The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c25.s2: The actual frontier, 1206—1217

c25.s2.1

The problem did not present any special difficulty to the Ghaznavide rulers of the Panjab during the 11th and 12th centuries, as Kabul, Ghazni and Kandhar belonged to them. Nor was their successor, Muhammad of Ghur, called upon to meet an unprecedented emergency for the same reason. But, after Muhammad's death, the first Sultan of Delhi, Qutub-ud-din Aibak, made a feeble attempt to reach the scientific frontier of India by occupying Ghazni in 1208. He met with failure and had to abandon Ghazni. Soon after this, the Sultan was faced with a new problem. Ghazni had been annexed by the Khwarizm emperor, the eastern frontier of which now touched the Indus. As the infant Delhi Sultanate came into contact with a powerful neighbour, its north-western frontier was directly threatened. But, fortunately, the boundary between the Delhi Sultanate and the Khwarizm empire, which was the river Indus, remained undisturbed, as, owing to the rapid expansion of the Mongols, the Khwarizm empire itself was trembling for its safety. Within a decade the danger overtook the empire; the ferocious Mongols tore the Central Asian Muslim State to pieces and occupied its territories, including Afghanistan, Ghazni and Peshawar. The river Indus, thus, ceased to be the north-western boundary of the Sultanate and its frontier was pushed back into the interior of the Panjab. In view of these developments there was no question of the Sultan's trying to obtain control of the "scientific frontier of India." The problem before them, throughout the thirteenth century, was how to retain what they had possessed, namely, the country enclosed by a line stretching from Sialkot to Nandanah in the Salt Range, which Iltutmish had brought under his possession soon after 1217.