode his power in any way. As sultan, he gave up all the convivial pleasures that he had previously enjoyed, maintained his distance from nobles, and showed no intimacy with anyone. ‘Sultan Balban, while he was a khan, was addicted to wine drinking, and was fond of giving entertainments;
two or three times in a week he would give banquets and gamble with his guests … But after he came to the throne he allowed himself no prohibited indulgences,’ observes Barani. His only remaining addiction was hunting, but that too he used to subserve his political purpose, as a means of exercising his army preparatory to launching military campaigns. In all matters he now strictly followed Islamic regulations. And at meals he preferred the company of Muslim clerics, with whom he discussed theological matters.

Balban now took care to present a forbiddingly stern, impassive façade to the public. Though behind this façade he still remained subject to common human dispositions and emotions, he kept them all under the strict control of his iron will. But if self-control and implacability are indispensable qualities required in a sultan, so was magnanimity. So Balban did sometimes, though rarely, condone the incompetence of his officers, and once even pardoned army deserters. And we are told that he often wept at sermons in the mosque. Balban’s general outward appearance of cold-blooded efficiency was a triumph of will over nature.

BALBAN, UNLIKE MOST of his predecessors on the throne, had a very lofty concept of kingship. Most of the sultans of Delhi who preceded Balban, except Iltutmish, were little more than first among equals. This, Balban felt, was a major weakness of the Sultanate, which led to laxity in administration and disarray in the empire, with courtiers and provincial governors constantly trying to tussle with the sultan and erode his power. From his long experience as regent—and perhaps under the influence of the ancient Persian concept of monarchy—Balban felt that the throne had to be raised well above the level of the nobles. And to do that, he enunciated the concept of the sultan as the vicegerent of god. This claim was not just an expression of royal vanity—the high status that Balban claimed was not for himself as a person, but for the office of the sultan, and it constituted a political concept of broad practical significance, which found expression in Balban’s own impeccable conduct, and in the strict manner in which he ran the government.

An essential expression of Balban’s exalted concept of kingship was his insistence that courtiers on approaching the sultan should prostrate before him and kiss the throne or the sultan’s feet. Court etiquette now became rigidly formal, and it was required to be strictly observed by all. In court, and in public, Balban was always escorted by a praetorian guard with drawn swords, which helped to create the needed physical and psychological distance between the sultan and all others. ‘No sovereign,’ concludes Barani, ‘had ever before exhibited such pomp and grandeur in Delhi … [Through all the] years that Balban reigned he maintained the dignity, honour, and majesty of the throne in a manner that could not be surpassed. Certain of
his attendants who waited on him in private assured me they never saw him otherwise than fully-dressed. During the whole time that he was khan and sultan … he never conversed with persons of low origin or occupation, and never indulged in any familiarity, either with friends or strangers, by which the dignity of the sovereign might be lowered. He never joked with anyone, nor did he allow anyone to joke in his presence; he never laughed aloud, nor did he permit anyone in his court to laugh.’ In Balban’s court, frivolity was a serious misdemeanour, if not a crime.

BALBAN’S LONG YEARS as the de facto ruler of the Sultanate had given him ample time to reflect on the changes that were needed in government to consolidate royal power and to ensure efficient administration. He therefore introduced a number of administrative reforms soon after his accession. One of his key measures was to set up an elaborate network of carefully selected confidential spies and news reporters at all the sensitive spots in the empire and among all potential rebels, including his sons, for he believed that the crucial requirement for maintaining effective control over the empire was to have accurate and detailed information about all the significant developments everywhere in the empire.