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IV. Consolidation of Muslim Rule in the North

*Balban's Administration*

[[55]] THE SULTANATE of Delhi suffered grievously in the ten years

following the death of Iltutmish. The Mongols who had been hovering on the
frontier grew bolder, and in 1241 sacked Lahore. They harried Multan, Sind, and
central Punjab, and were in virtual control of this area for a number of years. In the
east, Bengal and Bihar became independent. To the south of Delhi, the Hindus began
to reassert themselves, and the Muslims lost many important strongholds which had
been captured in the days of Aibak and Iltutmish. Gwalior and Ranthambhor were
abandoned during Raziyya's reign. Now, even in areas nearer to the capital such as
Katehar (modern Rohilkhand) and the Doab, Hindu resistance was intensified.

Not less important than these material losses were the fissures and weaknesses
displayed by the administrative structure built up by Iltutmish. The lines on which
he had organized the new government required for their success a man of great
ability, wisdom, and resourcefulness, but as he had feared, there was nobody equal
to the task in his family. In the scramble for power which followed his death, Tajiks
were pitted against Turks, the nobility was at loggerheads with the king, and the
conflicting ambitions of the individual nobles prevented any united action.

Balban's Administration
With the accession of Nasir-ud-din in 1246 this period of acute conflict ended,
but it was not due to the ruler's abilities. The real power was in the hands of Balban,
who had been largely instrumental in bringing him to the throne. Although Balban
did not actually become sultan until 1265, the whole period from 1246 to 1287—
including the years of Nasir's rule and his own—may well be designated [[56]] the
"Balban Era." A member of a noble family of the Ilbari Turks, Ghiyas-ud-din
Balban had been captured during the turmoil that followed the Mongol invasions of
Central Asia and sold as a slave in Baghdad. He was taken to Delhi in 1232, where
he was purchased by Iltutmish to serve as a personal attendant. He became chief
huntsman, commander of the cavalry, and, after Iltutmish's death, lord chamberlain.

Balban's ascendancy over the sultan was challenged, most notably in 1253
when Imad-ud-din Raihan made an attempt to oust him. This particular episode is of
special interest, as Raihan was an Indian convert to Islam, and seems to have rallied
the non-Turkish element in the court to his support. Balban was saved by the Turkish
governors of the provinces, who rallied to his side. Balban maintained his position in
the sultan's government until 1265, when, on Nasir-ud-din's death, he added the
formal title of sultan to the power he had held for twenty years.

Balban's work, both before and after he became sultan, involved not only the
defense of the country against foreign aggression and internal dangers, but also a
reorganization of the administration with the aim of increasing its effectiveness.
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Iltutmish had organized the administration in the newly conquered territories as a

decentralized system in which the fiefholders enjoyed wide power, and high nobles
were treated almost as peers of the king. A pious Muslim, disdaining show, he had
not sought to assert royal superiority over the nobility. The disturbed conditions
which followed his death, marked by a struggle between king and nobility, showed
the dangers inherent in this attitude. His successor, Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, had lived
an unassuming life, leaving real power with the deputy. Balban's attitude, however,
was completely different. Influenced by the Iranian theory of kingship, and noting
the anarchy which prevailed after the death of Iltutmish, he proceeded to raise the
royal status far above that of the nobles. He used to say that next to prophethood, the
highest office was that of kingship, and that the ruler who did not maintain the
dignity of his office failed to perform his functions properly, and his subjects,
resorting to insubordination, would fall prey to crime.

As soon as he ascended the throne, Balban provided a material [[57]] basis for
the heightened royal status by strengthening the army. Aibak and Iltutmish had
relied largely on the contingents of the fiefholders, and the ariz, or war office, had
been a subordinate branch of the central secretariat under the overall control of the
wazir. Balban reorganized the war office, raised the status of ariz-i-mamalik, his
chief of staff, and dealt directly with him. He increased the army's size, placed the
troops under hand-picked commanders, and raised their emoluments. He kept it in
fighting trim by taking it on long, arduous expeditions and large-scale hunting
parties. The result was an instrument adequate for combatting external and internal
enemies and for making the position of the king immeasurably stronger than that of
the nobles and fiefholders.

Balban took other steps to enhance the royal status. Great importance was
attached to the observance of an impressive and elaborate court etiquette. When the
royal cavalcade moved, hundreds of imposing heralds, dressed in brilliant uniforms,
preceded it; it was such a magnificent show that according to the historian Barani,
people came from great distances to witness the procession. At the royal court, there
was such an atmosphere of awe and majesty that ambassadors presenting their
credentials and rajas coming to pay tribute became nervous and occasionally
stumbled on the steps. Very meticulous about the royal dignity, Balban imposed a
rigorous discipline on himself. No valet ever saw him without a cap or socks or
shoes, and throughout his long period of kingship he never laughed aloud before
others, nor had anyone the courage to laugh aloud in his presence./1/

A major problem with which Balban was faced was the all-powerful military
oligarchy which had dominated the politics of the sultanate since the death of
Iltutmish. This aristocratic corps, commonly known as the Chihilgan or "the
Forty,”\" had at one time played a constructive role, but in the days of Iltutmish's
weak successors it had become a major threat to the state. Originally Balban had
been one of the Forty, but now he set about breaking their power by all possible
means, including the use of poison and the assassin's dagger.

[[58]] As a natural consequence of this policy the provincial governors lost

much of their power and privilege. The instructions which Balban gave to his son
Bughra Khan, while entrusting to him the government of Bengal, laid down the
relationship which was to exist between the central government at Delhi and the
governors of the provinces./2/ Even more effective were the practical steps he took
to control the provincial chiefs. In all provinces he appointed barids (intelligence
officers) to report on the local dignitaries. On the basis of these reports Balban
meted out exemplary punishments to the provincial governors for any misbehavior.

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This was one aspect of Balban's attempt to transform Iltutmish's decentralized

organization, with the nobles possessing great powers, into a highly centralized
government under the control of an autocratic king. Henceforth, subject to
occasional variations, this was to be the normal pattern of Muslim government in
India.

Although he insisted on the rights of kingship, Balban acknowledged the duty

of a ruler to provide peace and tranquility within his dominion. This the early
Muslim rulers had not always been able to ensure. The Jats, the Mewatis, and the
Khokhars were a constant menace to the peaceful subjects of the sultanate. The
Muslim rulers had broken the power of the organized Hindu armies, but warlike,
restless tribes had taken to robbery. Every year there was some major disturbance of
the peace, and even the city of Delhi was not immune to plundering operations.
Thieves infesting the jungles around Delhi robbed travelers under the very walls of
the city. The gates on the south side of the city had to be shut immediately following
afternoon prayers, and it was dangerous to leave the city at night.

Balban spent the first year of his reign in enforcing law and order in the city
and its suburbs. The jungle was cleared, the Mewati robbers who had made it a base
for their operations were destroyed, a fort was built to guard the city's southwestern
approaches, and police posts were established around Delhi. Balban dealt equally
firmly with the people of the Doab, who had closed the road between Bengal and the
capital. He spent nearly a year in the districts of Patyali, Bhojpur, and Kampil,
extirpating the highway robbers, building forts at suitable [[59]] centers, garrisoning
them with Afghan soldiers who received lands in the area for their maintenance, and
granting large areas to powerful nobles so that they could bring the land under
cultivation and clear the jungles. The methods he used against the local population
were undoubtedly ruthless, but they secured the roads between Delhi and Bengal for
nearly a century. Similar measures were taken against the Rajputs in the trans-
Gangetic tract in the charge of the governors of Budaun and Amroha. Balban
ordered a terrifying slaughter of the insurgents, had their houses and hiding places
burned, cleared the country of forests, built roads, and introduced orderly civil
government.

Although Balban built up a powerful army, he made no attempt to extend his

dominion or to recover areas such as Malwa, once controlled by the Muslims. When
these measures were suggested to him he replied that he had even higher ambitions,
but could not expose Delhi to the fate of Baghdad. A stern realist, he abandoned the
expansionist policy of his predecessors and concentrated on the consolidation of
Muslim power in India. What he did instead with his army was to use it to overawe
his nobles, and, in the last two decades of his reign, to defend his frontiers against
the Mongols.

Hulagu Khan who, with his sack of Baghdad in 1258 had wiped out the great
center of Abbasid culture, was still alive, and the Mongols now constituted a
standing threat to the subcontinent. As a preliminary measure of defense in 1270,
Balban restored the fortifications of Lahore, which had been virtually deserted since
its sack by the Mongols in 1241. While this facilitated the defense of the northwest,
other vigorous military measures were needed to deal with the Mongol menace, and
Balban erected a chain of fortifications in the northwest. The command of this
strategic area Balban entrusted initially to Sher Khan Sunqar, his most distinguished
general, and on Sunqar's death to Prince Muhammad Khan, Balban's favorite son
and heir-apparent. Prince Muhammad Khan was killed in 1285 in a battle with the

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Mongols, but the arrangements that had been made for the defense of the
northwestern frontier kept Hulagu Khan in check.

Although Balban had succeeded for forty years in maintaining his control over
most of North India, he was not able to ensure a peaceful [[60]] succession. After
the death of Prince Muhammad Khan, he named as his heir Bughra Khan, the
governor of Bengal, but Bughra refused to remain in Delhi. On his deathbed, Balban
selected a son of Prince Muhammad Khan, but his nobles disregarded his will and
placed on the throne Kaiqubad, the worthless, pleasure-loving son of Bughra Khan.
Unable to control the fierce rivalries of the factions that were struggling to gain
power, Kaiqubad soon ceased to play an effective role in the government. The group
that emerged triumphant out of the breakdown of the sultan's authority was the
Khalji family, one of the Turkish clans that had been settled so long in Afghanistan
before entering India that their Turkish origin was almost forgotten. The Khalji
chief, Makik Jalal-ud-din Firuz, as head of the army department, had one of the most
important offices in the realm. He used this position to have himself proclaimed
sultan in 1290, after a Khalji noble had murdered Kaiqubad.

With Kaiqubad's death the Slave dynasty of the Ilbari Turks came to an end. It
had established the political dominance of Islam throughout North India, and had
laid the foundations for an administrative structure that was more than a military
occupation. The violence that marked the last years of the dynasty continued under
the Khaljis, but beyond the intrigues of the palace factions the position of the
Muslim rulers was consolidated, and a great new movement became possible—the
conquest of South India.

NOTES
/1/ H. M. Elliot and John Dowson, A History of India as Told by Its Own Historians
(London, 1867–1877), III, 100.
/2/ Elliot and Dowson, III, 111.

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