‘Alā-ud-Dīn Muhammad Khaljī

Khaljī sultan of Delhi (r. 1296-1316)

• Born: Unknown
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: 1316
• Place of death: Unknown

ՙAlā-ud-Dīn usurped the throne of Delhi from his uncle and, after defeating several Mongol invasions, launched a series of raids into central and southern India, further extending the frontiers of Muslim expansion.

Early Life

ՙAlā-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Khaljī (ah-LAH-eh-DEEN muh-KHAHM-mehd khahl-JEE) belonged to the Khaljī tribe. There has been much discussion regarding the origins of the Khaljīs, although contemporary writers clearly distinguished them from Turks. The Khaljīs were associated with the area around the upper Helmand River in southwestern present-day Afghanistan. Originally, they were either Turks who had settled in the area and intermarried with the indigenous population, assimilating their characteristics, or indigenous nomads who underwent a process of Turkification during Ghaznavid and Ghūrid times (eleventh-twelfth centuries). Various historical sources mention Khaljīs among the Muslim troops invading northwestern India, and during the 1190’, a Khaljī, Muḥammad ibn Bakhtiyar, commanded an army that overran Bihar and Bengal.

When ՙAlā-ud-Dīn was born, the throne of Delhi was occupied by the formidable slave-soldier (mamlūk) turned sultan, Ghiyās-ud-Dīn Balban (r. 1266-1287). Within three years, however, the ruling family was superseded by ՙAlā-ud-Dīn’s uncle, the aging Jalāl-ud-Dīn Fīrūz Khaljī (r. 1290-1296), an experienced fighter against the Mongols on Delhi’s northwest frontier. ՙAlā-ud-Dīn was the eldest son of Sultan Jalāl-ud-Dīn’s younger brother. Not much is known of his early life. Even his date of birth is not recorded. Because his father is never mentioned in the chronicles, he must have died young, for ՙAlā-ud-Dīn and his brothers were brought up by Jalāl-ud-Dīn, and they would certainly have received a military training. At the time of Jalāl-ud-Dīn’s accession in 1290, ՙAlā-ud-Dīn was appointed amīr-i tuzuk (master of ceremonies), an important position in the court hierarchy. Later, in that same year, he was appointed governor of Kara, near Allahabad (now in India).

He had been given one of Jalāl-ud-Dīn’s daughters in marriage (her name is not recorded), but it proved a rancorous relationship, and there were no children. ՙAlā-ud-Dīn took a second wife, Mahru, a sister of Alp Arslan, a Turk destined to become one of ՙAlā-ud-Dīn’s most loyal supporters. On one occasion, the sultan’s daughter attacked the second wife, beating her with her sandal (in Islamic society, an ignominious insult). ՙAlā-ud-Dīn intervened, a scuffle ensued, and both the sultan’s daughter and her mother complained to Jalāl-ud-Dīn regarding ՙAlā-ud-Dīn’s behavior. Such feuds characterized harem life, where dynastic marriages and concubinage often led to violent rivalries. Mahru later became his principal wife, known as Malikat-i Jahan (queen of the world), and the mother of his eldest sons.

In Kara, if not before, ՙAlā-ud-Dīn had begun to plot to usurp the throne. In 1296, crossing from the central Gangetic plain to the northwestern Deccan, ՙAlā-ud-Dīn attacked the Yādava kingdom of Devagiri (Deogir, later Daulatabad, India); it was the first time that a Muslim army had penetrated south of the Narbada River. He sacked the city and forced its ruler, Rācandra (r. 1271-c. 1309), to submit and pay tribute. ՙAlā-ud-Dīn immediately returned to Kara with fabled wealth, which he offered to share with his uncle if the latter would visit him in Kara. When Jalāl-ud-Dīn did, his nephew promptly had him assassinated. ՙAlā-ud-Dīn then marched on Delhi, where he formally mounted the throne on October 20, 1296, eliminating the sons of Jalāl-ud-Dīn and other potential rivals.

Life’s Work

ՙAlā-ud-Dīn’s accession was not without problems. The Khaljīs were resented by the old Turkish mamlūk elite, and there were conspiracies that the new sultan put down with habitual ruthlessness. The sultanate also continued to be threatened by almost annual Mongol invasions until 1306. Despite these, ՙAlā-ud-Dīn embarked on a series of spectacular raids into central and southern India that carried Islam into the very heartlands of Hindu civilization. In 1299, he invaded the rich province of Gujarat, where he extracted great booty. Here, he purchased a Hindu eunuch, Kāfū, who would become his principal commander and who would finally contribute to the downfall of the dynasty. In 1300, ՙAlā-ud-Dīn attacked the Rājput princes of Rajasthan, sending expeditions against Ranthanbor in July, 1301, against Chitor in 1303, and in 1308 against the more remote fortresses of Siwana and Jalor.

According to the poet-chronicler Amir Khusrau (d. 1325), after the taking of Chitor, ՙAlā-ud-Dīn resolved to seize the kingdoms of the southern rajas. In 1305, therefore, his forces advanced into Malwa, displaced the Hindu Paramāra Dynasty, and took the capital, Māndu. In 1309, he subdued the Chandellas of Bundelkhand (now in Madhya Pradesh, India) and captured their capital, Mahoba. In 1306-1307, the sultan sent his favorite Kāfū, who had become malik naib (the sultan’s deputy), against Devagiri. Then, in 1309, Malik Kāfū invaded the northwestern Deccani kingdom of Tilangana, besieging the capital of Warangal (near modern Hyderabad). In 1310-1311, he moved against the HoysalŃa kingdom of Dōrasamudra (Dvārasamudra; modern Halebīd), overthrowing the ruler and sacking his capital. He then marched into Ma’bar (southern Coromandel). The historian Ziyā-ud-Dīn Baranī (1285-after 1357), an eyewitness, described Malik Kāfū returning to Delhi with 612 elephants, 20,000 horses, 96,000 mans of gold (reckoned at 241 tons), and countless jewels, pearls, and slaves.

Throughout the early part of ՙAlā-ud-Dīn’s reign, Mongol incursions were almost annual affairs, some reaching Delhi itself. In 1305, according to Amir Khusrau, after the invaders were driven off, the heads of eight thousand Mongol prisoners were mixed into the cement of the walls of the sultan’s new suburb of Siri. These raids ended only with the death of Duwa, the reigning Chaghataid khan, in 1306. Many Mongols had also migrated into India, turned Muslim, and entered the sultan’s army. Their behavior had not been above suspicion, and according to Baranī, around 1313, ՙAlā-ud-Dīn ordered a general massacre of twenty thousand to thirty thousand Mongol men, whose wives and children were given as slaves to their executioners.

By this time, the sultan was entering his dotage, and his last years were decidedly inglorious. There was a struggle to the death between Mahru’s brother, Alp Arslan, whose daughters had married the sultan’s two eldest sons, Khizr Khan and Shadi Khan, and the indefatigable Malik Kāfū, who personally assassinated Alp Arslan as he entered the royal apartments. Malik Kāfū now persuaded ՙAlā-ud-Dīn to disinherit his eldest sons in favor of his youngest, six-year-old ՙUmar. Khizr Khan was sent as a prisoner to Gwalior, Shadi Khan was imprisoned in Siri, and Mahru was confined to the harem.

When ՙAlā-ud-Dīn died in 1316, Malik Kāfū ordered the blinding of Khizr Khan and Shadi Khan, and the enthronement of ՙUmar as Sultan Shihāb-ud-Dīn. For thirty-five days, Malik Kāfū acted without restraint, preparing to seize the throne for himself. He sent four henchmen to blind Mubārak, another captive son of the late sultan, but Mubārak neatly turned the tables on him, bribed his would-be assassins, and sent them back with orders to kill Malik Kāfū, which they did. Mubārak now presented himself as regent for his younger brother, only to seize power, order the blinding of Shihāb-ud-Dīn, and mount the throne himself as QutŃb-ud-Dīn Mubārak Shāh (r. 1316-1320), last of the Khaljī sultans.

Opinions differ as to the style of ՙAlā-ud-Dīn’s government. In some respects, it was conventionally Islamic, with a censor of morals (muhtasib) appointed to suppress alcoholism, gambling, prostitution, and sodomy. For reasons of state, however, he restricted the authority of the Muslim jurists (ulamā) to matters of religious law and theology. Baranī was baffled that a sultan who subordinated religious law (Shariՙa) to political self-interest did not incur divine punishment. Later writers represented his campaigns against Hindu kingdoms as holy wars (jihad), but the motives for his expansionism were more predatory than pious.

The treachery with which ՙAlā-ud-Dīn had usurped his uncle’s throne and the conspiracies that occurred in the early years of his reign left him deeply suspicious of those around him, and he imposed a system of surveillance, intimidation, and expropriation to terrorize elite groups. For his own security, he organized what was in effect a standing army, maintained by state revenues. To maintain these safeguards, he enforced a ruthless system of revenue collection and imposed strict price controls, which were apparently effective, and aroused much interest on the part of the chroniclers, especially Baranī.

Although ՙAlā-ud-Dīn was probably illiterate, his reign saw the flourishing of certain Indo-Islamic cultural trends begun in the previous century. Although at first suspicious of the Sufis, especially those belonging to the Chishtī order of dervishes, he developed a close relationship with the greatest Chishtī of the age, Shaykh NizŃām-ud-Dīn Awliyā (1236-1325), to whom he sent Khizr Khan and Shadi Khan as disciples. Khizr Khan is said to have commissioned the Jamāat Khanah mosque in the dargāh (shrine-complex) of the saint, the earliest example of an Indian mosque built in an Islamic style and originally intended for the saint’s tomb.

Persian poetry flourished during the sultan’s reign. Among the shaykh’s disciples was Amir Khusrau, regarded as the greatest of Indo-Persian writers. Amir Khusrau was very close to ՙAlā-ud-Dīn, and several of his poems are elaborately ornate accounts of the reign. More prosaic forms of Persian historiography also flourished, culminating in the works of Baranī and Isami. ՙAlā-ud-Dīn also appeared in several legendary epics in which love and war served as mirrors for the Muslim advance into the subcontinent.

ՙAlā-ud-Dīn laid out an extensive suburb known as Siri north of the core of Muslim Delhi, and to the west of it he excavated the reservoir known today as Hauz-i Ala՚i(now Hauz-i Khās). The sultan also expanded the Quwwāt al-Islām mosque-complex to accommodate the growing Muslim population. He enlarged the enclosure, building four gateways, two on the east side and one each on the north and south sides, of which only the latter survives. Known as the Alaye Darwaza, it is one of the finest surviving structures of the early sultanate period and displays Seljuk influence, perhaps because of the migration of craftspeople to Delhi from Iran. ՙAlā-ud-Dīn apparently ordered repairs to the QutŃb Mīnār, as a Nagari inscription on the minaret refers to it as his victory-column (vijaya-stambha). Later, he planned to construct an enormous minaret to the north of QutŃb Mīnār, which, had it been built, would have been double the height of QutŃb Mīnār. To the southwest of the complex is a structure believed to have been a religious college (madrasa), commissioned by him to contain his tomb.

Significance

ՙAlā-ud-Dīn is reckoned among the greatest of India’s Muslim rulers, primarily for extending the frontiers of Muslim domination to the remote south of the peninsula. His conquests were not effectively integrated into the administrative system of the sultanate, and the ravaged lands tended to revert to their former Hindu rulers; however, following these campaigns, the Deccan and peninsular India were increasingly exposed to Muslim influence through the activities of military adventurers, merchants, missionaries, and Sufis. Of great significance for the future, the proto-Urdu spoken in the northern Indian camps was carried to the Deccan with the invading Khaljī armies, thereafter becoming the Dakani Urdu of later times.

Khaljī Dynasty, 1290-1320

Reign

• Ruler

1290-1296

• Jalāl-ud-Dīn Fīrūz Khaljī

1296-1316

• ՙAlāՙ-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Khaljī

1316

• ՙUmar Shāh

1316-1320

• Mubārak Shāh

1320

• Khusraw Khān Barwārī

Bibliography

Digby, Simon, and I. Habib. “Northern India Under the Sultanate.” In The Cambridge Economic History of India. Vol. 1. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Excellent for its description of ՙAlā-ud-Dīn’s economic policies.

Habib, Irfan. “The Price Regulations of ՙAla՚ՙuddin Khalji.” In Money and the Market in India, 1100-1700, edited by S. Subrahmanyam. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. An important discussion of economic policy.

Hardy, Peter. Historians of Medieval India. London: Luzac, 1960. Detailed discussion of the historiography of the reign.

Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999. A good general history of the period.

Jackson, Peter. “The Problems of a Vast Military Encampment.” In Delhi Through the Ages, edited by R. E. Frykenberg. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986. Discusses the growth of Delhi.

Lal, K. S. History of the Khaljīs. London: Asia Publishing House, 1967. A detailed account of the sultan’s reign.