Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c12.16

c12.16

Soldiers in permanent service and the kings bodyguards called Jandars, were largely drawn from his personal slaves *ghilman* and *mamalik*.²⁵ Foreign slaves were purchased from all countries and nationalities. There were Turks, Persians, Seljuqs, Oghus (also called Iraqi Turkmen), Afghans, Khaljis etc., in the army of Ghaznavids and Ghaurids. To sustain the new principalities, slaves, imported as youths from peripheral regions were trained at the court of their masters to be a fighting and administrative elite loyal to them alone and thus comrades in arms.²⁶ This tradition of obtaining slaves by all methods and from all regions, was continued by Delhi sultans. These foreign slaves may be called, for the sake of brevity, by the generic term Turks and Afghans. Muhammad Ghauri in his last expedition brought ten thousand Afghan horsemen with him.²⁷ In the time of Iltutmish, Jalaluddin Mangbarni of Khwarism, fleeing before Chingiz Khan, had brought contingents of Afghan soldiers. In course of time many of them took service under Iltutmish.²⁸ Balban appointed three thousand Afghan horse and foot in his campaigns against the Mewatis,²⁹ and thousands of others for garrisoning difficult forts like Gopalgir, Kampil, Bhojpur, Patiali and Jalali.³⁰ In his royal processions hundreds of Sistani, Ghauri, Samarqandi and Arab soldiers, with drawn swords, used to march by Balbans side. Like the Afghans, the Mongols (again a generic term ethnically),³¹ were enslaved or persuaded to join the forces of the Khaljis. They were called neo-Muslims under Alauddin Khalji. Persian element in the rank of officers and men was also prominent. Purchased Abyssinian slave-soldiers and officers became prominent under Raziyah. By the time of Firoz Shah Tughlaq indigenous slaves began to replace foreigners. As an example, when the Sultan went out in state the slaves, accompanied him, in distinct corps - first the archers, fully armed, next the swordsmen, thousands in number (*hazar hazar*), the fighting men (*bandgan-i-aword*), the *bandgan-i-mahili* riding on male buffaloes, and slaves from the Hazara, mounted on Arab and Turki horses, bearing standards and axes. All these thousands upon thousands, accompanied the royal retinue. About 40,000 were everyday in readiness as his personal guards.³² Under Saiyyad and Lodi rulers, Afghans of all tribes and clans flocked into India like ants and locusts.³³