The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c8.94

c8.94

the chronicler, seem to have had an obvious connection with the subsequent rebellion of a man named Balka Khalji¹. His identity is difficult to establish and Minhaj gives him obscure and even irreconcilable antecedents². Unless he can be proved to be identical with Alauddin Daulat Shah b. Maudud, who issued the unique coin described by Thomas³, Balka, possibly a relation if not the son of Iwaz, should be supposed to have become the leader of the Khalji chiefs, who in their loyalty to the late ruler, considered subordination to Delhi as intolerable. Assuming that the date on Alauddin Daulat Shah’s coin has been correctly read as 627/1229, it must have been issued by a man who, on Mahmud’s death, assumed regal status and placated Iltutmish by inscribing his name and titles on the obverse and thus acknowledging his suzerainty⁴. To what family and tribe this self-appointed vassal ruler belonged it is immaterial to enquire for the autonomy-loving Khaljis headed by Balka soon ousted him and thus furnished Iltutmish with a pretext for a second invasion of Lakhnauti towards the end of the same year (i.e. 627/ending November 8, 1230)⁵. Balka was defeated and slain;