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 the 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.
Ala-ud-din then advanced on Delhi, even though it was, as Barani notes, ‘the very height of the rainy season’ and roads had turned into marshes. But his progress was slow, and it was only towards the end of 1296, some five months after he murdered his uncle, that he reached Delhi.
ALA-UD-DIN ENTERED DELHI with great pomp, and was formally enthroned there, and he took up his residence in the Red Palace of Balban. His immediate concern was to win over to his side the prominent people of the city, and this he successfully did by liberally scattering gold and honours among them. ‘He had committed a deed unworthy of his religion and position, so he deemed it . . . [prudent] to cover up his crime by scattering honours and gifts upon all classes of people,’ states Barani, whose own father and uncle were among the principal beneficiaries of Ala-ud-din’s bounty. ‘People were so deluded by the gold which they received that no one ever mentioned the horrible crime that the sultan had committed.’
After securing his position in Delhi, Ala-ud-din sent an army to Multan, where it captured Arkali Khan and Qadr Khan along with their principal followers. The princes were, on the orders of Ala-ud-din, immediately blinded, and were later put to death, and their mother was taken to Delhi and locked up in a prison. ‘The throne was now secure. The revenue officers, the elephant keepers with their elephants, the kotwals with the keys of the fort, the magistrates, and the chief men of Delhi went over to Ala-ud-din, and a new order of things was established,’ records Barani. ‘His wealth and power were great, so whether individuals gave their allegiance or whether they did not, mattered little, for the khutba was read and coins were struck in his name.’
In the second year of his reign Ala-ud-din turned to the task of firming up his authority over the nobles. He had, during the early stages of his usurpation, distributed vast wealth among the nobles to win them over to his side, but he was sagacious enough to know that, though this was crucially beneficial to him initially, it entailed a major risk, as it inflated the ego of the nobles with the feeling that the sultan had come to power because of their support, and that he was now indispensably dependent on them for remaining in power. Ala-ud-din therefore, now that he was secure on the throne, wanted to make it clear to the nobles that instead of he being dependent on their support, they were dependent on his favour.
To prove this point he dismissed from service or otherwise disgraced several of his top officers. He was particularly severe with the nobles who had switched sides and had opportunistically joined him as he usurped the throne, deeming them to be untrustworthy men—those who had betrayed their former master could very well betray their present master as well, he felt. ‘The maliks of the late king, who deserted their benefactor and joined Ala-ud-din, and received gold by mans and obtained employments and territories, were all seized in the city and in the army, and thrown into forts as prisoners,’ records Barani. ‘Some were blinded and some were killed. Their houses were confiscated . . . and their villages were brought under the public exchequer. Nothing was left for their children . . . Of all the amirs of Jalal-ud-din, only three were spared by Ala-ud-din . . . These three persons had never taken money from Sultan Ala-ud-din. They alone remained safe, but all the other Jalali nobles were exterminated root and branch.’ Ala-ud-din spared the three high-principled loyalists of Jalal-ud-din, because he felt that such people could be trusted, and that their unfailing loyalty to their master merited respect.
ALA-UD-DIN WAS IN many respects a most unusual person—and a most unusual monarch. And he was amazingly successful in all that he did, even in the many revolutionary reforms that he introduced, some of which were far, far ahead of his times. ‘The character and manners of Sultan Ala-ud-din were strange,’ states Barani. ‘He was bad-tempered, obstinate, and hard-hearted, but the world smiled upon him, fortune befriended him, and his schemes were generally successful. So he became . . . more reckless and arrogant . . . He was by nature cruel and implacable, and his only concern was for the welfare of his kingdom. No consideration of religion, no regard for the ties of brotherhood or filial relationships, no care for the rights of others, ever troubled him.’ He was entirely unsentimental and ruthlessly efficient. Success was all that mattered to him.
And, most unusual of all in that age of minimal governments, Ala-ud-din ran a maximal government. There was hardly anything in the empire that he did not seek to control and manipulate. And he had to his credit the introduction of several daringly innovative and brilliantly successful administrative and economic reforms. Curiously, he was illiterate—as was the great Mughal emperor Akbar—but that proved to be an advantage for him, as he could innovate freely, without being burdened by conventional wisdom.
‘He was a man of no learning and he never associated with men of learning. He could not read or write a letter,’ scorns Barani. ‘But when he became king, he came to the conclusion that polity and government are one thing, and the rules and decrees of religion are another. Royal commands belong to the king, legal decrees rest upon the judgment of kazis and muftis. In accordance with this opinion, whatever affair of the state came before him, he only looked to the public good, without considering whether his mode of dealing with it was lawful or unlawful. He never asked for legal opinions on political matters, and very few learned men visited him.’
Barani’s comment that Ala-ud-din ‘only looked to the public good’ was meant as a criticism, but to the modern reader it would seem to be a high compliment. The sultan ruled his vast empire with firmness and energy, even with wisdom, and on the whole his rule was beneficial to the people, and under him they lived in greater security and comfort than under any other king of the Delhi Sultanate.
Ala-ud-din was undeniably one of the greatest rulers in Indian history. Unfortunately, in contrast to his splendid public achievements, he had to endure much misery in his private life. He had married his cousin, Jalal-ud-din’s daughter, but she turned out to be a veritable shrew, as was her mother, and the two of them together made his domestic life utterly wretched. ‘The wife of Ala-ud-din tormented him,’ states Ibn Battuta, a fourteenth century Moorish traveller in India. The sultan was a maniac for control, but he could not control his wife. Though he had other wives, domestic disharmony would have been galling to him, especially as he was obsessed with being in control of everything.
The sultan compensated the miseries of his private life with outstanding achievements in his public life. ‘One success followed another,’ reports Barani. ‘Despatches of victory came in from all sides; every year he had two or three sons born; affairs of the state went on according to his wish and to his satisfaction; his treasury was overflowing, boxes and caskets of jewels and pearls were daily displayed before his eyes; he had numerous elephants in his stables and 70,000 horses in the city and environs; two or three regions were subject to his sway; and he had no apprehension of enemies to his kingdom or of any rival to his throne.’
Ala-ud-din had several major military achievements to his credit. But he was not rapacious in his conquests, and was usually generous and honourable in his treatment of the rajas he subjugated, and he often reinstated them on their thrones as subordinate rulers. He was no doubt a despot, as the rulers of the age invariably were, but he was not a whimsical despot. All his policies were formulated, and actions taken, only after very careful consideration, not on impulse. He, as even Barani admits, usually ‘consulted and debated with wise men by night and by day as to the best means’ for achieving his goals. He was even amenable to criticism, and often rewarded those who boldly gave him sensible though unpalatable advice. And, most unusual and laudable of all, he had a genuine concern for the welfare of the common people. Also, contrary to what Barani says, Ala-ud-din enjoyed the company of scholars and creative people, and was a patron of Amir Khusrav and Amir Hasan, renowned poets.
ALA-UD-DIN WAS INVARIABLY successful in all his ventures, and his successes, if we are to believe Barani, fantastically inflated his ambition. ‘His prosperity intoxicated him,’ states Barani. ‘Vast desires and great aims beyond him, or a hundred thousand like him, laid their seeds in his brain, and he entertained fancies which had never occurred to any king before him. In his exaltation, ignorance, and folly, he quite lost his head, forming the most impossible schemes and nourishing the most extravagant desires.’
Some of Ala-ud-din’s schemes, as reported by Barani, were certainly megalomaniacal. ‘If I am inclined, I can . . . establish a new religion and creed; and my sword, and the swords of my friends, will bring all men to adopt it,’ he once told his nobles. He also dreamed of world conquest. ‘I have wealth and elephants and forces beyond calculation. My wish is to place Delhi in charge of a vicegerent, and then I myself will go out into the world, like Alexander, in pursuit of conquest, and subdue the whole habitable world,’ he vaunted. ‘Every region that I subdue I will entrust to one of my trusty nobles, and then proceed in quest of another. Who is there that will stand against me?’ He even assumed the title Sikandar Sani (Second Alexander), and had the title stamped on his coins and inserted in the khutba read at Friday prayers. ‘His companions, although they saw his . . . folly and arrogance, were afraid of his violent temper, and applauded him,’ comments Barani.
It was Barani’s uncle Ala-ul Mulk, the kotwal of Delhi and one of the close associates of Ala-ud-din from the time before his accession, who finally opened the sultan’s eyes to the absurdity of his chimeric schemes. This noble used to attend the royal court only on the new moon days because of his ‘extreme corpulence,’ but one day when he attended the court, the sultan asked his opinion about his grand projects. And the kotwal made bold to submit: ‘Religion and law and creeds should never be made the subjects of discussion by Your Majesty, for these are the concerns of prophets, not the business of kings. Religion and law spring from heavenly revelation; they are never established by the plans and designs of man . . . The prophetic office has never appertained to kings, and never will . . . though some prophets have discharged the function of royalty. My advice is that Your Majesty should never talk about these matters.’ The sultan, according to Barani, ‘listened, and hung down his head in thought . . . After a while he said, “Henceforth no one shall ever hear me speak such words.”’
But what about his plan for world conquest, Ala-ud-din then asked. ‘The second design is that of a great monarch, for it is a rule among kings to seek to bring the whole world under their sway,’ the kotwal admitted, but cautioned that what was possible for Alexander might not be possible for any king anymore. ‘These are not the days of Alexander,’ the kotwal cautioned. ‘But what is the use of my wealth, and elephants and horses, if I remain content with Delhi, and undertake no new conquests?’ the sultan persisted. ‘What will then be said of my reign?’ The kotwal then advised the sultan that before planning world conquest he should first effectively defend his kingdom against persistent Mongol incursions, and then conquer the vast unconquered regions of the Indian subcontinent. But even these practicable goals, the kotwal warned, would be difficult to achieve ‘unless Your Majesty gives up drinking excessively, and keeps aloof from convivial parties and feasts.’ Ala-ud-din was pleased with this frank and sensible counsel, and he honoured the kotwal with a robe of honour and various other valuable gifts.
ALA-UD-DIN HEEDED THE Kotwal’s advice, and thereafter focussed his attention on realisable goals, such as expanding his empire and tightening its administration. And in both these he was exceptionally successful. There was a substantial expansion of the territory of the Delhi Sultanate during his reign, so the kingdom became the absolutely dominant political and military power in the subcontinent. But the sultan was not a rash adventurer. His military policy, as in everything else he did, was a potent combination of daring and caution. He took particular care to treat the conquered rajas honourably, and he cautioned his officers setting out on conquests that they should ‘avoid unnecessary strictness’ towards the rajas, and should treat them respectfully, so as to turn enemies into allies. And to ensure that his orders on all these matters were strictly carried out by his officers, Ala-ud-din kept himself fully informed about the movements and activities of his army, by setting up outposts all along its route, to carry news about the army to him, and to carry his instructions back to the army. As a result of these wise and benevolent and yet strict policies of the sultan, ‘subjugated countries and enemies became his ardent supporters,’ states Barani.
A major military concern of Ala-ud-din, as of most Delhi sultans, was to defend his kingdom against recurrent Mongol depredations across the northwestern frontier of India. In the early part of his reign—in the eight years from 1298 to 1306—there were as many five major Mongol incursions into India, in some of which they plundered the very environs of Delhi, and in one instance even entered the city itself for looting.
The Mongol threat was primarily of plunder and carnage, not of territorial conquest. Their campaigns were rather like the raids of Mahmud Ghazni; and, like Mahmud, the only major Indian territory they seized was western Punjab, the gateway to India, which they had to keep open and under their control to facilitate their raids. Mongols were a mountain people, and they abhorred the hot, humid climate of the Indian plains. Nor did the prospect of a peaceful settled life in India suit their restless, turbulent nature. On the couple of occasions when bands of captured Mongols were induced by the sultan to settle down in the environs of Delhi, they could not bear to live there for long, and in time many of them fled back to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Even some two centuries later, when Babur invaded India and established the Mughal Empire, several of his chieftains disdained to settle down in India but returned to their homeland.
India was for the Mongols a fabulously rich land to plunder periodically, but not a desirable place to occupy and live. They raided India whenever they needed fresh loot, which was often, for plunder was essential for their sustenance, as preys were for predatory animals. There were presumably numerous Mongol raids into India during the Sultanate period, of which only the major ones are recorded in history. During most of these incursions they, when confronted by the Sultanate army, quickly fled back to Afghanistan, so as not to risk losing their loot by engaging in battles. It was only on very rare occasions that they stood their ground and fought. The many decisive Indian victories against Mongols that the Turkish chroniclers have recorded were in most cases quite probably hollow victories, merely chasing the fleeing Mongols.
The first recorded Mongol incursion into India during the reign of Ala-ud-din was in its second year, in early 1298, but they were as usual driven back by an army sent by the sultan. But they came again the very next year, a vast horde of some 200,000 men, who crossed the Indus and stormed towards Delhi, where they camped on the banks of the Yamuna, and besieged the city. On the approach of Mongols, the people in the suburbs of Delhi fled into the city for refuge, and that led to an acute shortage of provisions in the city and the near collapse of the civic order there. ‘Great anxiety prevailed in Delhi,’ reports Barani. ‘All men, great and small, were in dismay. Such a concourse had crowded into the city that the streets and markets and mosques could not contain them.’
The Mongol problem had to be met head-on, Ala-ud-din then decided, and he set out from Delhi with his army to confront the raiders, though he was advised by the ever cautious kotwal to temporise with them rather than risk all in a battle. ‘If I were to follow your advice, to whom can I then show my face?’ the sultan asked the kotwal. ‘How can I then go into my harem? Of what account will the people then hold me? And what would then happen to the daring and courage which is necessary to keep my turbulent people in submission? Come what may, I will tomorrow march into the plain of Kili.’
Fortunately, Mongols were routed in the ensuing battle. But they swept into India again a couple of years later, again with a very large cavalry force, and they once again headed straight for Delhi and camped on the banks of the Yamuna, plundering the suburbs of the city and even foraying into the city itself, forcing Ala-ud-din to take refuge in the fort of Siri. ‘Such fear of Mongols and anxiety as now prevailed in Delhi had never been known before,’ notes Barani. Fortunately, Mongols suddenly retreated on their own accord after two months, apparently sated with plunder. ‘This . . . preservation of Delhi seemed, to wise men, one of the wonders of the age,’ concludes Barani.
THE MONGOL RAIDS were a direct challenge to the authority of the sultan. They could not be allowed to go on, Ala-ud-din decided. It was not enough to drive back Mongols whenever they raided India, he held; what was needed was to take strong deterrent measures to avert their raids altogether. He therefore had the old forts along the route of Mongols repaired, and also had some new forts built, and he provided them all with stockpiles of weapons, provisions and fodder. Frontier forts ‘were garrisoned with strong, select forces, and were ever kept in a state of defence preparedness; and the fiefs on the route of Mongols were placed under amirs of experience, and the whole route was secured by the appointment of tried and vigilant generals,’ reports Barani.
But none of that deterred the Mongols, and they raided India again in 1305. This time however they avoided the strongly defended Delhi, but rampaged through the Doab—the tongue of land between Ganga and Yamuna— pillaging, burning and butchering. But once again they were routed by the Sultanate army. A large number of Mongols were taken as prisoners in this battle, some 8000 of them, and they were all then ruthlessly slaughtered, and their severed heads cemented into the walls of Ala-ud-din’s fortress at Siri.
Despite that awful carnage, Mongols raided India again the very next year, but were once again routed. The slaughter in this battle, according to the early fourteenth century chronicler Wassaf, was several times greater than that in the previous battle, but the figure he gives seems exaggerated. ‘After the battle an order was issued by Ala-ud-din to gather together the heads of all those who had been slain,’ he writes. ‘On counting them . . . they were found to amount to 60,000, and . . . a tower was built of these heads before the Badaun Gate [of Delhi], in order that it might serve as a warning . . . to future generations.’ This tower, according to Ferishta, could be seen there even two and a half centuries later, during the reign of Akbar. The Mongols who were captured were thrown under elephants to be trampled to death, and their women and children were sold into slavery. ‘So many thousands [of Mongols] were slain in battle and in the city that horrid stenches arose’ from the rotting bodies, reports Barani. ‘Streams of blood flowed.’
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 Alaud-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-irayan (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 conquest 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.
Ala-ud-din’s objective in his new campaign against Warangal was to gather booty and obtain tribute, so he instructed Malik Kafur that if the raja surrendered his treasure, elephants and horses, and agreed to send a yearly tribute, he ‘should accept these terms and not press the raja too hard.’ The Sultanate army this time sensibly took the traditional western route, and was on the way able to secure assistance and reinforcements from Ramadeva of Devagiri. The raja, notes Barani, ‘sent men forward to all villages on the route, as far as the border of Warangal, with orders for the collection of fodder and provisions for the army, and warning that if even a bit of rope was lost [by the army] they would have to answer for it. He sent on all stragglers to rejoin the army, and he added to it a force of Marathas, both horse and foot. He himself accompanied the march several stages, and then took leave and returned.’
The raja of Warangal was reputed to have a huge army, and his fort had, apart from its stone walls, a strong earthen wall around it, which was so well-compacted that stones from catapults rebounded from it like nuts, according to medieval sources. The fort was also girded by two deep moats, one around the earthen wall, and the other around the fort itself. Predictably, the Sultanate army faced stubborn resistance there, but they eventually managed to fill up the outer moat, then breach the earthen wall, and storm the main fort. The raja then surrendered, and, according to Barani, presented to Kafur ‘100 elephants, 7000 horses, and large quantities of jewels and valuables. He (Kafur) also took from him a written engagement to annually send treasure and elephants [to Delhi].’
Among the treasures that Kafur got in Warangal was a fabulous diamond, which Amir Khusrav describes as ‘unparalleled in the whole world.’ It probably was the famed Koh-i-Nur (Mountain of Light) diamond, which the Mughal emperor Babur got in Agra when he captured the city in 1526, and which eventually, after it changed hands several times, became part of the British crown jewels in 1877, when Queen Victoria was proclaimed the empress of India. Babur estimated the value of the diamond to be so high as to be sufficient to feed the whole world for two days.
KAFUR RETURNED TO Delhi in June 1310, bearing very many camel loads of treasure, and was accorded a grand reception by the sultan. But he was too restless by nature to remain inactive in Delhi. So in November 1310, five months after he returned to Delhi, he again set out with his army, this time for South India. Advancing through Devagiri he headed for Dvarasamudra in Karnataka, the capital of Hoysala king Vira Ballala. The raja did not have the strength to oppose the invasion, so he prudently sued for peace, agreed to surrender his treasures, and send an annual tribute to Delhi. ‘Thirty-six elephants, and all the treasures of the place fell into the hands of the victors,’ reports Barani.
Kafur then set out for the Tamil country. He met with virtually no resistance there, as the local rajas and chieftains, realising, from the experience of the other peninsular kingdoms, the futility of resistance, fled on Kafur’s approach, leaving their towns and temples to be freely plundered by the invading army. Though Kafur’s progress this time was hampered by torrential rains and heavy floods, he nevertheless resolutely continued his southward thrust, plundering and ravaging the temple cities of Chidambaram and Srirangam, as well as the Pandyan capital Madurai. He then swerved eastward and headed for the temple town of Rameswaram on the shore of the Bay of Bengal, there to sack the town and pillage the temple. The Khalji army, writes Amir Khusrav, advanced to ‘the shore of the sea as far as Lanka, and spread the odour of the amber-scented faith.’
This was the farthest point that any army from North India had ever penetrated into South India, and Kafur is said to have built a mosque in Rameswaram to mark that historic feat. Kafur’s passage through South India was quick and easy, and he had to fight no major battles there, so he could return to Delhi in late October 1311, after having been away for less than one year. And he was once again received by Ala-ud-din with great honour, in a special durbar. Kafur had brought with him an immense booty—‘612 elephants, 96,000 mans of gold, several boxes of jewels and pearls, and 20,000 horses,’ according to Barani. The quantity of the booty brought by Kafur astonished the people of Delhi. ‘No one,’ comments Barani, ‘could remember anything like it, nor was there anything like it recorded in history.’
The last major military campaign of Ala-ud-din’s reign was against Devagiri, where Ramadeva’s successor Singhana had turned refractory, and had defaulted the payment of tribute. So in 1313 the sultan sent Malik Kafur into Devagiri, and in the ensuing battle he defeated and killed the raja, and annexed the kingdom to the Sultanate. From Devagiri, Kafur then made forays into Telingana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, to reassert the supremacy of Delhi over the South Indian kingdoms. Kafur spent about three years in the peninsula, but was recalled to Delhi in 1315 due to Ala-ud-din’s rapidly failing health.
These were the major military campaigns of Ala-ud-din’s reign. Apart from these, there were several minor campaigns also during his reign. But the objective of Ala-ud-din in most of these campaigns was to gain political dominance, to gather plunder and to secure tribute, not to annex territory. His campaigns made Ala-ud-din absolutely the dominant ruler of India, but apart from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Malwa and Devagiri, very little new territory was brought under the rule of the Sultanate during his reign. In most cases, the defeated rulers were reinstated on their throne with honour, on their promise of paying regular tribute to the sultan. In this, as in everything else he did, Ala-ud-din was entirely pragmatic, as he found no merit in annexing faraway lands that he could not effectively govern.