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

Ala-ud-din was a compulsive workaholic, and he drove his officers as hard as he drove himself. Indeed, royal officers played a crucial role in the achievements of the sultan. As Barani states, ‘During the whole period of Sultan Ala-ud-din’s reign, the situation of the county was very good and prosperous due to the bravery, mutual cooperation and farsightedness of officials and soldiers. Administration was carried on efficiently and successfully.’ A part of the credit for the success of Ala-ud-din’s reign should therefore go to his officers — but all the credit for laying down impeccable government regulations, finding talented officers, earning their loyalty, and getting the best out of them, should go to the sultan.

Another remarkable aspect of Ala-ud-din’s reign was that he, despite his authoritarianism and ruthlessness, also showed a genuine concern for the welfare of the common people, and sought to free them from exploitation by tax collectors and village headmen. And in his tax policy he sought to ensure that, as Barani states, ‘heavy burdens were not placed upon the poor.’ Further, in times of poor harvest, and when there was a general scarcity of provisions, Ala-ud-din made sure that ‘if in such a season any poor … person went to the market, and did not get assistance, the overseer [of the market] received punishment whenever the information reached the king’s ears.’

People on the whole led a better life under Ala-ud-din than under any other king of the Delhi Sultanate. ‘No more prosperous times than his had ever fallen to the lot of any Muhammadan sovereign,’ states Afif. Ala-ud-din was on the whole a beneficent ruler to his subjects.

But he was not a benign ruler. Rather, he was singularly brutal in extirpating all who stood in his path. Even in that sanguinary age, Ala-ud-din’s reign stood out for its excesses. All that can be said in extenuation of the sultan in this is that he could not have achieved much of what he did without such ruthlessness.

The last years of Ala-u-din’s life were dismal. ‘The prosperity of Ala-ud-din at length declined,’ writes Barani. ‘Success no longer attended him. Fortune proved, as usual, fickle, and destiny drew her poniard to destroy him.’ The sultan was also plagued by debilitating health problems at this time. He suffered from acute oedema, and ‘day by day his malady grew worse … Under his mortal disorder the violence of his temper increased tenfold.’ Instead of the carefully calculated and decisive actions that had characterised his reign till then, he now became petulant and impulsive. ‘Cares assailed him on many sides … He drove away his wise and experienced ministers from his presence, and sent his councillors into retirement … The reins of government fell into the hands of slaves and worthless people. No wise man remained to guide him.’

Presently the grand political edifice that Ala-ud-din had built up with sagacity and perseverance over many years began to crumble. And succession manoeuvres now turned the royal court into a snake-pit, with rivals rearing up, hissing and spitting venom on each other. In 1312 Ala-ud-din nominated his oldest surviving son, Khizr Khan, as his successor, and that led to the prince’s mother (Malika-i-Jahan) and her brother (Alp Khan, the governor of Gujarat, who was also the father-in-law of the prince) becoming the prime manipulators in the court. Khizr Khan played virtually no role in all this — he was, according to Barani, a weakling, an indolent voluptuary addicted ‘to pleasure and debauchery … [over whom] buffoons and strumpets had gained mastery’

Ala-ud-din’s confidant and chief advisor at this time was Malik Kafur, but he was uncomfortable in the vicious, noxious environment then prevailing in the royal court. He evidently despised Khizr Khan, and the prince, as well as his mother and father-in-law, were no doubt wary of Kafur. There was also ‘a deadly enmity’ between Malik Kafur and Alp Khan. Because of all this, Kafur wanted to get away from Delhi, and he persuaded the sultan to send him on a military campaign into peninsular India, and he spent three years there, engaged in various battles, till he was called back to Delhi, because of the sultan’s failing health.

Back in Delhi, Kafur gained complete ascendancy over the ailing sultan, and he planted in his mind the suspicion that Alp Khan was planning some political move in concert with Malika-i-Jahan. Kafur then, according to Barani, ‘induced the sultan to have Alp Khan killed … [and] he caused Khizr Khan to be made a prisoner and sent to the Gwalior fort, and he had the mother of the prince turned out of the Red Palace.’ The ensuing turbid political environment in Delhi led, as usual, to rebellions in the provinces, particularly in Gujarat, Chitor and Devagiri. In the midst of these unsettling developments, in early January 1316, the great sultan, who had for twenty years ruled the empire with awesome authority, passed away. ‘The rule of the sultan was tottering when death seized him,’ comments Barani. Ala-ud-din, according to Amir Khusrav, died ‘partly through bodily infirmity and partly through mental distress.’ The future looked bleak indeed for the Khalji dynasty.

‘ON THE SECOND day after the death of Ala-ud-din, Malik Kafur assembled the principal nobles and officers in the palace, and produced a will of the late sultan which he had caused to be drawn up in favour of Malik Shihab-ud-din (a son of Ala-ud-din by the Devagiri raja Ramadeva’s daughter), and removing Khizr Khan from being the heir apparent,’ reports Barani. ‘With the assent of the nobles he then placed Shihab-ud-din upon the throne. But as the new sovereign was just a child five or six years old, he was a mere puppet in the hands of … Malik Kafur, [who] himself [then] undertook the conduct of the government.’

Kafur had entered the royal service in 1298, the second year of Ala-ud-din’s reign, and had risen rapidly in official position, mainly because of his proven ability as military commander and wise counsellor — the sultan, according to Isami, favoured Kafur because ‘his counsel had always proved appropriate and fit for the occasion.’ Besides, Ala-ud-din, according to Barani, ‘was infatuated with Malik Kafur, and made him the commander of his army and vizier. He distinguished him above all his other helpers and friends, and this eunuch and minion held the chief place in his regards.’ And in the closing days of the sultan’s reign, he became the virtual ruler of the empire. Kafur ‘did not allow anyone to see the emperor, and he himself began to … administer the realm,’ states Isami.

Barani is severely critical of Kafur, but his excoriations are not quite credible, for he was deeply prejudiced against Malik Kafur, whom he invariably described as a ‘wicked fellow,’ presumably because he was not a Turk but an Islamised Hindu and a eunuch. The resentment against Kafur among the Turkish nobles intensified when he blinded Khizr Khan and his brother Shadi Khan — Kafur, writes Barani, ‘sent his barber to blind Shadi Khan … by cutting his eyes from their sockets with a razor’—and imprisoned the other sons of Ala-ud-din, except the boy sultan who was his protégé. ‘His great object was to remove all the children and wives of the late sultan, all the nobles and slaves who had claims for the throne, and to fill their places with creatures of his own.’

But court politics was an unfamiliar, perilous arena for Kafur. He was a brilliant military commander, but quite unskilled in manipulative politics, and was vulnerable to the manoeuvres of his rivals. His fall was therefore inevitable. The final scene in this drama was enacted one night when Kafur sought to blind Mubarak Khan, the imprisoned third son of Ala-ud-din. The soldiers whom he sent to do this were bribed by the prince with the jewelled necklace he was wearing, and he, reminding them of their long service under Ala-ud-din and of their duty to his dynasty, induced them to go back and assassinate Kafur. So they ‘went with drawn swords to his sleeping room and severed his wicked head from his foul body,’ reports Barani. ‘They also killed his confederates.’