The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c21.38

c21.38

Thus there came into being a curious political phenomenon, a party of bondsmen pledged to support the power of the master's family who considered the state a vast household in which outsiders could have no place. The Sultanate was converted into a kind of household polity. On behalf of their master's heir they managed the state and considered themselves the sole custodians of Iltutmish's tradition. His degenerate successors could at any time have been supplanted, as indeed they were by Balban; but so long as the party remained, personal jealousy and fear of raking up general hostility among other Turks, compelled the Forty to keep, even though as puppets, Iltutmish’s children on the throne; for their sole *raison d’etre* was loyalty to his family. This household party thus contributed in no small measure to the growth of monarchy for it kept alive a dynasty. But, almost equally, it affected the state’s natural evolution, for under this system the state could derive strength and support, not from the general body of the people, nor even of the Turks, but only from a few, though influential, retainers of the founder of the dynasty. It also circumscribed the Crown.