South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c11.s1.14

c11.s1.14

Malik Kafur supreme, and his assassination.—The death of Alau-d-din left Malik Kafur in the plenitude of his power. He made use of it to aggrandize himself at the expense of everybody else. He threw all the grown-up sons of the late king into prison, and with the assent of the nobles placed an infant son upon the throne, himself undertaking the conduct of Government. Kizer Khan and his brother Shadi Khan, who were older and in prison in Gwalior were blinded, and the queen-dowager, the mother of Kizer Khan, was sent out into miserable retirement. He threw Mubarak into close confinement with the intention ultimately to have him blinded. These high-handed acts of his made him very unpopular in a short time, and the crowning act of his, to gather together all the more important nobles in the capital and assassinate them, was anticipated by his own assassination by a body of paiks—‘slaves of the late king, whose duty it was to be in charge of the Hazar Sutun,’ the Durbar hall of the palace. Thirty-five days after the death of Alau-d-din these men assassinated Malik Kafur, brought forth Mubarak Khan from his prison, and placed him in the position of authority as Naib (director) to the infant king. Mubarak had to begin his reign as director for the infant, and after a short while when he felt his position safe, he set aside the infant brother and ascended the throne himself. Almost the first act of his was to get rid of his dangerous allies, ‘the guards of the Hazar Sutun.’ He distributed them in distant places and got them put to death to put them beyond possibility of becoming dangerous. The accession of the Sultan Kutub-ud-din Mubarak Shah took place about the middle of A.D. 1316.