Jalal-ud-din Firuz
THE people of Delhi did not at first welcome the new Khalji ruler, Jalal-ud-din Firuz, as they considered him to be of Afghan stock. But the late major Raverty sought to prove that the Khaljis could not be classed as Afghans or Pathans, and he assigns to them a Turkish origin. The contemporary historian Zia-ud-din Barni, however, states that JaIaI-ud-din “came of a race different from the Turks” and that by the death of Kaiqubad “the Turks lost the Empire”. Some modern writers suggest that the Khaljis were originally of Turkish origin but had acquired Afghan character during their long residence in Afghanistan, and “between them and the Turks there was no love lost”. Be that as it may, they took advantage of the political disorders of the time to establish their power.
Jalal-ud-din was at first not much liked by the nobles and the populace of Delhi, and had to make Kilokhri the seat of his government. However, as Barni writes, the “excellence of his character, his justice, generosity and devotion, gradually removed the aversion of the people, and hopes of grants of land assisted in conciliating, though grudgingly and unwillingly, the affections of his nobles”.
The new Sultan was an old man of seventy when he was elected to the throne. ” Preoccupied with preparations for the next world, ” he proved to be too mild and tender to hold his power in those troublous times. Disposed to rule without bloodshed or oppression, he showed “the most impolitic tenderness towards rebels and other criminals”. When, in the second year of his reign, Malik Chhajju, a nephew of Balban, who held the fief of Kara, rebelled against him with the help of several nobles, he, out of imprudent generosity, pardoned the rebels.
As a natural result of the Sultan’s peaceful disposition and leniency, there was a recrudescence of baronial intrigues and the authority of the Delhi throne ceased to respected. This made him unpopular even with the Khalji nobles, who aspired after power and privileges during the rule of one of their leaders. One of them, Malik Ahmad Chap, who held the post of Master of Ceremonies, told him plainly “that a King should reign and observe the rules of government, or else be content to relinquish the throne”. There was only one unfortunate departure from this generous policy, when, the Sultan’s order, Siddi-Maula, a darvesh, was executed on were suspicion of treason.
Such a ruler could not pursue a vigorous policy of conquest. Thus his expedition against Ranthambhor was a failure. The Sultan turned away from capturing the fort there with the conviction that it could not be accomplished “without sacrificing the lives of many Mussalmans “. But he was more successful against a horde of Mongols, numbering about 150,000 strong, who in A.D. 1292 invaded India under a grandson of Halaku (Hulagu). Severely defeated by the Sultan’s troops the invaders made peace. Their army was permitted to return from India, but Ulghu a descendant of Chingiz, and many of the rank and file embraced Islam, settled near Delhi and came to be known as “New Mussalmans”. This was an ill advised concession, which produced trouble in the future. The “New Mussalmans” proved to be turbulent neighbours of the Delhi Government and caused it much anxiety. Even such a pace-loving king could not die a natural death on his bed. By a strange irony of fate he was done to death by his ambitious nephew in 1296.
Ala-ud-din Khalji
Ala-ud-din Khalji, nephew of Jalal-ud-din Firuz, was brought up by his uncle with affection and care. Outalauddinkhalji of excessive fondness for this fatherless nephew, Firuz made him also his son-in-law. On being raised to the throne of Delhi, Firuz placed him in charge of the fief of Kara in the district of Allahabad. It was here that seeds of ambition were sown in ‘Ala-ud-din’s mind. The “crafty suggestions of the Kara rebels”, writes Barni, “made a lodgement in his brain, and, from the very first year of his occupation of that territory, he began to follow up his design of proceeding to some distant quarter and amassing money”. It might be that domestic unhappiness, due to the intrigues of his mother-in-law, Malika Jahan, and his wife, also made him inclined to establish power and influence independent of the Delhi court. A successful raid into Malwa in 1292 and the capture of the town of Bhilsa, for which he was rewarded with the fief of Oudh in addition to that of Kara whetted his ambition,
At Bhilsa, ‘Ala-ud-din heard vague rumours of the fabulous wealth of the kingdom of Devagiri, which extended over the western Deccan and was then ruled by Ramchandradeva of the Yadava dynasty, and resolved to conquer it. Concealing his intention from his uncle, he marched to the Deccan through Central India and the Vindhyan region at the head of a few thousand cavalry and arrived before Devagiri. Contact of Islam with this part of India had begun much earlier, since the eighth century at the latest. Ramchandradeva was not prepared for such an attack, and his son, Sankaradeva, had gone southwards with the greater part of his army. He was thus taken by surprise, defeated after a futile resistance, and compelled to make peace with the invader by promising to pay a heavy ransom. But as ‘Ala-ud-din was about to start marching towards Kara, Sankaradeva hurried back to Devagiri and offered battle with the invaders, in spite of his father’s request to the contrary. His enthusiasm brought him initial success, but he was soon defeated and a general panic ensued in his army, which led his followers to run away in different directions in utter confusion. Ramchandradeva solicited the help of the other rulers of Peninsular India, but to no effect, and he was also greatly handicapped for want of provisions. No way was left for him but to sue for peace, which was concluded on harder terms than before. ‘Ala-ud-din returned to Kara with enormous booty in gold, silver, silk, pearls and precious stones. This daring raid of the Khalji invader not only entailed a heavy economic drain on the Deccan, but it also opened the way for the ultimate Muslim domination over the lands beyond the Vindhyas.
Ala-ud-din had no intention of sharing the wealth with the Sultan of Delhi. Rather it widened the range of his ambition with the throne of Delhi as its goal. In spite of the honest counsels of his officers, especially of Ahmad Chap, the most outspoken of all, the old Sultan, Jalal-ud-din Firuz, blinded by his affection for his nephew and son-in-law, ‘Ala-ud-din, allowed himself to be lured into a trap laid by the latter. Urged on by a traitor at his court, he hurried on a boat to meet his favourite nephew at Kara without taking even the necessary precautions for self-defence, and this mistake cost him his life. The adherents of ‘Ala-ud-din proclaimed him Sultan in his camp on the 19th July, 1296. But ‘Ala-ud-din, as Barni writes, “did not escape retribution for the blood of his patron. . . . Fate at length placed a betrayer in his path (Malik Kafur) by whom his family was destroyed .. . and the retribution which fell upon it never had a parallel even in any infidel land”.
