The penultimate king, Ghiasuddin Balban of Mamluk dynasty ruled over Delhi from 1266 till 1287 and his grave lies inside Mehrauli Archeological Park, next to the Qutub Minar Complex.
Balban was an Iberi Turk who was captured by the Mongols in his childhood and sold to Khwaja Jamaluddin Basri of Baghdad, a very learned man. Buying of slaves in open market, bringing them up and then selling them to Muslim monarchs used to be a very profitable trade in those days.
Later Balban was bought by Iltutmish and rose to power by hard work, enormous will power and a keen sense of politics. He gained the trust and favor of his master and acquired a prominent seat in the Chehelgani (the forty court nobles) . Under the reign of Raziya Sultan, Balban rose a step closer to the throne – he was appointed the Amir-I-Shikar or the Lord of the Hunt which made his position stronger. The Sultanate was already in deep waters with very weak successors after Razia, who were unable to deal with the perennial invasion by the Mongols and the Rajput. Balban as the military head tackled the rebel forces and the opposition with incredible severity and efficiency. He ruled with an iron hand and brought in a sense of stability in Delhi Sultanate which had become weak at the core by then.
He rose to the position of the Prime Minister of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud from 1246 to 1266 and married his daughter. Since Sultan Nasiruddin did not have male heir, after his death, Balban declared himself the Sultan of Delhi and ascended the throne at the age of sixty.
Balban's was the proverbial reign of terror. It is believed that he never conversed with persons of low origin or occupation and never indulged in any form of familiarity, by which the dignity of the Sovereign could be lowered.
He never joked with anyone, nor did he allow anyone to joke in his presence. He never laughed aloud, nor any one in his court was permitted to laugh. No frivolous talk was permitted in his presence. No officer or acquaintance was allowed to recommend any person of low position for employment.
Though he brought about a semblence of stability in his territory, with his political wisdom, he is remembered for his harshness and cruelty to all those who dared to oppose him. Testifying to this role of Balban, the Maharashtriya Gnankosh (encyclopedia), says (pg. G-191, part XII, 1922 edition): "Balban's life was one of turmoil and continuous warfare. He was extremely cruel and a killer. In suppressing interminable revolts around Delhi he massacred 100,000 people which caused rivers of blood to flow all around. Mangled dead bodies piled up in every town and the whole region emitted an unbearable stench."
The first thing he did was breaking the Chihalgani, the 40 nobles of highest position, or the king makers in the royal court, where he too belonged once. This was because he feared that they might bring him harm. Malik Bakbak, a member of the group, was reportedly flogged to death for a negligible reason. Haibatkhan was whipped 500 times and brought as a slave to the widow of a man Haibatkhan had murdered. Balban poisoned even his own cousin Sher Khan, a leading member of this gang of 40. And thus, by his own barbaric and cruel means, Balban tried to ensure that he can rule safely and without opposition.
Around this time, the Hindu Rajputs started resisting the Muslim rule. Afraid of the guerilla raids of the Rajputs, under the ambush of trees and foliage surrounding Delhi, he ordered mowing down of all trees around, slaughter all Hindus and loot their property. Till date, Delhi remains a semi desert region, dusty and bare.
His rule of repression and carnage continued far and wide as the revolts never seemed to rest. His fight against the revolt of Tughril Khan from Bengal was one of a kind. In 1279, as Tughril revolted and proclaimed himself king, Balban ordered Amin Khan, his governor in Oudh to take charge to suppress it. But as Amin Khan came back defeated, he was ordered to be killed and his corpse was hung from a gate in Ayodhya, as a reminder to all who dared to fail.
Well... a second army failed as well. When a third army too came back defeated, Balban himself decided to lead an army to crush the revolt of Tughril. He lead a force of 200,000 and camped near Lakhnauti, or Lucknow of today. Tughril Khan escaped in Bengal, to save his life. But Balban hunted him down relentlessly, until he could capture and execute him.
Returning to Lucknow, Balban took his revenge on Tughril's associates as well. They were said to be impaled on stakes on either side of a two-mile long main bazar road in the city center. It was such a ghastly sight that some onlookers fainted.
"Never before had such a horrific scene been enacted," wrote chronicler Barni.
As if this was not enough, on his return to Delhi, he took on the sympathisers of Turghil as well. They were mercilessly slaughtered and blood flowed like water on the streets of Delhi, till the Qazi intervened and pleaded for peace.
This is the final resting ground of Balban. The tomb is open to the sky and at present lying in ruins among local 'kikar' or Acacia trees. It is made of rubble masonary. Part of it still has traces of plaster decoration and it gives us an idea of how it might have looked originally, if we stretch our imagination a bit!! The building stands as a proof of the emergence of Islamic architecture in India. Though the tomb is devoid of any grand ornamental detailing but was one among the first to include true arch in its construction!! It has three chambers. Two of them are empty. The one on the western side of the main chamber has a grave, which is believed to be of his favourite son Khan Shaheed.
It was in 1286 A.D. that the Mongols returned with a large army. Balban was well into his eighties and his son led the confrontation. Khan Shaeed died in the ensuing battle and it is said that the so called cruel, ruthless killer of millions, Balban, the Sultan of Delhi, died grieving for his own son!!
The Muslim Slave dynasty which had seized the throne in Delhi with a bang in 1206 A.D. under Qutubuddin Aibak ended in a whimper, after a monstrous 84 bloody years. The Muslim Slave dynasty was stamped out under the heels of the Khiljis after its eleven monarchs had rained fire and brimstone on the Hindu India of that age.
The torch and the sword were now picked up by the Khiljis and the stampede into India continued.
Believed to be the grave of Razia Sultan, The ground breaking female ruler, in a man's world, a queen who ruled from Delhi in the early 13th century. An amazingly radical leader of her times, she was the first woman ruler who not only reigned over Delhi, but also led men in battles! She became a ruler in her own rights, she didnt replace a dead husband, wasn't covering for her son or nephew or any male ruler that existed at the time.
Iltutmish on his death-bed around 1236 was a worried man. His sons were incapable of taking his position to take over the kingdom he built with so much passion and hard work. So, he nominated his daughter Razia instead, to sit on his throne. Thus began another bloody chapter of intrigues and power struggles in Delhi! To start with, the nobility didn't accept a woman as a ruler, and therefore handed over the throne her brother Ruknuddin. The father, now dead, knew very well the traits of this son!! The kingdom became neglected, the citizens were unhappy and chaos prevailed as Ruknuddin remained busy whiling away his time in the company of nautch girls..The nobility soon realized their mistake, put the brother to death within 6 months, and brough back the sister Razia to the throne of Delhi a bit reluctantly, as there seemed to be no other choice.
Now, Razia was a remarkable woman, not only surprisingly secular for the times, she also was an able warrior, a shrewd politician who kept her citizens happy, was capable of playing the rebellious nobles against one another, and dealt with the politics of politics with remarkable elan. She fearlessly abandoned the veil as she believed that as a queen, she needed to be an approachable figure for all. She had even promised to her subjects that if as a ruler she didnt meet their expectations, they were free to depose her. And she did fulfill their expectations. She was a good ruler by all yardsticks!
All was going well with her and for the future of her empire, depite severe opposition from many conservative male nobles of her times - but something went wrong!
She became close friends with an Etiopian slave (Habshi) named Jamaluddin Yaqut! There's a bit of controversy around the subject of whether or not Razia and Yaqut were lovers or just close friends, but whatever be the relationship between them, it made the court nobles really upset. And around that, hell broke lose.
The jealous male nobility around her anyway could not tolerate the fact that she had been chosen by her father above the heads of her brothers, and were looking for an opportunity like this, to strike back!
First of all, the court nobles were enraged about a woman of pure Turkish blood liaiasing with a slave from Ethiopia. They would tolerate none of it! On top of that, as Razia appointed Yaqut, the in-charge of the royal stables they grew even more jealous. Discontent grew into serious rebellion and a childhood friend of Razia, named Altuniya, (who according to some sources was also in love with her) led the angry nobles to fight a battle against the queen and Yaqut. In this momentous battle, Yaqut was killed, Razia taken prisoner and eventually she married Altuniya to save herself from being killed.
Delhi lost its first and only queen as her brother Muizuddin usurped the throne. Razia, ironically aided by Altuniya, made one final attempt to take over Delhi… and was defeated. They both then fled the capital, fell into the hands of robbers, and were killed.
And thus in the year 1240, with Razia Sultan's death, Delhi went back to dealing with incompetent rulers for another 20 odd years…
Alas!! The world certainly hasn't changed! Be it racial differences during the Sultanates or apartheid later on.
Officially, this historic queen lies in a simple grave, down the alleys near Turkman Gate of Old Delhi, surrounded on all sides by houses! The other grave is said to be that of Razia’s sister Shazia, unknown to history.
Ala-ud-din Khilji conceived a very ambitious construction programme when he decided to build the second tower of victory, two times higher than Qutub Minar, when he returned victorious from his Deccan campaign. However, the Sultan died before even the first storey was finished and the project remained incomplete. The structure was found to be too perpendicular to be stable! And the political turmoil that followed after his demise could never ensure this as a priority by any of his successors.
The tower that was intended to be built to compete with the Qutub Minar stands today as a symbol of ostentatious display of crude power, undisguised pride and a dream unrealised.
To the north west of Quwwat-ul-islam mosque is the tomb of Iltutmish or Altamash - the successor of Qutub-ud-din Aibak. In the slave dynasty, there was no defined lineage of ascention and whoever became powerful, was elected by the Chihalgani (a core group of forty nobles who had the power to nominate the best candidate to become the ruler) to become the next king.
Iltutmish was a slave of Aibak and later as he gained the trust of his master with his goodness, bravery and intelligence, Aibak got his daughter married to him and appointed him as the the governor of Gwalior.
After Aibak died, the Chihalgani elected Aram Shah (little is known about him) as the next Sultan but soon he was overthrown by them as he was found to be inefficient and was replaced by Iltutmish.
Besides being remarkably handsome, Iltutmish was believed to be a capable ruler, a patron of art, literature and architecture. During his reign of 22 years from 1211 till 1236 he played a major role in consolidating and strengthening the empire through his conquests and by defending it from the invasions of powerful mongols including the fearsome Chengis Khan. The construction of Qutub Minar was completed under his supervision.
He built this ornate tomb in 1235, a year before he died. One of the earliest in Indo Islamic architecture, its stark and simple exterior disguises a richly ornamented interior carved out of red sandstone and marble. The western prayer wall (Mehrab) consists of three arches - all of which are richly carved with verses of Quran on marble.
Iltutmish's eldest son, Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, had died in 1229 while governing Bengal as his father's deputy. The surviving sons of the Sultan were incapable as rulers. In 1236 Iltutmish, on his death-bed, nominated his 17 year old daughter Raziya as his successor.
Located inside the Qutub complex, right in the middle of the courtyard of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque stands this 73 meters tall iron pillar, dated 4th century AD. It bears an inscription in Sanskrit in Brahmi script of those times, which says that the pillar was set up as a Vishnudhvaja (flagstaff of Lord Vishnu) on the hill known as Vishnupada in memory of a mighty king named Chandra.
It is believed that anyone who can encircle the entire column with their arms, with their back towards the pillar, will have their wish fulfilled.
The pillar is made of 98% wrought iron and has withstood nature's fury, and continues to stand in the same place, out in the open, untarnished for more than 1600 years, without even a single patch of rust - which is a clear testimony of the skill of ironsmiths of ancient India.
This pillar extends for a meter below the ground and weighs more than 6 tonnes!!
Construction of Quwwat-Ul-Islam (Might, or Glory of Islam) Mosque was initiated by Qutub-ud-din Aibak. It was the first ever mosque to be built in Delhi. And history was never the same again as this was the starting point of a revolution in art, architecture, culture and literature in India with the confluence and amulgumation of the islamic and the indigenous.
Aibak probably neither had the resources, nor architects or designers to build this mosque. This was in fact believed to have been built with the ruins of several Hindu and Jain temples which he demolished in order to carry on with the construction. The rear part of the mosque is believed to be part of Prithviraj Chauhan's "Chausath Khamba" or sixty four pillared hall.
However, this mosque never stopped growing even after the death of Aibak. Qutbuddin's son in law and successor Iltutmish, extended the original prayer hall screen by adding more arches. By then, the empire seems to have stabilized well enough so that the Sultan could replace some of the Hindu masons with expert workers from Ghor and Persia. This explains why the arches added by Iltutmish are more distinct and Islamic in style than the ones built under Qutb's rule.
More additions and beautifications were made to the mosque later by Alauddin Khilji, including the famous "Alai Darwaza", his formal entrance to the mosque, built exquisitely in red sandstone and white marble , and a courtyard in 1300 AD.
Around 13 kms south of Connaught Place on the way to Mehrauli lies the Qutub Minar Complex on the ruins of Lal Kot, the first city of Delhi.
At the centre of the complex stands the Qutub Minar, the most famous landmark of Delhi. It is the tallest brick minaret in the world - a five-storied tower, all of 234 feet in height and has a climb of378 steps.
No one knows why exactly this was built. In all probability, it was a tower to commemorate a victory over Qila Rai Pithora, which stood at the same spot as the citadel and the capital of the last Hindu Rajput ruler of Delhi, Prithviraj Chauhan. It could even have been an expression of rapture for Qutub-ud-din Aibak to be elevated from the position of a slave to the status of a king. Or may be it was the place for the 'Niyazzi' to call the faithful for prayer. No one really knows. But history says that Mohammed Ghori of Ghazni defeated Prithviraj Chauhan who was ruling over Delhi in 1192 AD and entrusted the administration of his newly acquired kingdom to Qutubuddin Aibak, his slave general of Turkish descent.
After the death of Ghori in 1206, following a brief struggle for power, Aibak became the new Sultan of Delhi and thus he became the founder of the Mamluk dynasty, or the "Slave Dynasty". Aibak shifted his capital from Ghazni to Lahore first, and then from Lahore to Delhi. His reign was short and he died in 1210 as he fell from horseback while playing polo and was severely injured.
Qutb-ud-din Aibak, commenced construction of the Qutub Minar in 1193, but could only complete its base. His successor, Iltutmish, added three more stories to it and in 1386 Firoz Shah Tughlaq constructed the fifth and the last story.
Built mainly of red sandstone, the fifth storey of the Minar was restored by Firoz Shah Tughlaq in 1369 who used contrasting elements of marble alongside the red sandstone.
Reportedly it has been struck thrice by lightening and also damaged by earthquakes. Sikandar Lodi carried out some more repairwork to it in 1505 and later it has been further renovated by the British major Smith and then again by Governor General Henry Hardinge.
