RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND MILITARY FEUDALISMstruggle. In 1175 Muhammad of Ghur conquered Multan, and in 1186 he
vanquished Mahmud of Ghazni’s last successor, who had withdrawn to
Lahore. Using the Panjab as a base for further conquest Muhammad of Ghur
pursued his aim of annexing as much of India as he could. Unlike Mahmud of
Ghazni he was determined to rule India and not just to plunder it. In 1178 he
was not very successful in an encounter with the Chalukya ruler of Gujarat,
but in 1191 and 1192 he waged two decisive battles of Tarain, to the
northwest of Delhi, the region in which other famous battles of Indian
history had been and were yet to be fought. The first battle of Tarain was
won by the Rajput confederacy led by Prithviraj Chauhan of Delhi. But when
Muhammad of Ghur returned the following year with 10,000 archers on
horseback he vanquished Prithviraj and his army.
After winning this decisive battle, Muhammad conquered almost the
whole of northern India within a few years. In 1193 he defeated the mighty
Gahadavala dynasty and captured Kanauj and Varanasi. Soon he also
captured Gwalior, Ajmer and Anhilwara, at that time the capital of
Gujarat. In this way most Rajput strongholds were eliminated. Many of
these victories were due to the slave-general Qutb-ud-din Aibak, whom
Muhammad then installed as his viceroy in Delhi. Eastern India, however,
was conquered by another lucky upstart, Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji
who had risen to the rank of a general within a very short time. He
captured Bihar, destroyed the University of Nalanda and, in about 1202,
defeated King Lakshmana Sena of Bengal. This latter attack was so swift
that it is said that Lakshmana Sena was taking his lunch when it came.
Bengal became a sub-centre of Islamic rule in India which every so often
defied the overlords in Delhi. This was so right from the beginning, as
Bakhtiyar Khalji was more or less running his own government there. He
also tried to annex Assam, but had to retreat after incurring severe losses.
In northern India Muhammad held almost unlimited sway even though
he did not manage to capture Kashmir. He also faced trouble in Central
Asia, where the ruler of Chwaresm rose to prominence and defeated his
army in 1205. The next year Muhammad was murdered near the Indus
and his vast empire seemed on the verge of disintegration: Hindu princes
had raised their heads again, Gwalior and Ranthambor were once more in
Hindu hands. After the death of his master Muhammad, Qutb-ud-din took
the decisive step of declaring his independence from the Ghurids.
Iltutmish, Qutb-ud-din’s son-in-law, succeeded him in 1210, and in 1229
he was solemnly consecrated as Sultan of Delhi by a representative of the
Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. He won this recognition only after hard-fought
battles against Qutb-ud-din’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 Guhilas of Nagda near Udaipur, and the Chauhans of
Bundi to the south of Agra) defied him successfully. Only shortly before his