تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 11.2: ذكر السلطان شمس الدين للمش

His name is spelt with a over the first lām, the second unvowelled, i under the mīm, and a dotted shīn. He was the first to rule the kingdom in the city of Dihlī independently. Before becoming king he was a mamlūk of the amīr Quṭb al-Dīn Aybak, commander of his army and his deputy. When Quṭb al-Dīn Aybak died he seized sole power and made the people swear allegiance. The jurists came to him, led by the chief qāḍī of the time, Wajīh al-Dīn al-Kāsānī; they went in to him and sat before him, the qāḍī sitting beside him as was customary. The sultan understood what they wished to speak to him about, so he lifted the edge of the carpet he was sitting on and brought out for them a deed of his manumission. The qāḍī and the jurists read it and all swore allegiance to him, and he ruled independently. His reign lasted twenty years; he was just, pious and virtuous.

Among his noble deeds was that he was zealous in redressing wrongs and giving justice to the wronged. He ordered every wronged person to wear a coloured garment — all the people of Hind wear white — so whenever he sat to receive the people or rode out and saw someone in a coloured garment, he looked into his case and gave him justice against the one who had wronged him. Then he found this insufficient and said: 'Some people suffer wrongs at night, and I want to give them justice quickly.' So at the gate of his palace he placed two lions

carved from marble, set on two towers there, with iron chains around their necks from which hung a large bell. The wronged person would come at night and ring the bell; the sultan would hear it, look into his case at once and give him justice. When Sultan Shams al-Dīn died he left three sons — Rukn al-Dīn, who succeeded him, Muʿizz al-Dīn and Nāṣir al-Dīn — and a daughter named Raḍiyya, full sister of Muʿizz al-Dīn among them. Rukn al-Dīn succeeded him, as we have mentioned.