The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.108

v3.c20.108

Meanwhile an officer subordinate to Aibak had been carrying the banner of Islam further afield. This was Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn Muhammad, son of Bakhtyār, of the Turkish tribe of Khalj, which was settled in the Garmsīr between Sīstān and Ghaznī. His mean and unprepossessing appearance and his ungainly build, which enabled him, while standing upright, to reach with his hands the calves of his legs, had long debarred him from employment commensurate with his ambition and his merits, and he had entered the service of Hijabr-ud-dīn Hasan Adīb, an adventurous officer who had conquered Budaun even before Muhammad had taken Bhātinda, and afterwards that of Malik Hisām-ud-dīn Āghūl Bak, another leader of the vanguard of Islam, who had established himself in Oudh, where Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn received some fiefs between the Ganges and the Son. From this advanced base he led raids into Bihār and Tirhut and took so much booty that large numbers of his own tribe, eager to serve under so fortunate a leader, joined him. With this accession of strength he invaded Bihār, took its capital, Odantapurī, put to death the Buddhist monks dwelling in its great monastery, and returned with his plunder, which included the library of the monastery, to make his obeisance to Aibak, now, in the summer of 1193, established at Delhi. The honours bestowed upon him aroused much envy and jealousy, and intriguers and backbiters were able to freeze the stream of Aibak’s favour into the ice of suspicion and aversion; but their malice overreached itself, for to compass Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn’s destruction they attributed to him a foolish boast, that he could overcome an elephant in single combat, and persuaded Aibak that the vaunt should be made good. It had never been uttered, but Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn would not decline the challenge and, against the expectation of all, put the beast to flight. His success regained the favour of Aibak, who dismissed him with fresh honours to Bihār, after conferring on him as a fief his past and future conquests.