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The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2.c33: Chapter II. Bengal Under the Mamluks (1227-1287 A.D.)

The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2.c33

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English

Contents

Chapter II. Bengal Under the Mamluks (1227-1287 A.D.)

I. Bengal During the Reign of Iltutmish

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DURING this period of sixty years no less than fifteen chiefs are found in authority at Lakhnawati, and of them ten were Mamluks of the imperial Court of Delhi. These Mamluks were men of various nationalities of Central Asia, Khitāi Turk, Qipchaq and Uzbeg, sold into slavery in early life. Before they became governors of Bengal, they had all arisen to the position of powerful Maliks at the Mamluk Court of Delhi, and filled important offices of trust in the imperial house-hold and also held governorships of provinces. They themselves in their turn owned a large body of mamluks who constituted the chief source of their masters' power and prestige. Lakhnawati under their rule became a replica of the Imperial Court of Delhi in grandeur and magnificence, and the administrative system they introduced in the province was also a close copy of the administrative system of the empire under the House of Iltutmish—a hierarchy of decentralised minor sovereignties of a feudal character, This was, however, not peculiar to Delhi or Lakhnawati; but the same state of things obtained in every part of the contemporary Muslim world, where, e.g. in Egypt, Turkish Mamluks ruled (1250-1517).

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The history of this period is a sickening record of internal dissensions, usurpations and murders which the Court of Delhi after the death of Sultan Iltutmish could not punish. The seizure of the government of Lakhnawati was the highest ambition of the governors of neighbouring provinces, Bihar, Oudh, Kanauj and Kārā-Mānikpur; because even after the loss of independence, Gaur-Lakhnawati retained its status of a kingdom, and its possession alone entitled a Malik to the coveted status of Malik-ush-Sharq or Lord of the East. Here in Bengal the political maxim gained ground that whosoever could kill or oust the reigning ruler should be acknowledged without demur as its legitimate master and the Bengalees, whether Turks or Hindus, remained generally indifferent to the fate of their rulers and enunciated a constitutional principle of their own that the loyalty of a subject was due to the masnad (throne), and not to the person who happened to occupy it. Such was the inevitable reaction of frequent revolutions in the capital. Like their subjects, the Mamluk rulers of Bengal showed also the same sort of passive loyalty to the throne of Delhi, and most of them proved their fidelity to the salt of Iltutmish by reading the khutbah, issuing coins and sending congratulatory offerings and tributes to whomsoever among the members of their master's family would be placed on the throne. Another notable feature of the history of this period was the beginning of a sort of rapprochement between the conquerors and their Hindu subjects. The exodus of upper-class Hindus on a wide scale from the Muslim territory gradually stopped, and now for the first time we come across references to Hindus as a respectable class of inhabitants in the Muslim capital. The Muslim rulers had no internal trouble with regard to their Hindu subjects of Varendra even when the Hindus of Orissa threatened the capital with a siege.

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But, on the whole, the fortune of Islam at this period was at a stand-still, and the Muslim power of Lakhnawati suffered relative decay in comparison with the Hindu powers in Kamrup, East Bengal and Orissa. The ancient Hindu principalities in Kāmrup (Kāmtā-Hājo) were supplanted by a powerful confederacy of Bārā-Bhuyāns of immigrant Mongoloid tribes. Under the impulse of a Neo-Hinduism the Koch, Mech, Thāru and other Mongoloid tribes assumed the rôle of Kshatriyas, and proved an effective barrier to the progress of Muslim arms in the tract between the Karatoyā and the Subarnasri rivers for about a century: and further east the Shān invaders from Upper Burma under their kings Sukhāphā and his son Sutephā (1268-1281) laid the foundations of the Ahom kingdom of Gauhāti. Hinduism with its wonderful vitality and elasticity strangled the Buddhism of the Shāns who now formed the second line of defence against Islam. When the vigour of the Sena dynasty—too much busy with the purging of society and the readjustment of Kulinism—was on the wane, the over-lordship of the greater part of East and South Bengal passed to a powerful Kāyastha ruling house founded in the second half of the thirteenth century by Daśaratha-Danuja-mādhava of Chandravīpa or the modern Barisal district. The greatest and most direct menace to the Muslim power of Lakhnawati was the mighty Eastern Gaṅgā empire of Orissa. A feudatory of the Gaṅgas who had his seat at Jājpur on the bank of the Vaitarani river (confounded by Muslim historians with the Rāy of Jājnagar or the Gaṅgā emperor of Orissa) proved more than a match for the Mamluk rulers of Lakhnawati.

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To proceed with the narrative, Prince Nāsiruddin Mahmud who had overthrown Sultan Ghiyāsuddin 'Iwaz Khilji united the provinces of Oudh and Bengal under one rule and shifted his residence to Lakhnawati. The only good work for which he was remembered at Delhi was that he squandered the treasure of ‘Iwaz in presents to all the *ulema*, Sayyids and Sufis of the imperial capital. When the *khilat* and honours from the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustanasir-Bi’llah for Sultan Shamsuddin reached Delhi in the month of Rabi-ul-awwal, 626 A.H. (Feb. 1229), the affectionate father sent to his heir-apparent one valuable robe of honour out of the Caliph’s *khilat* along with a red umbrella and a red canopy of State and bestowed on him the lofty title of *Malik-ush-Sharq* (Lord of the East). The imperial envoys who brought these gifts to Nāsiruddin took back to Delhi the sad news of the death of the Prince in the month of Jamadi-us-sani of that year (May, 1229), and also perhaps the news that Lakhnawati had been lost to the Sultanate. Nāsiruddin ruled in Lakhnawati for about a year and a half and died of illness a few days after the receipt of kingly honours from his father. As soon as he breathed his last a partisan of ‘Iwaz, Malik Ikhtiyāruddin Balkā (the Colt) Khilji, expelled the imperialists from Bengal bag and baggage. The dead body of the Prince was carried to Delhi where it lies buried under a noble mausoleum—known as the Sultan Ghazi’s *maqbara*¹—situated in the village of Mālikpur Koye near Delhi. Malik Ikhtiyāruddin Balkā Khilji ruled in Bengal as an independent king undisturbed by Sultan Iltutmish for about eighteen months. The only token of the reign of this rebel chief is a coin² dated 627 A.H. in which he describes himself as *Daulat Shāh bin Maudud* and which retains curiously enough also the name of the Delhi Sultan. Iltutmish led an expedition against Balkā in the beginning of 628 A.H. (Nov. 1230 A.D.), and had the occasion to visit for the first time and admire the memorials of ‘Iwaz’s beneficent rule. Balkā did not submit easily; he fought against the army of Delhi and for a time eluded capture. Eventually he fell a prisoner and lost his head; Malik Alauddin Jāni, governor of Bihār and governor-designate of Lakhnawati after Prince Nāsiruddin, was put in charge of the government of Bengal and the vacant governorship of Bihar given to Malik Saifuddin Aibak. After having recovered Bengal and settled the administrative arrangements of his eastern provinces, Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish returned to Delhi in the month of Rajab of that year (628 A.H. May 1231).

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¹ An inscription on this mausoleum gives the deceased prince the title of Malik-ush-Sharq. The maqbara was built in 629 A.H. (*Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica*, 1909-10, p. 70).

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² For details, see Chapter II App. A, *Coins and Inscription*.

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Malik Alauddin Jāni the next governor was a Shāh-zādah of Turkistan who had fled to India from the terror of the Mongol arms. A man of princely ability, his royal blood always boiled in him, and his attitude to the Mamluk Sultan of Delhi was not unlike that of the Timurid Mirzas at the Mughal Court towards the House of Babur. History is silent on the activities of Alauddin Jāni during his short rule of one year and a few months. For some reason he was removed from the governorship.¹ Under the Sultan's orders Malik Saifuddin Aibak vacated the governorship of Bihar to take over the charge of Lakhnawati; and Tughral-Tughān Khan was transferred from Badāun to Bihar. Malik Saifuddin Aibak was a Shamsi Mamluk, a Kārā-Khitāi Turk—more correctly a Tatar—by origin. He possessed all the noble qualities of his race and rose to the front rank of the Maliks of his age. He ruled for three years with vigour, during which he made a raid into the "country of Bang and captured some elephants." Sultan Iltutmish was highly pleased with Aibak's present of elephants from Bengal and bestowed on him the title of Yughān-tat. The Sultan breathed his last on the 20th of Shaban 633 A.H. (29 April, 1236 A.D.), and the forces of disorder began to work throughout Hindustan. Saifuddin either died a natural death or was poisoned (as the author of Riyāz says), and the period of legitimate and orderly government of Lakhnawati ended with Yughān-tat's death.²

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¹ Nasiri, Text. 239. After his removal from Bengal Malik Alauddin Jani is next mentioned as the fiefholder of Lahor after the death of Iltutmish. He was one of the ring-leaders of the baronial revolt against Sultan Ruknuddin and Raziyah. He was killed and his severed head brought to Delhi by Raziyah's troops in 1237 A.D. (Nasiri, Trans. 641).

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² The Indian Museum (Calcutta) inscription (Cunningham, ASR. xv, Plate No. xx.) referring to the repair of a well begun by one Qatlagh Khan in the reign of Iltutmish and reputed to be the earliest Muslim inscription in Bengal,—has, as Mr. J. Horovitz has proved satisfactorily (Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica, 1911-12, p. 25, Plate XVIII. 2) nothing to do with Bengal. The error was due to a confusion about the find-spot which was Abuhar in the Punjab and not Gaur. R. D. Banerji did not detect it and hence he says the building of the well was completed during the governorship of Saifuddin Yughān-tat (Bāngālār Itihāsa, II. 49).

II. Usurpations and Civil Wars

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Events at Delhi after the death of Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish had their repercussions on the political life in Bengal. One Aor Khan Aibak, "a Turk of great daring and impetuosity" (perhaps one of the mamluks of Saifuddin Aibak)—made himself master of Lakhnawati after the death or murder of Saifuddin. Then Tughān Khan, governor of Bihar, perhaps demanded the surrender of the province of Lakhnawati from Aor Khan, and led the army of Bihar across the frontier to enforce his claim. A battle was fought between the two Khans in the space between the city of Lakhnawati and the fortress of Baskot, and in the heat of the action an arrow of Tughral Tughān killed Aor Khan. The partisans of the vanquished chief evacuated the capital, and Tughral Tughān became the master of both the wings of the Muslim territory, Rāḍh and Varind, in addition to his own province of Bihar.

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Tughral Tughān Khan was also a Qārā-Khitāi Turkish Mamluk trained in the royal household of Iltutmish. His first appointment was that of Sāqi-i-Khās or royal cup-bearer, and he was next promoted to the post of Sar-dawāt-dār which however brought him bad luck. He lost the Sultan's jewelled pen-case, got a sound beating and was degraded to the position of a Chashni-gir. Slowly he recovered his master's favour and was transferred from the kitchen to the stable as Amir-i-Ākhur. Minhāj-i-Sirāj who received many favours from Tughral Tughān says with pardonable exaggeration: "He was adorned with all sorts of humanity and sagacity, and graced with many virtues and noble qualities; and in liberality, generosity and power of winning men's hearts, he had no equal." (Nasiri, Tr. 736.)

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Malik 'Izzuddin Tughral Tughān Khan enjoyed a fairly long lease of power for about nine years (1236-1245 A.D.). Though an usurper, he legalised his authority by procuring from Sultāna Raziyah a formal recognition of his status as the ruler of Bihar and Lakhnawati. He received from her the princely insignia of a chatr (umbrella) a red canopy, and standards in return for his protestations of loyalty to the imperial throne and the rich presents which he had sent with his envoys to Delhi. Since then Tughral kept himself aloof from the whirlpool of Court politics and it was his policy to read the khutbah and issue coins in the name of whomsoever among the members of Sultan Shamsuddin's family happened to occupy the imperial throne. He also never failed to send congratulatory presents to every Sultan after his accession and so kept the imperial court in good humour. But he steadily pursued all the while his forceful policy of aggression. He started with a successful raid into the kingdom of Tirhut which yielded him rich booty but no submission. He recruited a large army of horse and infantry, and built a strong flotilla of war-boats. But he did not employ his vast military resources in extending the boundary of the Muslim dominion in Bengal which remained stationary since the death of Sultan Ghiyāsuddin 'Iwaz Khilji. He conserved them to make a trial of strength with his fellow-Mamluks, conquer Oudh, Kārā- Mānikpur and the Ganges-Jumna Doab, and make himself the de facto sovereign of Eastern India. He was instigated, it is said, by a Syrian minister of his, Bahāuddin Hilāl. The orbit of Tughral Tughān's ambition can perhaps be measured by the lofty titles he took unto himself as we learn from the only extant inscription of his time found in Bihār (Majlis-i-'Ala' . . . Ghyās-al-Islām wa al-Musalmain Mughis-al-Muluk wa al-Salātīn Abi-al-Fatha' Tughral-al-Sultāni).¹

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¹ Dated Muharram, 640 A.H.; for details see Chapter II App. A. Coins and Inscriptions.

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Malik 'Izzuddin Tughral Tughān started on his grand expedition in the beginning of 640 A.H. (c. Sept. 1242 A.D.) shortly after the accession of Alauddin Ma'sud Shah on the throne of Delhi (18th Zilqadah 639 A.H./20th May 1242). The army and river-flotilla of Bengal advanced from their base of operations in Bihar up the river Ganges. It is not on record that the victorious progress of Tughral Tughān encountered any resistance at Chunār, Benares or Allahabad before he reached the frontiers of Kārā, situated about 50 (?) miles up on the northern bank of the Ganges. Malik Ikhtiyāruddin Qārā-Qash Khan had been appointed governor of Kārā² in October 1242 almost about the same time; but he could not possibly reach Kārā from Delhi earlier than the army of Tughān Khan. During this campaign the latter was on the Kārā frontier for some time, and it was there that the historian Minhāj-i-Sirāj had gone from Oudh to interview him. From this place Malik 'Izzuddin Tughral sent his envoy Sharful-Mulk al-Ashari to the imperial Court perhaps with presents and excuses. Sultan Alauddin Mas'ud Shah in return nominated Qazi Jalāluddin Kāshāni to accompany Tughān's envoy to Lakhnawati with his own tokens of favour, a khilat, an umbrella and a red canopy of State for Majlis-i-'Ala Abul Fatha' Tughral. Meanwhile, the ruler of Lakhnawati with his honoured guest Minhāj-i-Sirāj returned from the confines of Kārā and reached Lakhnawati on the 17th of Zi-hijjah of the same year (640 A.H./7th June 1243). The imperial envoy, Qazi Jalāluddin Kāshāni, was received at court and Tughral invested with the imperial khilat on Sunday, the 11th of Rabi-ul-awwal 641 A.H. (29th August 1243) The taper of Tughral's glory burnt brightest on the eve of its extinction.

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² His appointment to Kārā on 25th Jamda I 640 A.H. (Nāsiri, Trans. 747).

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Tughral Tughān Khan's dream of an East Indian Sultanate was rudely disturbed within a few months of his triumphant entry to Lakhnawati. In the dry season of the year 641 A.H. (c. October- November, 1243) "the Rãy of Jājnagar," undeterred by the might of Tughral, began "molesting" the territory of Lakhnawati as Minhāj-i-Sirāj mildly puts it. Tughral Tughān's contemporary on the throne of Orissa was Rājā Narasimhadeva I who had succeeded his father Anangabhīmadeva III about 1238 A.D. He seems to have taken advantage of the withdrawal of the army and fleet of Lakhnawati to distant Kārā in the previous year to lead an expedition into Rāḍh and the frontiers of Vaṅga. In the campaigning season of 1242 he avoided rousing the suspicions of the Turks of Southern Rāḍh, strongly posted in Nagar in the Birbhum district, and sought easier conquests east of the river Bhāgirathi. This tract might have been occasionally raided during the period of the Khilji ascendancy, but no Muslim army had visited it after the death of Sultan Ghiyāsuddin Khilji (1227 A.D.). Saptagrām (Sātgāon) was still unsubdued and the district of Nadia was strewn with semi-independent Hindu Rajas. These were little likely to offer any opposition to the northward expansion of the mighty Hindu power of Orissa which was their only safeguard against the rapacity of the Turks. Tughral Tughān slept over this dangerous aggression of Orissa on his immediate frontier till the emboldened enemy actually began ravaging his own possessions on the Lakhnor side in the dry season of 1243. Where were the army and the fleet of Tughral? He could not take the field to repel the Hindu invasion till the month of Shawwal 641 A.H. (mid March, 1244 A.D.) when Minhāj-i-Sirāj, the historian, also joined in "this holy war." The army of Tughral Tughān marched along the broad highway of 'Iwaz as far as Lakhnor, and pushed further south-east after having crossed the rivers Ajay and Dāmodar. The army of Orissa retreated without fighting to their frontier fortress of Katāsin,¹ in a region full of jungle and cane-bushes suited for ambush and surprise. Tughān's objective was perhaps some fort north of Vishnupur in the Bankura district.

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¹ Raverty searched for Katāsin on the bank of the Mahānadi river, and N. Vasu in Midnapur (Rai-Baniya-garh) ; Blochmann cautiously avoids any guess, but holds correctly that it was somewhere in Western Bengal. Dr. Bhattasali takes up his cue from Blochmann, and arrives at a very satisfactory conclusion that Katasin may be Kathasanga 5 miles south-east of Sonamukhi, about 12 miles south of the Dāmodar, situated on the boundary of Vishnupur in the Bankura district (JRAS, January 1935, p. 109). Kistnagur on Rennell's Atlas (Sheet No. VII) situated in the same locality, about twenty-five miles west-south west of Burdwan, and about the same distance east-north east of Vishnupur also answers well. Bhattasali's ruined fort of Karasurgad, one mile from Kathasanga is too small for Minhāj's Katāsin.

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On Saturday morning 6th of Ziqadah 641 (16th April 1244) the Turks delivered an assault on the fort of Katāsin, carried two ditches after hard fighting and put the Hindus to flight who left some elephants behind. As it was the time of mid-day meal, Tughral Tughān recalled his troops from the assault and ordered that nobody should vex the elephants which were evidently left in their place on the other side of the second ditch. The soldiers of the army of Islam were busy in preparing or eating their meals. A party of Orissa soldiers made a sortie from the direction of the fort to take away the elephants they had left behind in the morning; and simultaneously a small detachment of two hundred footmen and fifty sawārs stole their way from behind a cane-jungle and rushed upon the rear of the Muslim army. The panic spread to the whole army of Tughral Tughān Khan. At any rate the army of Orissa kept up a hot pursuit, and the Turks did not make a stand even in their own fort of Lakhnor, 70 miles north-west of Katāsin. It will be idle to suppose that the Muslim army was helpless before a handful of enemies or that the Turk had forgotten his trade. Tughral Tughān Khan was no doubt out-generalled by the King of Orissa who had drawn the enemy far away from their frontier and must have concealed more than one surprising party along the whole route of the enemy's advance. A greater disaster had not till then befallen the Muslims in any part of Hindustan. "The Muslims," says Minhāj "sustained an overthrow, and a great number of those holy warriors attained martyrdom."

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The situation was critical at Lakhnawati. Tughān Khan after his return from Katāsin sent Sharf-ul-Mulk al-Ashari and Qazi Jalāluddin Kāshāni to the Imperial Court to implore military assistance. The mission was successful; Sultan Alauddin Mas'ud Shah issued orders to Malik Qārā-Qash Khan, governor of Kārā-Mānikpur, and also to Malik Tamar Khan of Oudh to unite their forces and march at once "for exterminating the infidels of Jājnagar." Meanwhile the Rāy of Jājnagar followed up his success by capturing Lakhnor and putting to the sword Fakhr-ul-Mulk Karimuddin Langhri, the fief-holder of Lakhnor, along with a large number of Muslims. The rule of the Turks was terminated in Rādh, and Varendra was invaded next year. On Tuesday, the 13th Shawwal 642 A.H. (14th March 1245) the army of Orissa consisting of a large number of paiks (infantry) and elephants actually arrived before the Muslim capital, and drove Tughral Tughān to seek shelter within the gates of Lakhnawati. The very next day messengers are said to have brought news to Lakhnawati that the army of Hindustan was near at hand;—perhaps a trick to hearten the people of the city. However, the army of Hindustan was really on its march through Bihar along the southern bank of the Ganges, and within a few days reached "the Hill of Lakhnawati" i.e. the Rājmahal hills; and the Hindu army thus threatened on the flank withdrew from the neighbourhood of Lakhnawati. Instead of combining to retrieve the prestige of Muslim arms and exterminate the Hindus, the Muslims now fell out; Tughral Tughān Khan wished the army of Hindustan under Malik Tamar Khan of Oudh to march back as the Hindus had already retreated; but he shared the unhappy fate of a prince who calls to his aid a more powerful ally. Malik Tamar Khan-i-Qirān, bent on depriving Tughān Khan of Bengal, laid siege to Lakhnawati and daily skirnishes continued between the hostile forces. One morning the two Khans fought till mid-day, after which both the armies retired for their meals. Most of the soldiers of Tughān Khan had gone into the city and a few troopers who were left with him in the camp outside the city-gate had also alighted from their horses. Malik Tamar Khan stood ready for battle in his camp and was waiting for news from the spies whom he had set upon the movements of Tughral Tughān. He at once made a dash for camp of Tughān Khan, who absolutely unprepared for such an emergency, saved himself by flight within the city, on Tuesday the 5th of Zilhijjah, 642 (4th May 1245, a Thursday).

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Minhāj-i-Sirāj negotiated a peace between the two Khans whereby Tughral Tughān was allowed to march out of the city unmolested with "his treasure, his elephants and followers," giving up Lakhnawati and Bihar to Malik Tamar Khan-i-Qirān. The auxiliary Amirs, Malik Qārā-Qash and Malik Tājuddin, and also the historian Minhāj-i-Sirāj with his family and dependents, accompanied the crest-fallen Tughral Tughān, who now bade his last farewell to Lakhnawati and reached the Imperial Court on Monday, the 14th Safar, 643 A.H. (11th July, 1245 A.D.). Sultan Alauddin Mas'ud was too weak to punish the treachery and disloyalty of the new usurper of Lakhnawati; Tughral Tughān Khan had to wait till another revolution at Delhi raised Prince Nāsiruddin Mahmud (the Younger) to the throne (Sunday, the 23rd Muharram, 644/10th June 1246). The new Sultan redressed the wrong done to Tughral Tughān by bestowing on him Malik Tamar's province of Oudh: Tughān proceeded from Delhi to make good his claim on Oudh and entered its territory only to die on the night of Friday, the last day of the month of Shawwal of that year (644 A.H./9th March 1247). Almost by a divine coincidence Malik Tamar Khan-i-Qirān after two years of usurped rule over a circumscribed territory in Bengal also breathed his last on the same night in the city of Lakhnawati. In spite of his failure to capture Lakhnawati, the Turks could not for ten years dislodge King Narasimhadeva I from his conquests bounded on the north by the white waters of Ganges which had "assumed the dark countenance of the Yamunā by the collyrium-stained tears of the Yavana women of Rāḍhā and Varendrī.”¹

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¹ For references to the successes of Narasimhadeva I see. N. Vasu, *Kenduapatina Copper-plates*, JASB. LXV. 1896; M. Chakravarti, *Eastern Gaṅga Kings of Orissa*, JASB. 1903, pp. 121 ff; R. D. Banerji, *History of Orissa*, I. 263 ff.

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On the death of Malik Tamar Khan-i-Qirān after two years of weak and uneventful rule in Lakhnawati, the governorship of Bengal and Bihar was granted by the imperial court to Malik Jalāluddin Mas‘ud Jāni, son of Malik Alauddin Jāni. He ruled for about four years (from 645 A.H. to 649 A.H./c. May 1247 to March 1251) arrogating to himself the title of *Malik-ush-Sharq* and what was unusual by designating himself *Shāh*,—though he did not discard his allegiance to Sultan Nāsiruddin. The only relic of Mas‘ud Jāni’s viceroyalty is an inscription from a mosque at Gangārāmpur near Devkot.

III. Sultan Mughis-ud-din Yuzbak: His Conquests and Tragic End

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Malik Ikhtyāruddin Yuzbak, governor of Oudḥ, succeeded Mas‘ud Jāni in 650 A.H. The new governor was a habitual rebel, having already risen twice against Sultan Nāsiruddin, and been each time pardoned and promoted through the favour of Ulugh Khan Balban. “Rashness and imperiousness,” says Minhāj-i-Sirāj, “were implanted in his nature and constitution”; but he was a man of undoubted ability as a soldier and proved a successful ruler too. After having consolidated his authority in Varendra he led an expedition to Rāḍhā in 651 A.H. (c. November-December, 1253) to retrieve the prestige of the Turkish arms. It proved a hard job, as a vigorous chief of Orissa, a son-in-law and feudatory (Savantār, Oriya Sāntra) of Rājā Narasimhadev I, had consolidated a powerful vassal kingdom with his capital at Madāran (*Umardan* of Minhāj) in the north-eastern corner of the modern Hooghly district, a few miles west of Chinsurah. During this campaign three battles were fought and in the last of them Malik Ikhtyāruddin Yuzbak suffered a defeat with heavy loss, though he “showed in comparison with Tughral Tughān greater courage and grit.” He implored assistance from the Imperial Court, which was itself helpless on account of the temporary eclipse of the power of Ulugh Khan Balban and the ascendancy of the faction of ‘Imāduddin Rayāni and Mas‘ud Jāni, the latter having married scandalously Sultan Nāsiruddin’s own mother, Malkā-i-Jahān. However, Malik Ikhtyāruddin Yuzbak reorganised his own army and two years later (653 A.H./c. November-December, 1255) again invaded Rāḍhā. Grown wiser by his previous experience he avoided frontal attacks which gave an advantage to the army of Orissa with its numerous elephants. According to the notions of the age, an elephant was considered worth "five hundred horsemen" even by a military expert like Balban; because, unlike the ancient Romans who fought Pyrrhus, the Turks had not yet discovered the weak points of this mighty animal. With his superior cavalry Malik Ikhtyāruddin dealt swift and decisive blows by resorting to the nomad tactics of stratagem and surprise against the slow-moving Hindu infantry and won conspicuous success. By a well-planned attack he captured Madāran, the capital of Sāvantar, and everything within the city except the person of the Orissa chief fell into his hands. He next turned his arms to reducing the whole country of Rāḍhā, which was almost completed with the second conquest of Nadia. Malik Ikhtyāruddin Yuzbak now rebelled a third time against the Sultan of Delhi and commemorated his new conquests by a special issue of a beautiful silver coin from the Lakhnawati mint in the month of Ramzan 653 A.H. He was the first Shamsi Mamluk who openly assumed the title of Sultan, Sultan Mughis al-duniya waal-din Abul Muzaffar Yuzbak al-Sultan.

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The state of things at the Delhi Court and another ministerial revolution which brought back Balban to power emboldened Sultan Mughisuddin to seize the masterless province of Oudh. Balban had driven out its rebellious governor Malik Mas'ud Jāni and harried the province as far as the frontiers of Tirhut during his campaign in the beginning of 654 A.H./February 1256. After the departure of the imperial army Sultan Mughisuddin attacked that province with impunity during the rainy season of that year with his army and fleet of war-boats (July-August, 1256). He entered triumphantly the city of Oudh and instituted there the reading of khutbah in his own name. He now assumed at Lakhnawati three canopies of State, red, black and white, perhaps as a token of his sovereignty over the three provinces Lakhnawati, Bihar and Oudh. It is said that the citizens of Lakhnawati, Hindu and Muslim, disapproved of this defiance of the imperial authority by their ruler. But Sultan Mughisuddin, confident of his own strength, thought of adding a fourth province, the country of Kāmrup, to his own kingdom. In the beginning of the year 655 A.H. (January 1257) the ministry of Balban at Delhi was in the grip of a serious struggle with a coalition of powerful nobles—Mas'ud Jāni, Kishlu Khan and Tājuddin Arslān Khan. So Sultan Mughisuddin started with composure of mind on his fatal expedition for the conquest of Kāmrup at the beginning of the spring, 1257 (655 A.H.).

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The land of Kāmrup was almost a terra incognita to the Turkish rulers of Lakhnawati, though the more vigorous among them are credited with successful forays on its border. The boundary between the Muslim territory of Lakhnawati and the country of Kāmrup was the river Karatoyā or the Beg-mati of Minhāj, (a river of the first order, “thrice as broad as the Ganges),” which flowed in front of the mythical city of Mardan or Bardhan, perhaps the old Pauṇḍravardhana, identified by some with Mahāsthān-garh. The trans-Karatoyā region had been in the process of a political and religious transformation during the second half of the thirteenth century. There was no centralised kingdom or kingdoms in Kāmrup at the time of Sultan Mughisuddin’s invasion of it. The land was divided among Bārā-bhumyās of the Bodo, Koch, Mech tribes as far east as the Barā Nadi; and the country further east was under the rule of Sukhaphā (1228-68 A.D.) the founder of the Ahom dynasty of Assam. These Bārā-Bhumyās who ruled in modern Koch-Bihār, Goālpārā and Kāmrup, formed a sort of loose political confederacy under the authority of the most powerful among them. During this dark period of the history of Kāmrup appeared the legendary hero, Hājo the Koch, undoubtedly a historical personage after whose name the land of Kāmrup proper received the name of Koch-Hājo, in contra-distinction to Koch-Bihār, in later Muslim histories.

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Hājo is remembered “to have been a person of great vigour, and reduced under his government the whole of this (Rangpur) district except Ghorāghāt, together with most of that portion of Assam, which is included in the government of Gohāti or Kāmrup.”¹ Sultan Mughisuddin crossed the river, perhaps somewhere near Ghorāghāt in the Rangpur district and marched through the modern Goālpārā district along the northern bank of the Brahmaputra river. “The Rāi of Kāmrup” did not offer any fight, and when the Muslim army reached the capital of the Rāi it was also evacuated. Sultan Mughisuddin acquired rich booty in that virgin field of loot previously unvisited by any raider. It is said that twelve hundred (vessel-fuls ?) of treasure buried near that city by Shah Garshāsp of Irān on his way from China through Kāmrup—fell with their seals intact into the hands of the army of Islam! The country was so rich and flourishing that Sultan Mughisuddin thought of completing its conquest and annexation and refused offers of yearly tribute from the Rāi. He turned the capital of the Rāi into an abode of Islam and decided to halt there during the rains. It was already the time of the spring harvest; but the Sultan unacquainted with the conditions of the country neglected to store up grain and fodder for his army. He was further encouraged to stop there by the show of submission of the Hindus who had been allowed by the Rāi to do so and return home.

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Whatever surplus stock of food-stuff there was in the city and the neighbouring country was purchased by merchants moving in disguise and exported to distant places without rousing the suspicion of the Turks. The Rājā of Kāmrup had concealed himself with his army in the jungle of the submontane tract, dammed up the hill streams for the emergency flooding of the country below in case the Muslim army would pursue him to his retreat, and was waiting confidently for the outburst of the monsoons and famine in the enemy's camp. As soon as the rains began (c. April-May, 1257) the first Muslim invading army found itself in the same plight as that experienced in later times by the army of Mīr Jumlā in Assam so graphically described by the historian Shihābuddin Tālish. The Hindus according to the preconcerted plan rose in arms on all sides, cut off supplies to the city, and seized the plains and water-ways. The very earth became like water and mud like water outside, and within the city death by starvation stared the besieged Turks in the face. The Sultan caught hold of a guide who undertook to conduct his army by a shorter route through the submontane tract, evidently by way of the Dooars via Koch-Bihār, in the direction of Devkot. When the Sultan had traversed several stages and entered the defiles and jungles of the submontane tract (koh-pāyān), he was in a narrow place assailed by the Hindus on all sides and a panic seized the Turks.

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The Sultan mounted on an elephant fought bravely till he was mortally wounded by an arrow. The entire Turkish army surrendered and the Sultan with all his children, family and dependents became captives in the hand of the Rājā of Kāmrup. The Sultan in his last gasp signified his wish to see his son, and putting his face on the face of his son he breathed his last. Though the Court historian has not a kind word to say for our brave Sultan Mughisuddin Yuzbak, the Muslim power of Lakhnawati owed much to the vigour and earnest efforts of Yuzbak, who annexed permanently the whole of Rādh as far as the modern northern boundary of the districts of Midnapur and Bankurā. This proved in the subsequent period the base of operations of Muslim arms against the decaying Sena kingdom of Eastern and South Bengal. His rashness and ambition cost Lakhnawati a large and gallant army; the Kāmrup disaster broke the spell of the invincibility of Turkish arms with the Mongoloid tribes of Koch and Mech, and started them on a new career of political greatness that affected the history of Medieval Bengal very deeply for the next three centuries.

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¹ Martin, Eastern India, III. 413. Hājo’s name is perpetuated by a pargana Hājo in the Kāmrup district.

IV. Last Mamluk Rulers of Bengal, 1257-1272

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After the tragic end of Sultan Mughisuddin Yuzbak in Kāmrup (c. July 1257), Lakhnawati reverted to her allegiance to Sultan Nāsiruddin. One Yuzbak succeeded another before the year 655 A.H. (=1257) expired. Very little is known about the previous career of the new ruler of Lakhnawati, Malik ‘Izzuddin Balban-i-Yuzbaki, except that he was also a Shamsi Malik who married a daughter of the notorious Mas‘ud Jāni and held the post of nāib-Amir-i-Majlis at Court in Shawwal 652 A.H. (December 1254) during the ascendancy of the Rayāni faction. Only a fellow tribesman, and not related in any other way to the deceased Sultan Mughisuddin, he seized the vacant masnad without any commission or perhaps even knowledge of the pious Sultan of Delhi. He ruled for about two years in virtual independence, retaining his own name, Yuzbak, along with that of his nominal sovereign Nāsiruddin on the coins of the Lakhnawati mint. It was only in the last year of his career that he sent as peshkash to Delhi two elephants and other valuables, and received a robe of investiture and formal recognition as the governor of the province (Jamada II. 657/June 1259). About six months before in Muharrah 657 Malik Mas‘ud Jāni had been designated governor of Bengal for a second time in supersession evidently of Malik ‘Izzuddin Yuzbak. But Yuzbak’s elephants turned the scale and through the exertion of Ulugh Khan Balban, a sworn enemy of Mas‘ud Jāni, this appointment was cancelled and Yuzbak confirmed in the government of that province. The only event of Malik ‘Izzuddin’s rule was an invasion of “Bang” in 657 A.H., leaving his capital denuded of troops with the result that he too shared the fate of Sultan Ghiyāsuddin ‘Iwaz Khilji who had committed the same blunder twenty-three years before.

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Malik Tājuddin Arslān Khan, Sanjar-i-Chasht, the next ruler of Lakhnawati, was the son of one of the Amirs of Khwārizm (Khiva), sold into slavery in early childhood as perhaps a prisoner of war, and he had changed several hands before he was purchased by Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish. He served that Sultan as Jāmah-dār (Keeper of the Wardrobe) and was united in marriage by his loving master with a daughter of Bahāuddin Tughral of Bayānā, a slave of Sultan Shihābuddin Ghori. He was, says Minhāj-i-Siraj, “an impetuous and warlike man and had attained the acme of capacity and intrepidity,” a veritable arslān or lion in war, as he proved himself on a field. But Malik Tājuddin Arslān Khan was of a piece with Malik Mas‘ud Jāni in rebelliousness and restless ambition, and they kept the eastern provinces of Kārā, Qanauj and Oudh in turmoil for several years. After his submission he secured through the patronage of Ulugh Khan Balban the governorship of Kārā in the beginning of the year 657 A.H. But Kārā was too small for his ambition and he aspired to an independent sovereignty in far-off Lakhnawati. He kept himself exceptionally well-informed of the affairs in Bengal. As soon as he learnt that Malik ‘Izzuddin Balban-i-Yuzbaki had gone to Bang leaving Lakhnawati unprotected, he too started on a campaign giving out that his objective was Kālanjar. But he took his army by an unfrequented route keeping everybody in the dark about his design till they reached too close to the frontier of Bengal. Malik Tājuddin appeared with his army before the gates of Lakhnawati which, however, refused to submit without a fight. What was unusual for the inhabitants of that city, they held out against the invader for three days and fought for the cause of their absent governor. Tājuddin Arslān Khan carried the city by assault and gave it up for three days to his soldiery for committing every imaginable excess, sparing not even the respectable Muslim citizens. Malik ‘Izzuddin Yuzbak returned from Bang too late, fought a battle with Tājuddin Arslān, and either died in battle or was taken a captive and killed¹ afterwards (c. December, 1259 A.D.)

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¹ The text of Nasiri has, “Arslan Khan became a captive, was martyred.” Raverty here has scored a point against Blochmann, and I agree fully with Raverty in his remark that the official text (Bib. Ind.) here kills the wrong man. (Text. 268; Trans. 770, f. 9).

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The thread of written chronicle concerning the affairs of Bengal breaks at this point, because the court-historian Minhāj-i-Sirāj stops here (1260 A.D.) and the next historian Ziāuddin Bārani was only learning his alphabet twenty-five years later in the reign of Sultan Kaiqubād. No coin also throws light on the period of Tājuddin Arslān Khan’s rule in Bengal and his relations with the Delhi Court. The Bārahdāri inscription² of Bihar warrants us in surmising correctly that Tājuddin Arslān Khan held independent sway over Bihar and Lakhnawati under the title of Sultan, that he died in the night of Sunday, 18th Jamada I, 663 A.H. (8th March 1265) and that he succeeded by his son Tātār Khan, in whose time a tomb was built over the remains of this Sultan two years after his death (665 A.H.). Prince Tātār Khan was a very capable ruler, renowned "for his bravery, liberality, heroism and honesty" (Riyaz, Trans. 78). He did not acknowledge allegiance to the Sultan of Delhi, Nāsiruddin, who died in 664 A.H. (1266 A.D.). That year he sent his envoys to Delhi with congratulatory presents to Sultan Ghiyāsuddin Balban; which among other things included 63 elephants. This diplomatic mission¹ from Bengal was accorded at Delhi a royal reception worthy of embassies from Irān or Turān. The envoys of Tātār Khan were loaded with gifts of high value, and given leave of departure.

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² Blochmann’s reading of this inscription (JASB. 1878, p. 247) is superseded by that of Professor Yazdani’s fuller version (Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica, 1913-14, p. 24). Prof. Yazdani does not definitely identify the Sultan Shah of this inscription with Tātār Khan’s father. We have good reasons to hold that the person meant was certainly Tātār Khan s father. We also hold that the absence of the name of Balban in this inscription gives the lie to the statement of Riyaz that Tātār Khan acknowledged allegiance to Balban in the first year of that Sultan’s accession (664 A.H.)

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¹ For the reception of Tatar Khan's envoys cf. Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi, Text, 53; Tabaqat-i-Akbari (Text. Newalkishore Press, 40); Riyaz, Trans. 78.

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Muhammad Tātār Khan died in independence, perhaps two years after Balban's accession, and his successor, Sher Khan, a member of the family of Tājuddin Ārslān Khan and not a governor sent from Delhi, restored the name of Balban on the coinage of Lakhnawati in 667 A.H.² or a year earlier. It is not definitely known how long Sher Khan ruled in Bengal, except that after Sher Khan's death Sultan Balban appointed Āmin Khan, a Delhi noble, as governor of Bengal with Tughral Khan as its Deputy-Governor. Sher Khan's rule was perhaps of no longer duration than four years (c. 666-670 A.H.=1268-1272). Under the house of Tājuddin Ārslān Khan the Muslim power seems to have been extended to some portions of Eastern Bengal. The Sena kingdom of Eastern Bengal suffered aggressions on both banks of the river Padmā, as repeated invasions of Bang from the time of Ghiyāsuddin ‘Iwaz down to that of ‘Izzuddin Balban Yuzbaki are on record. The power of the Senas was on the verge of extinction in the second half of the thirteenth century on account of Muslim attacks from the west, Magh raids by water from the south, and the rise of Danujamādhava Dasarathadeva in Chandradvīpa or the modern Backergunj district as an independent power. The Muslim possessions in Bengal included at least some portion of East Bengal (Bangalah), and it was perhaps for this reason that Balban for the first time associated a Deputy-Governor with the Governor of Lakhnawati.

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² The earliest extant coin of the Lakhnawati mint bearing the name of Balban is dated 667 or 669 A.H. (Wright, Cat. Ind. Museum, II. 34).

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BENGAL UNDER THE HOUSE OF BALBAN

I. Sultan Mughisuddin Tughral (c. 667-680 A.H.=1268-'81 A.D.)

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Tughral was the last and the greatest of the successful Mamluks who had risen from the position of mere house-hold slaves to the independent sovereignty of Bengal in the time of Sultan Ghiyāsuddin Balban. He possessed all the characteristic virtues of a Turk, indomitable will, reckless bravery, resourcefulness and boundless ambition. When Sher Khan, the successor of Tātār Khan, died in Bengal Tughral was appointed a deputy (naib) of Amin Khan to whom the Sultan had granted the province of Bengal perhaps in addition to Amin's own province of Oudh (cir, 667 A.H.). This was, if we are to believe the *Tarikh-i-Mubarakshahi*, the only instance of the appointment of a Deputy-governor to Bengal by the Sultan of Delhi. Tughral at the time of his appointment was an untried brave, and he had not filled any high office at Court or in the imperial household. So it was not likely that Tughral was appointed straightway, as Barani says, the sole governor of Lakhnawati which had for about a decade enjoyed independent rule under the dynasty of Tājuddin Arslān Khan. Besides, Balban could not wholly ignore the superior claims of the governor of Oudh to succeed to the governorship of Lakhnawati, established by an almost uninterrupted usage. A cautious statesman as Balban was, he perhaps resorted to this new device to put a brake on the ambition of the governor of Bengal, a class always prone to rebellion. However, Lakhnawati again became a province of the Delhi Empire in or about 667 A.H., as the date of the earliest extent coin of Balban from the Lakhnawati mint shows. Bihar* was separated from Bengal and placed under an imperial officer, and it remained loyal to Delhi even when Bengal was afterwards lost to the Empire.

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Amin Khan's name is retained in the list of governors of Bengal rather for the sake of courtesy than for any actual achievement of his, of which history knows none; whereas his more energetic deputy, enjoying the full confidence of the Sultan, had been throughout the *de facto* ruler of this province. Behind the veil of the half-informed historian Barani's vague references to Tughral's "several enterprises”, and “the *Qila-i-Tughral*” in the neighbourhood of Sonārgāon, lies concealed an interesting phase of the expansion of Muslim power to the modern Faridpur and Dacca districts. Tughral also looms large in the popular tradition of the neighbouring district of Tippera. It is said that Ratna-Fa, the founder of the present ruling dynasty of Tippera, sought the assistance of Tughral in ousting his elder brother Raja Fa from the throne. Thereupon Tughral invaded the country, placed Ratna-Fa on the throne, and gave him the title of Mānik in return for the Rajah’s present of a precious jewel. This tradition read along with the historical fact of the enmity of Danuj Rai, the Rai of Sonārgāon, and Tughral’s impregnable fortress of Narkila (the same as “*the Fort of Tughral*” of Barani, identified with the important Feringi stronghold of Loricol, about 25 miles due south of Dacca, and about 10 miles south-west of Rajabari)—gives us some idea of the formidable power built up by Tughral during the early years of his career in Bengal. It is beyond doubt that Tughral drove a wedge into the heart of the shrinking Hindu kingdom of East Bengal by permanently annexing the riverian tract on both banks of the Padmā as far as Loricol, where he kept his treasure, family and the State prisoners. This extension became known since the time of Barani as ‘*Arsah-i-Bangala*’*, a portion of the bigger geographical unit, *Diyar-i-Bangala* which had till then remained independent.

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∗ Vide Monghyr Inscription of Balban dated 677 A.H. (Bengal, List, p. 414, quoted by Dr. J. Horovitz in *Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica*, 1909-10; p. 113).

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It was not unlikely that Tughral seized the opportunity of establishing a friendly power in Tippera, and thereby tightened his grip on the Rāi of Sonārgāon, who must have now found himself between two mill-stones. Though we have no positive evidence to prove that Tughral occupied Sonārgāon, Balban according to Barani looked upon Sonārgāon as a distinct government, conjoined with that of Lakhnawati after the fall of Tughral, and it is a known fact that Balban did not subjugate any Hindu territory during his Bengal campaign. It seems, therefore, that there is considerable truth in the tradition recorded by the Ghataks of Idilpur that Chandradvip or the modern Barisal district became the seat of an independent Hindu kingdom under one Danuj Rāi Kāyastha who was, we have strong reasons to believe the same person as Danuj Rāi, the Rai of Sonargaon of the Muslim historians. The founder of Chandradvip dynasty. Sri Dasarath Danuja Madhav, perhaps had before Tughral’s time, seized some portions of the heritage of the Senas in the neighbourhood of Sonārgaon, and arrogated to himself the titles of the fallen dynasty also. Tughral's aggressions in East Bengal, therefore, must have been at the expense of his Hindu Rajah, who later on allied himself with Balban in bringing about the fall of Tughral and his fortress of Narkila (Loricol). However, Tughral's aggressions were not confined to East Bengal, he also perhaps extended the boundary of the Muslim dominion in the Rādh tract, and carried raids into the territory of Jājnagar, a vague geographical expression, the northern boundary of which extended from Chota Nagpur to the Delta of the Bhāgirathi, including roughly portions of the Birbhum, Bankura, Burdwan districts and the western half of the Hughly district. These raids into the Jājnagar country brought to Tughral immense booty in treasure and elephants, and it is said that Tughral's first act of rebellion was his refusal to send the customary royal share of a fifth of the spoils to Delhi.

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∗ Perhaps identical with “Bang” of the coins of Ruknuddin Kaikaus (*vide* JASB. N. S. XVIII. 410). Balban later on referred to his conquest of ‘*Arsah-i-Bangala*’ from the rebellious Tughral (Barani. Text. 93), and advised Bughra Khan to exert himself in the conquest of *Diyar-i-Bangala*.

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Sultan Ghiyāsuddin Balban could not for some years keep a vigilant eye on the affairs of Bengal owing to his preoccupation with Mongol invasions in the Punjab. He left Delhi for Lahore in the sixth year of his reign and had to stay there for more than two years. There the Sultan had a serious attack of illness, and he could not appear in public for several days, and rumour magnified his illness into actual death by the time it reached Bengal. Tughral naturally considered himself absolved from allegiance to Delhi, and at once hostilities began between him and Amin Khan, who was defeated in a battle outside Lakhnawati (c. 674 A.H.). After his return to Delhi, the Sultan tried diplomatic connivance at all that had happened in Bengal during his illness; and wrote a reassuring mandate to Tughral asking the latter to celebrate the occasion of the Sultan's recovery from illness in a befitting manner.* But Tughral had crossed the Rubicon, and he was too self-willed to retreat. He replied to the Sultan's forman by mobilising his army and advancing into Bihar. He assumed the title of Sultan Mughisuddin, and issued coins and read the khutba in his own name. His Court at Lakhnawati rivalled that of Delhi in power and magnificence, and he was more popular with his people, and much better served by them than Sultan Balban, who was more feared than loved by his subjects. Barani does Tughral bare justice in saying : "He was profuse in his liberality; so the people of the city (of Delhi), who had been there, and also the inhabitants of that place (Lakhnawati) became very friendly to him. The troops and citizens having shaken off all of the Balbani chastisement, joined Tughral heart and soul."* We have it on the authority of Barani that Tughral sent largesses even to Delhi, and in Bengal he is said to have made a gift of *five maunds* of gold (about eighteen seers in Persian weight) for the maintenance of an establishment of Darwishes in Bengal, whose leader was afterwards executed by Balban. Tughral was, as subsequent events show, popular with all classes of his people, Hindu and Muslim alike, and this was not due to his liberality alone but to his other kingly virtues as well. His people followed his fortune through thick and thin, and none voluntarily betrayed him. In short Balban was now at war not with an individual rebel but with a whole province, and this accounts for the repeated failures of the imperial armies against Bengal, and the Sultan's own difficulties in subduing Tughral.

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