The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c19.9

c19.9

The practice of regarding the amir as the first rank to be held by the aspirant to military aristocracy, which became normal in the latter 13th century, seems to have had even earlier beginning. Nizamul Mulk, writing in the 12th century, in describing the system of training for the slaves, mentions the amir as the first responsible office the newly trained slave was to occupy³. He adds that this system was becoming obsolete in his time; but not so in the Memeluke Sultanate. Ghazi Malik's admission into the military aristocracy began with his promotion to the rank of amir⁴. It was also Iltutmish's first commission. In fact every slave seems to have acquired this rank before he received an executive post⁵. Since the days when Subuktigin and Mahmud of Ghazni expressed their sovereignty by this title alone the amir like the sipahsalar had lost rank and by the time of the Tughluqs was only a captain in charge of a hundred troopers. Whether the possible elevation of the principal non-Turkish refugees straightway to the rank of *malik* in the 13th century had anything to do with the *amir's* degradation cannot be stated with certainty, but the Memeluke chronicles undoubtedly show a surfiet of the first-mentioned dignitary; an Indian Muslim is also described as *malik*¹. The higher rank of *khan* was held as a rule by grown-up princes of the royal family and such of the Turkish *maliks* as were specially honoured by the king. If the lists of Minhaj and Barani are any guide, no non-Turk, not even the Khaljis, could ever hold this rank. It was presumably part of the distinctions enjoyed by governors of important provinces. Its absence from the titles of Aibak and Iltutmish is perhaps to be explained by their opportune elevation to the throne; only Balban served a long period of apprenticeship and passed through this grade. The highest status below that of the king was conferred by the title of *Ulugh Khan* (great *khan*), naturally held by only one person at a time. Balban, possibly in imitation of the Mongol terminology, preferred to call it *Qaan* which he bestowed on his heir-apparent, a shrewd move to forestall the recurrence of the process of his own usurpation.