SULTANS
Introduction
Consolidation and Expansion Qutubuddin Aibak established a Turkish
state in India after being acknowledged by the other Turkish officers. He was
succeeded by his son, Aram Baksh who was soon displaced by Iltutmish,
Qutubuddin’s son-in-law, in 1211 AD. In 1229 AD, Iltutmish was solemnly
consecrated as Sultan of Delhi by a representative of the Abbasid Khalifa of
Baghdad. He won this recognition only after hard-fought battles against
Qutubuddin’s colleagues, the great slave-generals who controlled most of
northwestern India. He also had to face Rajput resistance: though he
recaptured Gwalior and Ranthambor, several other Rajput leaders (for
example, the Guhilots of Nagda near Udaipur, and the Chauhans of Bundi to
the south of Agra) defied him successfully. Only shortly before his death in
1236 AD, he subjected Bengal to his control after having subdued the
followers of Bhaktiyar Khalji in Bihar.
Mongol Threat In addition to these problems of the internal consolidation
of his realm, Iltutmish also had to defend it against the Mongols who now
appeared in India. In hot pursuit of the son of Khwarizm Shah, whom he had
defeated, Genghis (also called Chengiz) Khan reached the Indus in 1221 AD.
Iltutmish’s success in keeping the Mongols out was due to the fact that he
had wisely refrained from taking sides when Genghis Khan attacked the
Khwarizm Shah, although this Shah could lay claim to Iltutmish’s support as
a fellow-Muslim. Genghis Khan left some troops in the Panjab, which
remained a thorn in the side of the sultanate of Delhi throughout the
thirteenth century AD. But the sultans and their troops proved a much better
match for the Mongol hordes than had the Hindu princes, whose old-
fashioned and cumbersome methods of warfare were no longer appropriate to
the new requirements of an effective defence of India.
                        CHALISA AND BALBAN
  In subsequent struggles, the influential ‘Group of the Forty’ (Chalisa or
  Chahalgani), mostly powerful Turkish slaves of Iltutmish, gained more