Delhi Sultanate

• the 'histories' written in persian constitute important role in sources of delhi sultanate. these histories were written by learned men such as poets, secretaries and administartors who often wrote these in hope of getting rich awards from the rulers. these were decorated with gold and silver to highlight important words and paragraphs and were called the illuminated manuscripts.
• Inscriptions are writtings carved on a hard surface which acted as a source of information in delhi sultanate. the inscriptions were found on coins, milestones, tombstones and monuments. some of the inscriptions were record land grants made by various rulers. they were written in sanskrit, arabic and sometimes in both the languages. for example the first coin issued by Mohhamad Bakhtiyar Khilji had both sanskrit and arabic inscriptions.
• Construction of qutub minar was started by qutub ud din aibak which was dedicated to the sufi saint bakhtiyar kaki and was completed by iltutmish. its features are:

  1. the tower was originally 71.4 meteres tall with 4 stories. but it was damaged by lightining in 1369. and repaired by Feroz shah tughulq who raised its height.
  2. the entrance is on the northern side
  3. it was made by using red sandstone. marble and grey quartzite
  4. verses from holy quran are engraved on this tower along with floral patterns.
• Jalaluddin Khilji was the founder of khilji dynasty who came to the throne after killing kaikubad (last ruler of slave dynasty). he was murdered by his nephew alauddin khilji who made himself the sultan. towards the end of his life he was dominated by malik kafur his commander.
• After ascending the throne alauddin khilji had to face a rebbelion of mongols who earlier settled near delhi. when he heard of the rebbelion he got most of the mongols massacared. after that he captured all of the territories of malwa including ujjain, dhar, chanderi, and mandu. he had a strong army and started paying his soldiers in cash.
• Alauddin khilji is best known for his market regulations. he set three markets for this purpous in delhi - 1 for food grains 1 for costly clothes and 1 for horses, slaves and cattle. he also assinged a controler of the market to each one called shahna.
• alauddin khilji was the first ruler to send a expedition to deccan, under malik kafur. the kingdoms of devagiri, warangal, dwarasamudra and madurai were conquered but not annexed this was because of two reasons-

  1. these kingdoms would be difficult to rule from delhi
  2. he was more intrested in aquiring the wealth of these kingdoms for maintainance of his huge army.
• Alauddin had to face a series of rebbelian from the nobles. for this reason he decided to destroy their power by

  1. he banned intoxicants and wine
  2. he banned gambling
  3. he established an effective spy system
  4. he started paying his soldiers in cash and not in land.
• Alauddin khilji started branding horses (dagh) so that the soldiers could not replace them with inferior quality horses. he also started the cherha system in which he gave the soldiers a kind of an identity card. and also did he started paying them in cash.
• for maximising the revenue he took the control of the land of the whole empire under his own. introduced a practice of measuring land and fixed the state share accordingly. he increased the tax from one third to half and demanded it to be paid in cash only. he also appointed special officers for collecting land revenue.