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In medieval history, the alien Slave dynasty littered in India by Mohammed Ghori was the first to drive Islamic nails in the coffin of India's freedom. The penultimate fiend of that dynasty, and the last to rule for 20 long and gory years, was Ghiyasuddin Balban. A veritable monster as he was he bore the title Al Khakanul Muazzam Bahaul Hakk Wauddin Ulugh Khan Balbanus Sultani.
Even in its death throes the Muslim Slave dynasty, delirious with the high fever of Islamic fanaticism, perpetrated deadly carnage of the Hindus. Testifying to this role of Balban, the Maharashtriya Gnankosh (encyclopedia), says (pg. G-191, part XII, 1922 edition): "Balban's life was one of turmoil and continuous warfare. He was extremely cruel and a killer. In suppressing interminable revolts around Delhi he massacred 100,000 people which caused rivers of blood to flow all around. Mangled dead bodies piled up in every town and the whole region emitted an unbearable stench."
Balban belonged to the Khakans of Albari in Turkesthan. While still young Balban was captured by Mongol marauders. Battened on burglary and butchery, Balban was sold as a slave in the markets of Ghazni to Khwaja Jamaluddin, a wholesale merchant of slaves. Collecting slaves, fattening them like pigs and then selling them to Muslim monarchs was a very profitable trade in the Muslim era in world history.
In 1232 A.D. Khwaja Jamaluddin, the slave-merchant from Basra, drove Balban along with other slaves to Delhi and lined them up before the Muslim slave-ruler Altmash. Altmash purchased the whole lot of them.
There were ever so many slave-wholesalers and commission agents like Jamaluddin in medieval times; they did a roaring trade by kidnapping young boys and then training them up as killers.
Balban was appointed a personal attendant of Altmash. During sultan Ruknuddin's time, Balban had been sent on a few campaigns to ravage Hindu countryside. In one such campaigns, Balban was taken prisoner by the defending Hindus. But the usual compassion made his Hindu captors set Balban free, taken in as they were by his fraudulent oaths pledging to be well-behaved in the future. Had his captors been judicious and executed Balban rather than let him free, they could have spared thousands of defenseless, innocent women and children the misery that Balban heaped upon them later. But that was not to be.
Balban alias Ulugh Khan became a constant companion of Raziya once she ascended the throne in Delhi. Under her he rose to be the chief of the royal stables. However, his loyalty to Raziya was only skin deep. He made common cause with several rebellious nobles bent upon deposing Raziya.
Author : Shri Purushottam Nagesh Oak
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