The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2.c33.s8: IV. Reign of Sultan Ruknuddin Kaikaus (c. 690-701 A.H.; 1291-1301 A.D.)

The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2.c33.s8

Language: English

IV. Reign of Sultan Ruknuddin Kaikaus (c. 690-701 A.H.; 1291-1301 A.D.)

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Kaikaus, the only surviving progeny of the Bengal branch of the House of Balban claiming descent from Sultan Nāsiruddin Mahmud, was raised to the throne of Lakhnawati perhaps after the abdication of his father in 690 A.H. He must have been at this time hardly out of his teens. The earliest evidence of his rule is a silver coin minted at Lakhnawati “out of the spoils of Bengal” bearing the date

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is Kaimurs (Firuzshahi, p. 126). The dates, given by Mubarakshahi seem to be correct. Riyaz’s date, “end of the year 689 A.H.” for the murder of Kaiqubad is absolutely wrong (Text, p. 88), 690 A.H. The uninterrupted coinage of Kaikaus from the same mint down to 698 A.H. at least, and three inscriptions of the same ruler covering the same period, prove beyond doubt that Sultan Ruknuddin Kaikaus was acknowledged as the suzerain of Bihar and Bengal for a period of eight years if not longer. The independent Sultanate of Bengal had split up during his father's time into four big governorships—Bihar, Sātgām (Saptagrām), Bang and Devkot. These frontier marches fenced in the territory of Lakhnawati (includin Rādh) where a mild ruler might reign in peace if he could hold the balance even among his Wardens of the Marches. Traditions of local independence had become rooted deep in the soil for centuries, cut up as Bengal then was (as it is even now) into self-contained regions each having for its natural boundaries rivers as big as those that marked the boundaries of medieval European States. After the extinction of petty Hindu principalities these traditions were inherited by their Muslim masters, when they forgot their common dangers as well as the common racial and religious patriotism that had given them victory at the initial stage of conquest. These centrifugal tendencies were becoming gradually manifest in the first decade of the fourteenth century till the whole country was turned into a veritable Bulghakpur in the days of the Bāra Bhuinyās in the last quarter of the sixteenth century.

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Sultan Ruknuddin Kaikaus maintained his hold well over a number of feudatories, among whom Malik Firuz Aitigin the Mamluk was the most powerful. The Lakhisarai (Monghyr district) inscription of Kaikaus, dated Muharram 697 A.H. (October 1297) records the building of a Jama' mosque by Ziāuddin Ulugh Khan, the deputy-governor of the great Khan Ikhtyāruddin Firuz Aitigin as-Sultani, and gives the title and descent of the sovereign as "Kaikaus, Sultan bin sultan bin sultan." The Devkot inscription of the same ruler aso exactly of the same date (Muharram, 697 A.H.), commemorates the construction of a mosque at Devkot (the first capital of Islam in Bengal). This mosque was built, says the inscription, in the reign of Sultan-us-salatin Kaikaus Shah, son of Mahmud, son of a Sultan—under orders of Shihāb-uddin Zafar Khan Bahrām Aitigin as-Sultani (royal Mamluk). An Arabic inscription of another Zafar Khan (Tribeni, Sātgānw; dated 698 A.H.) tells us that "in the reign of Sultān-us-salātin Kaikaus . . . whose government has revived the memory of all the assemblies of Jamshed's time, . . . Zafar Khan, the lion of lions . . . " built a Madrasa to propagate Islamic learning in the Sātgānw territory, which like the Sonārgānw region was in the process of conquest and annexation during this time.¹

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¹ Epigr. Indo-Mos. 1917-1918, pp. 10-15.

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The reign of Sultan Ruknuddin Kaikaus (c. 690-701 A.H.) in Bengal synchronises roughly with the reign of Sultan Jalāluddin Khilji and the early years of Alauddin's reign (695-715 A.H.). About this time the mighty Ahom King, Sukhampha (1293-1322 A.H.) was fast consolidating his hold on Assam, and the Hindu chiefs of Tirhut were still maintaining their independence, though cooped up between the province of Oudh of the Delhi Sultanate and that of Bihar (an annexe of the Sultanate of Lakhnawati which was at this time bounded by the lower course of the Ghaggar on the north-west and the river Son perhaps on the south-west). No intercourse, hostile or friendly, with these neighbouring kingdoms is on record except that Sultan Jalāluddin Khilji, much averse to shedding Muslim blood, is said to have banished boat-loads of Thugs from Delhi to the kingdom of Bengal.

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Lakhnawati was a far cry for Sultan Jalāluddin. In the second year of his reign Malik Chhajju the feudatory of Kara-Manikpur and brother's son of Balban, assumed independence and struck coins in his own name (JASB. 1883, p. 61; Barani's Firuzshahi, p. 181 ff). There was a general rising of all fief-holders of the Balbani regime in the eastern districts of modern U.P., and such powerful nobles as Hātim Khan, governor of Oudh (Mawali-zadah of Balban), and the Hindu zamindars joined the standard of Malik Chhajju, who boldly began his march upon Delhi. Next year Abdullah, grandson of Halagu invaded the Punjab (691 A.H.). So Jalāluddin's hand were too full to give him any respite for attempting the conquest of Bengal. Mr. Stapleton has indulged in mere imagination when he says, "the presence of numerous 'saints' and 'ghazis' in Bengal at this time might even have been due to some definite policy on the part of the Delhi sovereign (Alauddin).² Alauddin had nothing to do with the arrival of these Knights-Templars of Islam to wage war against the unsubdued Hindu chiefs of Bengal. We have no reason to hold that these "warriors in the path of Allah" were so degenerate as to act as the Fifth Columnists of one Muslim State against another.

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² Vide JASB. New Series, Vol. XVIII, 1922, p. 414.

Cites (1)

Tārīkh-i Fīrūzshāhī — Shams-i Sirāj ʿAfīf