The journey through History -6
The city of Delhi, located on the banks of the river Yamuna in northern Bharat, was an important centre for the Islamic Sultanate, which stretched from Bengal in the East to Sindh in the West.
Many Persian and some Bharatiya historians have documented life in Delhi’s Sultanate era. Most of these historians (especially the Persian ones) were often biased, as they were commissioned by the Sultans and were therefore unable to offend their benefactor at, depicting history in a way that venerated their patrons. In their writings, the Arab and Persian cultures were perceived as highly civilized, while non-Muslims, such as Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and the ‘pagan’ Mongols, were denigrated as heathens.
Arab writers and historians also chronicle their views on the Delhi Sultanate. As they were visitors to Delhi on trade or diplomatic missions, they were less critical of the pre-existing cultural values of the Hindus and Buddhists, but their own religious views were staunch.
Islam came into existence in the 7th century and flowed like a storm across the Middle East. Later, it spread to Spain in the West and Afghanistan in the East.
The Islamic advance was led by Turkish soldiers and Persian scholars.
In that era, Bharat was economically and physically robust.
The economy in early medieval Bharat was thriving during the tenth and eleventh centuries. The flourishing trade can be attributed to the widespread use of coins like the Rupaka, Suvarna, Dinara, Nishka, Pana, and Karshapana. The Kalachuris were the first to revive gold coinage during the eleventh century, followed by the Chandelas and the Tomars of Ajmer. In Delhi, most of the mints eventually converted to using coins with the names of Sultans instead of the original Hindu rulers.
This is evidence enough that Delhi was a prosperous and booming trade centre long before the Islamic Sultanate arrived. The immense wealth of the city and its capacity to generate constant revenue made it a desirable target for plunderers.
Thus, the desire to expand across Bharat was paramount. As the followers of Islam arrived on the banks of the river Indus, they largely shed their personal differences and unified to acquire more and more of Bharat’s land.
Islam’s first military presence in the subcontinent occurred in 715 CE, when the Umayyad Arab General, Muhammad bin Qasim, conquered the Sindh region.
The Arabs and Persians had trade ties with Bharat long before the advent of Islam. In the ancient era, Bharatiya merchants traded on a very large scale with their Mesopotamian counterparts via the sea route. These flourishing trade activities initiated the formation of the Silk Road, which connected Bharat with the Middle East and East Africa over a combination of sea and overland routes, encouraging trade relations.
Despite what appeared to be a generous and congenial relationship between Bharat and the Middle East, the emergence of the Delhi Sultanate was the result of conflict and bloodshed.
The Ghurid dynasty, also known as the Shansabanid Dynasty, originated in the Ghor region of Afghanistan. They were primarily Turkish warrior slaves, heavily influenced by Persian ethnic groups. The Ghurids originally followed pagan religious practices—the shamanism of the steppes. (A significant characteristic of shamanistic religion was communication with the spirit world with a Shaman as the medium). They later converted to Islam under Ghaznavid rule in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries.
The Ghurids’ ascendancy in the Ghaznavid army increased gradually, and they became its backbone. Despite their obsequious conduct, they eventually overthrew the Ghaznavids and seized the reins of power. They acquired most of Afghanistan and the northern subcontinent.
Unlike his predecessors, Mu’izz al-Din Muhammad, the Muhammad of Ghor, was quite ambitious and visionary. His far-sighted vision was to expand Islam’s hold in the Bharatiya subcontinent. Thus, he pursued this through a variety of military conquests, diplomatic relations, and trade ties. His administrative system was unique, rewarding on the basis of merit; hence, slaves could be granted high positions.
These slave warriors were of Turkish ethnicity and language and followed Islam. Nurtured as slaves, they had little emotional attachment to a specific homeland and made their home wherever they conquered. These military successes, and those the Delhi Sultanate would later enjoy, were largely the result of the Turkish bandagan.
The highly trained and efficient Turkish military slaves were known as the bandagan and were the strength of Muhammad’s army. The concept of the bandagan slaves differed from the concept of slavery perceived in Western nations like the United States and in Europe. The bandagan slaves enjoyed a distinct status and were the backbone of Muhammad’s armed forces.
They were revered for their potential and could ascend the hierarchy in the Islamic society that was emerging in the Bharatiya subcontinent.
The bandagan were also extremely loyal to their lords. Since the bandagan consisted entirely of slaves, they shared an equivalent status among themselves.
Yet, there was a practice of separating the bandagan from the nobility. But since Muhammad was heirless, he considered his army of slaves his heirs and began granting his conquered territories to them as inheritance.
The writing of the Persian-Bharatiya historian Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani on how Muhammad treated his slaves speaks volumes about his sentiments towards them. Minhaj writes of Muhammad: “While other rulers may have one or two sons, I have many thousand sons (in other words, my Turkish slaves), and my dominions will be their inheritance. After my death, they will preserve my name in the Friday sermons in my dominions.”
Among Muhammad Ghori’s army of Turkish slaves, the most able one was Qutb-al-Din Aibak.He hailed from Turkestan and was sold into slavery as a child. He was bought by a Qazi (a magistrate or judge of a Sharia court) at Nishapur in Persia (present-day Iran). (Doesn’t the name have a flavour of Bharatiya cultural heritage? Indeed, it’s ironic that Bharatvarsha once extended to the borders of Iran and Afghanistan, but Nishapur is now known as Neyshabur.) Nurtured by the Qazi, young Aibak was trained in the skills of horse riding and archery and was subsequently sold to Muhammad Ghori in Ghazni. He rose to the rank of officer of the royal stables. He showed exceptional robustness in the Ghurid-Khwarazmian battle but was captured by the army of Sultan Shah.
After the Ghurid victory, he was released from captivity. Impressed by his courage and dedication, he obtained a favourable position in the eyes of Muhammad Ghori.
After the victory in the second battle of Tarain and the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan, Muhammad headed back home to Firozkoh and appointed Aibak as the in-charge of his Bharatiya territories. Aibak expanded the kingdom in northern Bharat, conquering the Ghadavala, Chalukya, Chandela, and other kingdoms.
In 1206 CE, Muhammad Ghori was assassinated, and Ghiyath-al-Din Mahmud, Muhammad Ghori’s nephew, succeeded to the throne of the Ghurid empire at Firozkoh. Immediately after Muhammad’s death, a civil war-like situation arose in Bharat. Other powerful slave generals, Taj-al-Din Yildiz (who happened to be Aibak’s father-in-law) and Nasir-al-Din Qabacha, also had ambitions for power.
When Sultan Muhammad passed away, Aibak’s headquarters were in Delhi. The sudden death of the Sultan created a chaotic situation, and the citizens of Lahore urged Aibak to assume power. Hence, he shifted his capital to Lahore and informally ascended to the throne in 1206 CE.
Meanwhile, the idea of assuming independent power over the Ghurid territories was sown in the hearts of Aibak and other slave generals. Yet, Aibak continued issuing currency in the name of Muhammad.
Yildiz had also nurtured an ambition to take the reins of the Bharatiya territories, but Ghiyasuddin recognized him as the ruler of Ghazni. Yildiz marched to Punjab with the intention of obtaining control over the region. Aibak followed him, forced him to retreat to Kohistan, and himself took control of Ghazni.
In 1208, Ghiyasuddin Mahmud officially recognized Aibak as the ruler of Hindustan.
Qutb-ud-din Aibak, the founder and first Sultan of the Slave Dynasty, commissioned the construction of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque (also known as the Qutub mosque). The popular belief portrays (or rather, History, as penned and preserved largely by Islamic and later, by Leftist historians) that the Qutub Minar, an archaeological heritage site, was built by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, especially to leave the imprint of his religion in the newly conquered territory.
The construction of this Jami Masjid, or congregational mosque, also known as the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, started in the year 1193 CE, almost immediately after the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan. Aibak, then the commander of the Ghurid army, specifically chose this site to construct what was the first mosque built in Delhi. It was built over the ruins of Lal Kot, or the Qila Rai Pithora in the citadel of Dhillika, to imprint the Islamic victory over the Rajputs, using spolia (stones re-utilized from an old structure) from 27 temples.
It was the first mosque constructed in Delhi and the oldest surviving example of Ghurid architecture in the Bharatiya subcontinent.
The construction of the Qutub Minar was done alongside the mosque. As described by the fourteenth-century Arab traveller Ibn Battuta, beneath the structure was a Hindu temple that had been built by the Hindu king Vikramaditya during the Rajput rule. Dharmveer, the director of the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India), has remarked that the mosque had been built on the remains of temples using the material of the destroyed temples. According to the Persian inscription still visible on the inner eastern gateway, the mosque was built with parts taken from twenty-seven Hindu temples built during the Tomar dynasty and Prithviraj Chauhan’s rule.
Hasan Nizami, the Persian poet and historian, penned in Taj-ul-Ma’asir, the first official history of the Delhi Sultanate: “The conqueror entered the city and its vicinity was freed from idols and idol-worship; and in the sanctuaries of the images of the gods, mosques were raised by the worshippers of one God.”
The eminent scholar Sayyid Ahmad Khan noted that the first storey of the Qutub Minar was a Hindu monument built during the Prithviraj Chauhan era, and subsequently, the invaders added floors to it. The first level portrays the inscription of bell and chain motifs.
According to the Persian historian Minhaj, who writes in Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, Aibak grew complacent after being conferred the title of Sultan and spent his time in leisurely pursuits in Ghazni. The people of Ghazni called upon Yildiz to evict him from the city, and when Yildiz approached Ghazni, Aibak panicked and escaped to Bharat through a narrow mountain pass called Sange-i-Surkh. Subsequently, Aibak moved his capital to Lahore. In 1210 CE, he fell from a horse while playing chaugan (a form of polo) in Lahore and died instantly as the pommel of the saddle pierced his ribs. He was laid to rest in Lahore, in what is now Anarkali Bazaar.
Sources of Information:
The Delhi Sultanate by Charles River Editors
History of Mediaeval Hindu India by C. V. Vaidya
प्राचीन भारत का इतिहास by V. D. Mahajan
Delhi: A History by Manisha Choudhary
