Chinese pilgrim Hieun Tsang. The manuscripts and texts in the hundreds of thousands in the Nalanda library on subjects such as grammar, logic, literature, astronomy and medicine were lost in the Turkish depredations. Iltutmish ( – ) Shams-ud-din Iltutmish ( - ) of Turkish extraction was a slave of Qutb-ud- din Aibak. Many of his elite slaves were also of Turkish and Mongol ancestry.
They were brought to Delhi by merchants from trade centres like Bukhara, Samarqand and Baghdad. (There were some slaves of other ethnicities as well). But Iltutmish gave them all Turkish titles. Iltutmish’s reliance on his elite military slaves ( Bandagan ) and his practice of appointing them for the posts of governors and generals in far- off places did not change despite the migration into North India of experienced military commanders from distinguished lineages fleeing from the Mongols.
Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, the slave and son-in-law of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, ascended the throne of Delhi setting aside the claim of Aram Shah, the son of Qutb-ud-din Aibak. During his tenure he put down the internal Raziya Sultana ( - ) . Raziya was daughter of Iltutmish, who ascended the throne after a lot of hurdles put up by the Turkish nobles. According to Ibn Battuta, the Moroccan traveller, ‘Raziya rode on horseback as men ride, armed with a bow and quiver, and surrounded by courtiers.
She did not veil her face.’ Yet Raziya ruled for only three and half years. The elevation of an Abyssinian slave, Jalal-ud-din Yaqut, to the post of Amir-i-Akhur, Master of the Stables, a very high office, angered the Turkish nobles. The nobles overplayed her closeness with Yakut and tried to depose her. Since Raziya enjoyed popular support, they could not do anything in Delhi.
But while she was on a punitive campaign against the rebel governor Altuniya in southern Punjab, the conspirators used that occasion to dethrone her. XI History - Lesson - - Advent of Arabs and Turks were plundering the area with impunity. Balban took it as a challenge and personally undertook a campaign to destroy the Mewatis. Meos were pursued and slaughtered mercilessly.