The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c8.74

c8.74

In other directions however, he was more successful. After 1225 he could turn his attention to the east where, since Aibak's death Delhi's authority had been completely negatived. Ali Mardan's tyranny in Lakhnauti had continued unchecked for two years until his exasperated officers put an end to it by murdering him and raising Husamuddin Iwaz once again to chief authority³. On his accession, which must have occurred shortly after 1211,⁴ Iwaz took the title of Sultan Ghiyasuddin and assumed full sovereign status⁵. He was a generous and able ruler and undertook a number of public works; one of them, a raised causway connecting Lakhnauti with Lakhanor and Devkot, proved immensely benificial in the rains and, in some places, is still traceable⁶. Iltutmish's' preoccupations left him unmolested⁷. He found means to annex Bihar and also to raid and exact tribute from the neighbouring Hindu states of "Jajnagar, Tirhut, Bang, and Kamrud¹." The chronicles of the Brahmin dynasty of Mithila. however, make no mention of any such raids². On the southwest also, these expeditions could not have made any appreciable change in the frontier; Ananga-bhima III (1211-1238), the king of Orissa, in his inscriptions also claims to have vanquished the *Javanas* of Rarh and Varendri³. On the east, across the Karatoya, border conflicts are all that could have taken place with the Sena kings of east Bengal with no positive advantage to either of the combatants⁴. The exaction of tribute from Kamrup must refer to occasional raids into the northeastern part of the trans-Karatoya region which, at least from the 13th century, seems to have been included within the geographical term of Kamrup⁵. In north Bihar Iwaz might have exercised some sort of control over part of Bhagalpur district