New History of the Marathas v1.c5.82

v1.c5.82

There were at the time, in the south, four or five important Hindu Kingdoms which the Muslims reduced within less than a quarter of a century. Ala-ud-din Khilji attacked Deogiri in 1294 and forced its ruler Rāmdev Rao into submission. Malik Kafur, Ala-ud-din’s Lieutenant, overran and destroyed the Kākatīya kingdom of Warangal¹³ in 1309, and the Hoysala kingdom of Dwārasamudra in 1310. Immediately after these successes he overran the Chola and Pandya kingdoms of the extreme south and planted the green banner of Islam on the southernmost point of India. Thus Ala-ud-din Khilji before his death could boast of having subjugated the whole of the Indian Continent. His son Mubarak Khilji and thereafter the stern Tughlak Sultan Muhammad, extinguished the last vestiges of Hindu power in the south; and this Tughlak ruler in order to hold the lately conquered territory in perfect submission, in 1325 transferred his capital to Deogiri, which he named Daulatabad, and for some years after he took up his residence here in the south. Thus the Muslim conquest of India appeared to be complete by the year 1326. In this way all the work of the great builders from Chandragupta Maurya to Rāmdev Rao of Deogiri and of Pratāprudra of Warangal, covering a period of some sixteen and a half centuries, was undone within less than a quarter of a century, an extraordinary phenomenon, for which no parallel can be found in the history of the world.