In 1294 Ala-ud-din Khilji, the third of the great Mahommedan conquerors
of India, raised himself to the throne of Delhi by the treacherous
assassination of his uncle Feroz II. who had himself supplanted the last
of the slave dynasty. Ala-ud-din had already won military renown by his
expeditions into the yet unsubdued south. He had plundered the temples
at Bhilsa in central India, which are admired to the present day as the
most interesting examples of Buddhist architecture in the country. At
the head of a small band of horsemen, he had ridden as far south as
Deogiri (Daulatabad) in the Deccan (q.v.), and plundered the Yadava
capital. When once established as sultan, he planned more extensive
schemes of conquest. One army was sent to Gujarat under Alaf Khan, who
conquered and expelled the last Rajput king of Anhalwar or Patan.
Another army, led by the sultan in person, marched into the heart of
Rajputana, and stormed the rock-fortress of Chitor, where the Rajputs
had taken refuge with their women and children. A third army, commanded
by Malik Kafur, a Hindu renegade and favourite of Ala-ud-din, penetrated
to the extreme south of the peninsula, scattering the unwarlike
Dravidian races, and stripping every Hindu temple of its accumulations
of gold and jewels. To this day the name of Malik Kafur is remembered in
the remote district of Madura, in association with irresistible fate and
every form of sacrilege.
Mahommed b. Tughlak.
Ala-ud-din died In 1316, having subjected to Islam the Deccan and
Gujarat. Three successors followed him upon the throne, but their united
reigns extended over only five years. In 1321 a successful revolt was
headed by Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlak, governor of the Punjab, who is said to
have been of Turkish origin. The Tughlak dynasty lasted for about
seventy years, until it was swept away by the invasion of Timur, the
fourth Mahommedan conqueror of India, in 1398. Tughlak's son and
successor, Mahommed b. Tughlak, who reigned from 1325 to 1351, is
described by Elphinstone as "one of the most accomplished princes and
one of the most furious tyrants that ever adorned or disgraced human
nature." He wasted the treasure accumulated by Ala-ud-din in purchasing
the retirement of the Mogul hordes, who had already made their
appearance in the Punjab. When the internal circulation failed, he
issued a forced currency of copper, which is said to have deranged the
whole commerce of the country. At one time he raised an army for the
invasion of Persia. At another he actually despatched an expedition
against China, which perished miserably in the Himalayan passes. When
Hindustan was thus suffering from his misgovernment, he conceived the
project of transferring the seat of empire to the Deccan, and compelled
the inhabitants of Delhi to remove a distance of 700 m. to Deogiri or
Daulatabad. And yet during the reign of this sultan both the Tughlak
dynasty and the city of Delhi are said to have attained their utmost
growth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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