The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate

by Abraham Eraly

  This was the last major Mongol incursion into India during Ala-ud-din’s reign; India was free of their menace during the last ten years of his reign, except for a minor incursion in 1307–08. Mongols were evidently deterred by the severity of the Ala-ud-din’s reprisals against them; besides, they were at this time having internal troubles in Central Asia, which also hindered their activities. ‘The Mongols conceived such a fear and dread of the army of Islam that all fancy for coming to Hindustan was washed clean out of their breasts,’ comments Barani. ‘All fear of the Mongols entirely departed from Delhi and the neighbouring provinces. Perfect peace and security prevailed everywhere.’

  ALA-UD-DIN, LIKE MOST kings of the age, considered it his indispensable royal duty to conquer new territories, to demonstrate his spirit and might. Besides that, waging wars served three essential requirements of the medieval state: that of gathering booty to replenish the royal treasury, inspiriting its soldiers with the prospect of plunder, and keeping the army in fighting trim. Ala-ud-din therefore sent out his army for conquests nearly every other year of his reign, except in his last few years, when illness incapacitated him. But because of his anxiety about Mongol raids, these campaigns were initially, in the first decade of his reign, confined to Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, the regions close to Delhi. But later, after his apprehension about the Mongol raids waned, he sent his forces storming far afield, almost to the southern tip of India.

  The first of the major expansionist military campaigns of Ala-ud-din was against Gujarat, in 1298, the second year of his reign. Though Gujarat had been raided and plundered by Turks several times previously, it had not yet been annexed by the Sultanate. The primary objective of Ala-ud-din too was to gather plunder, but he also intended to annex this commercially important region to his empire. The invading army ‘plundered … all Gujarat,’ reports Barani. ‘The wives and daughters, the treasure and elephants of Raja Karna (of the Vaghela dynasty that ruled Gujarat at this time) fell into the hands of Muslims,’ though the raja himself, along with a young daughter, managed to escape and take refuge with the king of Devagiri in Deccan.

  After routing the raja, the Sultanate army advanced to the temple city of Somnath, plundered its renowned Shiva temple—which had been rebuilt after it was sacked by Mahmud Ghazni in the early eleventh century—and sent its idol to Delhi, where its fragments were laid on the ground at the entrance of the Friday Mosque for the faithful to tread on.

  From Somnath the Sultanate army proceeded to the flourishing port city of Khambhat (Cambay), plundered its merchants and obtained a vast booty—and, what turned to be far more valuable to the sultan, the army there seized a young, handsome and exceptionally talented slave eunuch named Kafur, who bore the nickname Hazardinari (Thousand Dinars), as his original price was one thousand dinars. Taken to Delhi, Kafur became an intimate of the sultan—his ‘beauty captivated Ala-ud-din,’ says Barani—and he would in time play a central role in the history of the times.

  The invasion of Gujarat, like everything else that Ala-ud-din did, was remarkably successful, and the kingdom was annexed by the Sultanate. But the success of the campaign was somewhat marred by a mutiny in the Sultanate army when it was on its way back to Delhi. The trouble erupted, according to Barani, when the generals demanded that all soldiers should hand over to them one-fifth of the spoils they got in Gujarat, and ‘instituted inquisitorial inquiries about it’ to ensure that this was done. Though the mutiny was easily suppressed, its ringleaders managed to escape. So when the army returned to Delhi, the families of the rebel leaders were, in reprisal, subjected to dreadful punishments. ‘The crafty cruelty which had taken possession of Ala-ud-din induced him to order that the wives and children of the mutineers, high and low, should be cast into prison,’ states Barani. ‘This was the beginning of the practice of seizing women and children for the faults of men.’ Further, Nusrat Khan, one of the army generals, whose brother had been murdered by the mutineers, in revenge ‘ordered the wives of the assassins to be dishonoured and exposed to most disgraceful treatment; he then handed them over to vile persons to make common strumpets of them. Their children he caused to be cut to pieces on the heads of their mothers. Outrages like this are practised in no religion or creed. These and similar acts … filled the people of Delhi with amazement and dismay, and every bosom trembled.’

  ALA-UD-DIN’S NEXT MILITARY target was the fort of Ranthambhor in Rajasthan. Though Rajasthan was not, in terms of spoils, a particularly inviting region for Turks to conquer, its control was of crucial strategic importance to the Sultanate, as the route from Delhi to central and peninsular India passed through the region. Rajasthan therefore had to be secured before the Sultanate could expand southward. Besides, it was dangerous for the Sultanate to let the turbulent Rajput rajas remain in power in the very backyard of Delhi. Moreover, Ranthambhor was an impregnable fort, which could serve as an excellent outpost of Delhi. All this made its conquest essential for the Sultanate.

  Aibak had captured this fort during the early history of the Sultanate, but it had subsequently changed hands several times, and was at this time in the possession of a Rajput raja. Recognising the strategic importance of Ranthambhor, Ala-ud-din himself led the army against it, and he succeeded in capturing it after a protracted siege and much bloodshed. A factor in Ala-ud-din’s success at Ranthambhor was the defection of the raja’s minister, Ranmal, to him. Characteristically, after capturing the fort, Ala-ud-din executed Ranmal—the sultan had no tolerance for those who betray their masters, even in the instances in which he benefited from their defections. The raja of Ranthambhor, Hamir Deva, was also executed. The kingdom of Ranthambhor was then annexed by the Sultanate, and its fort was placed under the command of a Turkish general.

  During the Ranthambhor campaign Ala-ud-din very nearly lost his life in a coup attempt by his brother’s son, Akat Khan. This happened on the sultan’s way to Ranthambhor, when he was diverting himself by hunting in a forest near his camp. It was early morning and he was sitting on a stool in a clearing in the woods, accompanied by just a few guards, waiting for the game to be driven towards him by his soldiers. As Barani describes the scene, seeing Ala-ud-din to be virtually defenceless, Akat Khan with a contingent of New Muslim cavalry soldiers galloped up to him, ‘shouting “Tiger! Tiger!” and began to discharge arrows at him. It was winter, and the sultan was wearing a large overcoat. He jumped up … and seizing the stool on which he had been sitting, made a shield of it. He warded off several arrows, but two pierced his arm, though none reached his body.’ Apparently he fainted then, because of the loss of blood. Meanwhile the sultan’s guards covered him with their bucklers, and, as the attackers galloped up, they shouted that the sultan was dead. ‘Akat Khan was young, rash and foolish. He had made a violent attack on his sovereign, but he lacked the decision and resolution to carry it through, and cut off the sultan’s head. In his folly and rashness he took another course.’

  Confronted by the royal guards who stood firm with their swords drawn around the fallen sultan, Akat Khan dared not dismount and lay his hands on the sultan. Instead he galloped back to the royal camp and ‘seated himself on the throne of Ala-ud-din, and proclaimed to the people of the court in a loud voice that he had slain the sultan.’ The courtiers believed him, as they felt that he would not have dared to sit on the throne if Ala-ud-din was not actually dead. So ‘the chief men of the army came to pay their respects to the new sovereign. They kissed the hand of that evil doer and did homage. Akat Khan in his egregious folly then attempted to go into the harem,’ but there his entry was barred by the guards who warned him that he had to first produce the sultan’s severed head before he could enter the harem.

  Meanwhile Ala-ud-din regained consciousness, and his attendants dressed his wounds. He then reflected on what had happened, and concluded that Akat Khan would not have dared to do what he did, if he did not have the support of many royal officers and courtiers. He therefore felt that it would not be safe for him to return
to his camp, and that the best course of action for him would be to retreat somewhere and regroup his forces. But one of his officers strongly argued against that course of action, and urged him to return immediately to the camp, and assured him that as soon as the people in the camp realised that he was safe, they would flock to him.

  Ala-ud-din heeded that advice. He then proceeded to the camp, and was on the way joined by many of his men, so that by the time he reached the camp he had an escort of five or six hundred solders. ‘He immediately showed himself on a high ground, and being recognized, the assembly at the royal tent broke up, and his attendants came forth with elephants to receive him,’ records Barani. ‘Akat khan then rushed out of the tents and fled on horseback.’ But he was pursued, captured and immediately beheaded. And those who had connived with Akat Khan’s plot were ‘scourged to death with thongs of wire.’

  This was a testing time for Ala-ud-din. Around the time of the Ranthambhor incident, two other nephews of his, provincial governors, also rose in rebellion against him. But they were soon captured by royal forces and sent to the sultan in Ranthambhor, where he had them punished in his presence—‘they were blinded by having their eyes cut out with knives like slices of a melon,’ reports Barani. ‘The sultan’s cruel, implacable temper had no compassion for his sister’s children.’

  At this time there was also an insurrection in Delhi, in which a group of discontented officers under one Haji Maula—an officer of ‘violent, fearless and malignant character,’ as Barani describes him—broke into the royal treasury, took out bags of gold coins from there, and distributed the money among themselves and their followers, and raised a distant descendant of Iltutmish (pretentiously named Shahinshah—King of Kings) to the throne. Fortunately for Ala-ud-din, the rebellion fizzled out quickly—it was suppressed within a week by loyal officers, and the pretender and his sponsor, along with many of their followers, were put to death.

  ALA-UD-DIN RETURNED TO Delhi from Rajasthan in mid-1301, but in early 1303 he once again set out for Rajasthan, this time to capture the fort of Chitor, the possession of which, like that of Ranthambhor, was strategically important to him, to secure the route of his planned campaigns into central and peninsular India. In addition to these compelling strategic considerations, Ala-ud-din, according to a colourful romantic legend, was drawn to Chitor by what he had heard about the enchanting beauty of Padmini, the queen of Rana Ratan Singh of the kingdom. This legend has a few variations, but in broad terms the story is that Padmini spurned the sultan outright, and would not even agree to let him see her just once. The most she conceded was to allow him to fleetingly see her reflection in a mirror. But that momentary glimpse further inflamed Ala-ud-din’s passion, and he decided to capture her somehow.

  This inevitably led to a battle between the armies of the raja and the sultan, in which the vastly superior Turkish army vanquished the Rajput army, even though Rajputs fought with great valour. Rajputs then retreated into the fort, where they barricaded themselves and performed the awesome rite of jauhar, in which Padmini and all the women in the fort flung themselves into an immense blazing pyre built there, preferring death to dishonour. When that rite was over, the gates of the fort were flung open, and the raja and his men hurtled out into the plain and tore into the arrayed enemy army, to kill and be killed, till all the Rajputs perished.

  This story is told with many colourful frills in the bardic lore of Rajasthan, but there is no record of it at all in any contemporary chronicle. All that Barani says about Ala-ud-din’s Chitor campaign is that ‘the sultan then led forth an army and laid siege to Chitor, which he took in a short time and returned home.’ In fact, Amir Khusrav’s statement that after taking Chitor, the sultan ordered the ‘massacre of 30,000 Hindus,’ specifically excludes the possibility of jauhar having been performed there on this occasion.

  The story also does not quite match what we know of Ala-ud-din’s character. He was a down-to-earth, hard-headed monarch, and it is unlikely that he had any serious romantic vulnerability. He did indeed seize and take into his harem the queens of some of the rajas he defeated, but that was for him like appropriating any other valuable asset of the enemy.

  The earliest textual reference to the Padmini episode is in Malik Muhammad Jaisi’s epic Hindi poem Padmavat. This was written in the mid-sixteenth century, nearly two and a half centuries after Ala-ud-din’s conquest of Chitor, and is therefore of doubtful credibility. Moreover, Padmavat is a romance and not a historical work. The story is also mentioned by a few later chroniclers, such as Abul Fazl and Ferishta, but they were obviously just repeating popular legends. Still, despite all these negative factors, it is possible that there is some tiny kernel of truth in the story, though most of its details are clearly bardic embellishments.

  IN 1305, TWO years after the capture of Chitor, Ala-ud-din sent his army into the kingdom of Malwa, which he had previously invaded, during his governorship of Kara, but whose rulers had since then, ‘rubbed their eyes with the antimony of pride, and … had forsaken the path of obedience,’ states Amir Khusrav. ‘A select body of royal troops … suddenly fell on those blind and bewildered men … The blows of the sword then descended upon them, their heads were cut off, and the earth was moistened with … [their] blood.’

  The capture of Malwa cleared the path for the expansion of the Sultanate into peninsular India. Other circumstances also favoured the southward expansion of the Sultanate. The Mongol incursions, which had troubled the Sultanate for several decades, ceased around this time, and that enabled Ala-ud-din to withdraw several divisions of his army from his western frontier, and send them sweeping deep into peninsular India. The Sultanate was also relatively free of provincial rebellions at this time. ‘Wherever Ala-ud-din looked around upon his territories, peace and order prevailed,’ writes Barani. ‘His mind was free from all anxiety.’ He could therefore launch into his expansionist ambitions with ease of mind.

  Ala-ud-din was the first ruler of the Sultanate to extend his kingdom into peninsular India, and also the first to carry out raids deep into South India, bringing virtually the entire Indian subcontinent within the ambit of his army. But his objective in these campaigns was not to annex the entire region to his empire, but to gather plunder and to claim tribute from the local rulers.

  His first target in the peninsula was Devagiri in western Deccan. This town had a special appeal for Ala-ud-din, for he had raided it when he was the governor of Kara, and it was the plunder that he got from there that provided him the resources he needed to successfully execute his plan to usurp the Delhi throne. Ala-ud-din had imposed a tribute on the raja of Devagiri during that campaign, but no tribute had been received from him for three years. So in 1307 he sent a large army into Devagiri to enforce its compliance. This army was commanded by Malik Kafur, who had entered the service of Ala-ud-din just a decade earlier but had since risen rapidly in official hierarchy, and was now designated as Malik Naib, Lieutenant of the Kingdom. The Devagiri campaign was Kafur’s first major military assignment, and he executed it with expedition and efficiency, which would mark all his subsequent campaigns also. On capturing the Devagiri fort, he stripped it of all its treasures, seized its war elephants, and took them all to Delhi along with Ramadeva, the captured raja, his wives and children.

  In Delhi the raja was received with courtesy and honour by Ala-ud-din. ‘The sultan showed great favour to the raja, gave him a canopy, and the title Rai-i-rayan (King of Kings),’ reports Barani. ‘He also gave him a lakh of tankas, and [after a few months] sent him back in great honour, with his wives, children, and dependents, to Devagiri, which place he confirmed in his possession. The raja was ever afterwards obedient, and sent his tribute regularly as long as he lived.’ Ramadeva would also provide invaluable assistance to the sultanate army in its subsequent campaigns in the peninsula; Devagiri in fact served as the base for Ala-ud-din’s peninsular military operations.

  There is an engaging romantic tale associated with the Sultanate’s conqu
est of Devagiri, as with its conquest of Chitor, but this story has greater credibility, for it is told by the contemporary poet Amir Khusrav. The story, as told in Ashiqa, a long poem of Amir Khusrav, is that when Malik Kafur set out for Devagiri he was instructed by Ala-ud-din’s Rajput wife Kamala Devi (formerly the queen of Gujarat) to look for her young daughter Deval Devi, whom her father Karna had taken with him when he fled from Gujarat and took refuge in Devagiri during Ala-ud-din’s conquest of Gujarat some nine years earlier. The princess was now around 13 years old, and was betrothed to a son of the king of Devagiri. But while she was being escorted from her provincial residence to Devagiri for the marriage with the prince, a group of Sultanate soldiers, who were picnicking at the Ellora cave shrines, chanced upon her and seized her. She was then sent to her mother in Delhi, and there, according to the legend, Khizr Khan, Ala-ud-din’s eldest son, fell desperately in love with her. She was, according to Isami, a mid-fourteenth century chronicler, ‘a soul-enticing and heart-ravishing beauty … The beautiful girl captivated his heart and he became a slave of her coquetry and guiles.’ The lovers were eventually, after many twists and turns of events, happily united in marriage.

  IN 1309, THE very year after Malik Kafur returned to Delhi from Devagiri, Ala-ud-din sent him again into the peninsula, this time against Warangal, ruled by Prataparudra Deva of the Kakatiya dynasty. This was the second expedition that Ala-ud-din sent against Warangal. Six years earlier he had sent an army into the kingdom under the command of Fakhr-ud-din Jauna, the future Muhammad Tughluq. For some inexplicable reason Muhammad took the difficult and unfamiliar eastern route, through Orissa, to invade Warangal. Predictably, as in nearly everything that Muhammad would later do as sultan, the campaign failed disastrously—it was beset by the difficulties of the route and by incessant rains, and the army suffered a humiliating defeat in Warangal, and had to retreat in disarray.