Baha al-Din Tughril

Who he is

Name

Baha al-Din Tughril

Title

Commander holding Bayana and Thankar for the sultan; no higher title in 1200

Since

about 1195 to 1196 (the Bayana page gives his tenure as 1195 to 1210; the Muhammad of Ghor article dates the Thankar campaign about 1196)

Born

not pinned

Family

A slave-general of Muizz al-Din, 'another prominent Ghurid slave-general' beside Aibak (Wikipedia, Aibak). No family known.

Confidence

medium

He is said to have styled himself sultan at Bayana only after Muizz al-Din died (Wikipedia, Muhammad of Ghor), so in 1200 he is a commander. Persian chroniclers write his name Tughril, Tughrul or Tughril; the sources we reached do not give his later fate.

Overlord

Muizz al-Din Muhammad ibn Sam, directly: placed in charge of Thankar by the sultan, not by Aibak (Wikipedia, Muhammad of Ghor)

What it holds

• Bayana (the hill fort Vijayamandirgarh and the old town)
• Thankar (Tahangarh, Tribhuvanagiri), the hill fort that closes the country between the Chambal and the Banganga
• Sultankot, the new town west of Bayana
• The sandstone country of Hindaun and Kaman and the Chambal crossing at Dholpur on the Gwalior road
• The Bayana Idgah (about 1195, Shokoohy and Shokoohy 1987, via Wikipedia)

How it was acquired

Conquest of the Jadon raja Kumarapala by Muizz al-Din and Aibak about 1195 to 1196; the Muhammad of Ghor article says the fort was given to Tughril, the Bayana article that he established Sultankot.

Allies and rivals

Subject to Muizz al-Din. Aibak is his equal in rank; the campaign board calls them open rivals over Gwalior, which the sources we reached do not show either way. Kumarapala and the Jadon house are displaced; their men and the Mina and Meo hill peoples are around him. Gwalior (in the Ganges plain record) fell to him or to Aibak after a long siege.

How things stand that morning

Tughril sits in the strongest Ghurid post east of Delhi, with a garrison and a settler town, and with the sultan's name on the coin the campaign board says is struck here (a board claim; we could not confirm a Bayana mint in the sources we reached). Whether the Jadon remnant still holds any hill post is not recorded. The Gwalior siege is over by the time Wikipedia's Aibak article is written; we cannot date its end more closely than 1196 and later.

Wealth

Sandstone quarries at Hindaun; the road tolls on the Delhi to Gwalior road; the Idgah and the new town show money being spent. No revenue figure is known.

Military

A Turkish slave garrison in the forts; no counts in the sources we reached.

Threats

• The Jadon remnant and the Mina hill clans
• Meos raiding from the north
• The Chambal ravines, which cut him off from Gwalior
• Aibak, if the rivalry in the campaign board is real

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. after 15 March 1206Tughril styles himself sultan at Bayana after Muizz al-Din's death (Wikipedia, Muhammad of Ghor)Depends on: Muizz al-Din dying in 1206 Stopped by: Tughril dead or removed before then
2. 1210His tenure at Bayana ends (Bayana page: 1195 to 1210)Depends on: Nothing in play changes it Stopped by: A rising or a transfer

Places of note

• Sultankot: Tughril's new town on the west edge of Bayana
• Tahangarh (Thankar): Hill fort of the Jadon chiefs, taken with Bayana
• The Chambal crossing at Dholpur: The ford on the march road to Gwalior
• Hindaun quarries: Red sandstone that faces the forts and mosques of the region

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry bayana says Tughril and Aibak are 'open rivals over who gets Gwalior' and that gold is struck at Bayana in Muhammad's name, and that he drew 'Khurasani settlers'. The Wikipedia pages we reached say only that he founded Sultankot and was placed at Thankar by the sultan; the rivalry, the gold and the Khurasani settlers are not in them. Treat them as board colour.
• The campaign board entry kaman-chaurasi-khamba credits the Chaurasi Khamba mosque at Kaman to Tughril; no source we reached dates it. We carry it as contested.
• The campaign board entry tahangarh-tribhuvanagiri says Thankar was taken 'with Bayana in the mid 1190s'; the Muhammad of Ghor article agrees on about 1196, the Bayana page on 1195 to 1196.

Evidence: Wikipedia's Bayana and Muhammad of Ghor pages, which in turn lean on a 2023 heritage blog, a 1965 Hindi history and Shokoohy and Shokoohy (Muqarnas 1987) for the buildings; the Persian narrative is not reached directly.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: A block round Bayana drawn from districts; the hill country south of Hindaun is not held in any real sense.

Primary sources for Ghurids

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir. Read online
• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed. Read online
• The Life of Sultan Jalal al-Din Mankubirti, Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi (about 1241, at Aleppo). A Khwarazmian secretary's life of the last Khwarazmshah. Read online
• The Nasirid Generations: a General History of the Muslim Dynasties, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (1259 to 1260, at Delhi). The Ghurid court's own history, by a man born in 1193 whose family served the sultans of Ghur and Ghazna. Read online
• The Crown of Glorious Deeds, Hasan Nizami (Sadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan Nizami of Nishapur) (begun about 1205 at Delhi, carried on to about 1217). The earliest history written in Muslim India and the only contemporary account of Qutb al-Din Aibak's campaigns. Read online
• The Nasirean Generations (a general history of the Muslim dynasties), Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (completed 1260 at Delhi). The fullest narrative of the Ghurid conquest of northern India. Read online
• The Tree of Genealogies, and the Manners of War and Bravery, Fakhr-i Mudabbir (Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn Mansur Mubarakshah) (the Shajara about 1206, dedicated to Qutb al-Din Aibak; the Adab al-harb in the 1220s for Iltutmish). The prose introduction to the Shajara, written within six years of 1200, praises Aibak and tells of his rise under Mu'izz al-Din of Ghur, his consecration at Lahore in 1206 and the Ghurid campaigns in Hindustan, with some notice of the Turkish peoples.

3 more in the sources library for Persia and the Eastern Islamic World.