THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALA-UD-DIN KHALJI...
How did Sultan Ala-ud-din Khalji (c.1267-1316) - the Bengali-speaking and Bengal-born bi-sexual monarch of the Khalji dynasty - die?
On 4 January 1316, the slave/eunuch-commander Malik Kafur (formally named 'Taj al-Din Izz al-Dawla'), one of Ala-ud-din Khalji's more trusted generals and his sexual partner, brought the lifeless body of the emperor at the musoleum at Siri Place, Delhi (which had already been built years before Ala-ud-din Khalji's death). Na'ib Malik Kafur was in a terrible hurry: it was deep into the night, and he wanted the lifeless body to be buried as soon as possible. The body of the 48-year-old emperor was hideously bent, and immediately people who were around suspected that Ala-ud-din Khalji had been murdered. He had been suffering from a degenerative disease in the last year's of his brief and tumultuous life, and was being progressively deformed. Yet there was something so strange in the figure of the lifeless emperor that his slave/eunuch-general, Malik Kafur, became an immediate suspect.
But Malik Kafur was powerful! Rather...too powerful and fierce! He was a brilliant military-officer who had, almost single-handedly, defeated the Mughals (several times) and a large number of smalltime kings in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Ala-ud-din's close people could not immediately take any investigative measure against him. On the next morning, Ala-ud-din Khalji's minor son - Shibab-ud-din Omar, who was then only six years old, was anointed the Khalji emperor by Malik Kafur, while the eunuch-general himself became the de-facto emperor.
For the next one to two month(s), Shibab-ud-din Omar would just attend the court, while Malik Kafur issued separate government orders to the officers later. A parallel administration was being run, and the reputation of the Khalji-administration, which had become famous for its umpteen number of administrative and revenue-related-reforms, had nosedived.
Kafur had planned well and in advance! Two of Ala-ud-din Khalji's sons - Shadi Khan and Khizr Khan - had been blinded when the emperor was fit and fine, while the emperor's senior-most queen and one of his ambitious sons, Mubarak Shah had been imprisoned. The slave/eunuch-general had also ceremoniously married Ala-ud-din Khalji's widow, Begum Jhatyapalli, who was Shibab-ud-din Omar's mother.
But Malik Kafur's reign did not last long at all. It was over within a month and a half. Actually, Ala-ud-din Khalji's former bodyguards were deeply disgruntled with the way Ala-ud-din Khalji had been assassinated and Kafur had become the ruler. Kafur was a former slave from Gujarat, and was suspected of being an eunuch. Moreover, Kafur was actually a Maratha-Hindu (probably a Brahmin) from Anand, Gujarat. Alla-ud-din Khalji's closer circle did not trust him. In February 1316, a team of Alla-ud-din Khalji's bodyguards, comprising of Mubashshir Khan, Bashir Khan, and Saleh Khan (and a few others) executed Malik Kafur by beheading him. They freed Mubarak Shah, who, in turn, blinded Shibab-ud-din, imprisoned him, and seized power. Thr bodyguards who killed Kafur were executed too!
Comments