The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.115

v3.c20.115

The five years' interval of peace was limited to the provinces in north-western India under Aibak's immediate control, for Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn's activity was not abated. After returning, in 1193, from Delhi to Bihār he hatched schemes of conquest which should extend the dominion of the faithful to the sea on one side and beyond the great mountain barrier of the Himālaya on the other. Lower Bengal was now ruled by Lakshman, of the Sen dynasty, who, having been a posthumous son, had succeeded at his birth to his father's kingdom and was now an aged man dwelling peacefully at Nabadwīpa or Nadiya, which his grandfather had made the capital of Bengal. In 1202¹ Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn left Bihār with a large body of horse, and marched so rapidly on Nadiya that he arrived at the city with no more than eighteen companions. Nadiya was partly deserted at this time, many of its wealthier inhabitants having retired and settled further to the east, owing, it is said, to predictions in ancient books that the city would be captured by the Turks², but their flight may be more reasonably attributed to authentic stories of the activity and rapacity of the Muslims than to ancient prophecy. Lakshman Sen, whether from apathy or from confidence, had refused to leave his capital, and when the intruders, who had been permitted to pass through the city under the impression that they were horsedealers from the north, reached his palace gates he was sitting down to a meal. The Muslims cut down the guards and bystanders, burst into the palace, and at once all was uproar and confusion. The raja, in the half-naked state in which a Hindu of high caste is obliged to eat, left his unfinished meal and escaped by boat, and the adventurers were able to hold their own until the rest of the army arrived, when they plundered the treasury of the accumulations of a peaceful reign of eighty years and sacked and destroyed the city³. Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn retired to Gaur or Lakhnāwati, where he established himself firmly as governor of Bengal, founded mosques, colleges, and caravanserais, and caused the *Khutba*⁴ to be recited in the name of Mu‘izz-ud-dīn Muhammad, who had succeeded as sole ruler on the death of his elder brother, Ghiyās-ud-dīn, on February 11, 1203.