Medieval India · Topic 2 of 15
Founding and consolidation of the Delhi Sultanate, 1206-1290
The Basics
Muhammad of Ghori died in 1206 with no son to inherit his Indian conquests. His empire stretched from Central Asia to the Gangetic plains, but had no single successor. His Turkish slave-generals, who had governed different provinces for him, now moved to claim power in their own territories.
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When Iltutmish became Sultan in 1210, the Delhi Sultanate was barely holding together. Aibak's death in a polo accident left no settled succession. Iltutmish, his son-in-law and former Iqtadar (land-revenue assignee) of Gwalior, had to defeat Aibak's son, Aram Shah, before the Turkish chiefs of Delhi accepted him. This broke the simple principle of son succeeding father in the new state. After becoming Sultan, Iltutmish shifted the capital from Lahore to Delhi.
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Iltutmish named his daughter Razia as heir, judging his sons unfit to rule.
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Ulugh Khan was a former slave of Iltutmish and a member of the Chihalgani. He became naib (deputy) to the young Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud after 1246. He married his daughter to the sultan and ran the government in his name. His growing power alienated other Turkish chiefs. They ousted him in 1253 through a conspiracy and replaced him with Imaduddin Raihan, an Indian Muslim. Balban rebuilt his faction within about a year and a half. He forced Raihan out, and Raihan was later defeated and killed. By 1265 Nasiruddin Mahmud was dead; some historians believe Balban poisoned him. Balban then took the throne himself as Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban. He ruled roughly from 1266 to 1287; sources differ on exact years.
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India's northwest frontier, running from Kabul through Ghazni to the Indus, was its one vulnerable gateway, the same route the Turks themselves had used. In the early thirteenth century this area was contested between the Khwarizm empire and the new Delhi Sultanat. Then a far greater power appeared: Chengiz Khan, leader of the Mongols, who destroyed the Khwarizm empire between 1218 and 1220, sacking its cities with deliberate terror.
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