Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

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.