South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c16.2

c16.2

ON page 75 above, I have said, following the authority of Major Raverty and Elphinstone, the Historian, that the Khiljis were ‘a people who were Turks, but having been long staying in Afghanistan first round Herat and then Eastwards they became so assimilated to the populations of the locality that they were taken to be more Afghans than Turks.’ That position is supported by Beale in his *Oriental Biographical Dictionary* The late Dr. Vincent Smith states on page 230 of the *Oxford History of India*. ‘Although the Khalij or the Khilji tribe is reckoned by Raverty among the Turks, the contemporary author Ziau-d-din Barani, who must have known the fact states that ‘Jalalu-d-din came of a race different from the Turks,’ and that by the death of Sultan Kaikobad, ‘the Turks lost the Empire.’ In regard to this point I append a letter very obligingly written by Dr. A. Suhrawardy of the Calcutta University in answer to an enquiry I made on the point at issue. I publish the letter with grateful acknowledgments to the learned doctor for his courtesy in spite of personal inconvenience.