The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.331

v3.c20.331

As soon as Mubārak was firmly established on the throne he took steps to restore order in the rebellious provinces of Gujarāt and Deogīr. ‘Ain-ul-Mulk Multānī was sent to the former province, and after he had quelled the rebellion Mubārak’s father-in-law, who received the title of Zafar Khān, was appointed its governor. The other task Mubārak reserved for himself and, having appointed as regent in the capital a slave named Shāhīn, upon whom he conferred the title of Vafā Malik, he set out in 1317 for the Deccan. The usurper Harpāl was not a formidable foe, and fled from Deogīr as the army approached it, but was pursued and captured, and after he had been flayed and decapitated his skin was stretched upon, and his head placed above, one of the gates of the city. Mubārak spent the rainy season of 1318 at Deogīr, once more parcelled out Mahārāshtra among Muslim officers, and appointed military governors to Gulbarga and Sāgar, and even to distant Dvāravatīpura. During his sojourn at Deogīr he built the great mosque which yet stands within the walls of Daulatābād, as the town was afterwards named, using in its construction the materials of demolished temples, the pillars of which are still recognisable as Hindu handiwork. When the rains abated he appointed Malik Yaklakī to the government of Deogīr, sent his favourite, Khusrav Khān, on an expedition to Madura, and set out for Delhi. On his way thither a serious conspiracy against his life was formed by his cousin Asad-ud-dīn, the son of Yaghrush Khān, brother of Fīrūz Shāh. Mubārak was to have been assassinated in the camp, but the plot had ramifications in the capital, for two coins struck at Delhi in A.H. 718 (A.D. 1318-19) bear the title of Shams-ud-dīn Mahmūd Shāh, which was either that which Asad-ud-dīn intended to assume or, more probably, that of a ten-year old son of Khizr Khān, whose elevation to the throne was, according to Ibn Batūtah, the object of the conspiracy. It was arranged that Mubārak should be attacked in his harem on an occasion on which he diverged, for the distance of a few marches, from the route followed by the army, and took a different road attended only by a small guard, but one of the conspirators lost heart and disclosed the design to Mubārak, and Asad-ud-dīn and his confederates were seized and executed. Mubārak at the same time caused all the family and descendants of his grand-uncle, Yaghrush Khān, at Delhi, to the number of twenty-nine, some of whom were mere children, to be put to death.