Bakhtiyar Khalji

Who he is

Name

Muhammad ibn Bakhtiyar Khalji (Ikhtiyar al-Din)

Title

Muqta (holder of an assignment of revenue, iqta) of Bhagwat and Bhiuli; no higher title in 1200

Since

not pinned: after the Ghurid conquest of the Benares country in 1194 and before the raid on Bihar

Born

Garmsir (the Helmand valley), a Turk of the Khalaj; age not known

Family

A Khalaj Turk from Garmsir. His uncle Muhammad ibn Mahmud fought at the second battle of Tarain and held the iqta of Kashmandi, which passed to him. Kinsmen and followers: Muhammad Shiran and Ahmad Shiran (his brothers in Minhaj; English Wikipedia names only Muhammad Shiran, chosen by the amirs after his death), Husam al-Din Iwaz and Ali Mardan (his murderer in 1206).

Confidence

medium

English Wikipedia (Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji) from Minhaj's Tabaqat-i Nasiri: rejected for his looks at Delhi, a first post at Badaun, then Husam al-Din Aghul Bak (the commander at Awadh and Benares) gave him the iqtas of Bhagwat and Bhiuli (modern Mirzapur district); he displaced minor Gahadavala chiefs, raided Maner (Munir) and Bihar, and many Khaljis joined him; Aibak honoured him. Minhaj gives no year for any of it.

Overlord

Husam al-Din Aghul Bak (commander at Awadh and Benares); above him Qutb al-Din Aibak at Delhi, a slave commander with no title higher than commander; above him Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad of Ghor at Ghazni, who is the Ghurid sultan, with his brother Ghiyath al-Din at Firuzkuh.

What it holds

• The iqta of Bhagwat and Bhiuli (the Mirzapur country; not pinned on the ground; in the Ganges plain researcher's ground)
• The right to the revenue of those places and to the service of the horsemen he can maintain from it
• A following of Khalji and Turkish horse; booty from raids on Maner (Munir) and Bihar

How it was acquired

By grant of Husam al-Din Aghul Bak, after service at Badaun; later by Aibak's favour.

Allies and rivals

Superiors: Aghul Bak, Aibak. Rivals within the Ghurid camp: not recorded for 1200. Enemies: the Gahadavala chiefs he displaced, the lords of Munir and Bihar, the Pithipatis and the Pala-line king of Gaya, the Khayaravala of Rohtas. Later enemy: Lakshmanasena.

How things stand that morning

He holds his iqta and has begun the raids; on Sarkar's reading (English Wikipedia) he is by 1200 consolidating his hold on Bihar, on the later reading he has not struck. The fortress of Bihar either has fallen, is about to fall, or is three years off. Nothing in Hasan Nizami (the contemporary Ghurid chronicler of the conquest of the north) mentions him, which is one reason the later dating is argued. He has no garrison east of Bihar, no knowledge of Bengal beyond the merchants, and no instruction to go further.

Wealth

The revenue of two small assignments; plunder (horses, cattle, bronze, books, whatever the vihara yields).

Military

Khalji mounted archers and lancers, trained for fast raids; no infantry and no siege engines. Minhaj says he took the fortress of Bihar with a small mounted band (a figure of two hundred is the one usually quoted; not checked against the text here and not countable). No numbers beyond that.

Threats

• A relieving force from Gaya or Mithila
• Jealous Turkish nobles and the shifting of his masters' favour
• The Ganges and the monsoon floods in the east
• Muizz al-Din's absence in Khurasan after 1200 (July: Tekish dies)

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.

In 1200

1. Working reading for play: after 1 January 1200, between 1200 and 1203, so not yet done when the game opens (the campaign sets the year). Readings: 1199 to 1200 (careful modern reading); 1203 (others); Scharfe: between 1197 and 1206Storms the fortress of Bihar (Odantapuri); the Tabaqat describes shaven-headed Brahmans and a library; Dharmasvamin later says the site became a Turkish military headquarters. Aibak honours him afterwards (English Wikipedia).Depends on: His men and horses hold; no relief arrives. Stopped by: The Pithipati or Pala-line force beats him off.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1202 to 1205Rides to Nadia with a small band by the western jungle roads; the king flees; Lakhnauti is taken (Sarkar: before 599 AH, about 1202 to 1203; others 1204 or 1205). Minhaj, written about 1260, supplies the story of the eighteen horsemen; treat it as narrative.Depends on: The western door is open and the monsoon has not yet filled the rivers. Stopped by: A guard on the western roads; Ghurid orders to halt.
2. 1206Leaves Devkot for Tibet by way of Kamarupa; the expedition is destroyed in the Chumbi valley or on the road back (English Wikipedia); he returns with about a hundred survivors and is murdered at Devkot by Ali Mardan Khalji. Muhammad Shiran is then chosen by the amirs.Depends on: The Kamarupa king holds the bridge; Bakhtiyar attempts the march. Stopped by: He stays at Lakhnauti.

Places of note

• Bhagwat and Bhiuli (Mirzapur country): Place names not in the gazetteer; the iqta lies in the Mirzapur district (English Wikipedia).
• Maner (Munir): The Ganges town Minhaj calls Munir, raided before Bihar.
• Bihar Sharif (the fortress of Bihar): Odantapuri, on the usual identification.

Where the sources disagree

• The assignment places the iqta of Bhagwat and Bhiuli on our ground; it lies in the Mirzapur country, which is the Ganges plain researcher's area (the campaign board's Awadh and Benares commanders). We give the lord and its map part with that caveat.
• English Wikipedia says Husam al-Din Aghul Bak was commander of Benares; the brief and the campaign board say Awadh. Minhaj (Raverty) says Awadh. We write "Awadh and Benares".
• The campaign board calendar says "a Khalji officer holding two small assignments in the Mirzapur country raids east with a few hundred horse". The number is not in the English Wikipedia text we opened.
• English Wikipedia's lead gives his rule as "1203 to 1227"; he died in 1206. Not used.

Evidence: The only source for the whole career is Minhaj, writing about sixty years later; the dates are modern reconstructions that differ by a decade.

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

On the map: The iqta is a guess within the Mirzapur district and sits on the Ganges plain researcher's area; the raided strip overlaps Magadha and Anga.

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.