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Bedlam and bestiality are two words which pithily summarize the one-thousand-year long Muslim rule in India. While Muslim rulers - courtiers, princes and slaves - endlessly plotted and counter- plotted against one another and brutally murdered one another, they were all united in persecuting and slaughtering Hindus. Toward the end of the slave dynastic rule, the horrid cruelties reached their climax in India.
Raziya, the impetuous daughter of Altmash, had already a taste of the bedlam and bestiality rampaging all around her. She herself was molested by the Abyssinian stable boy Jamaluddin Yakut and then later in the dungeons of Tabarhindh, by Malik Altuniya. Raziya was forced to join forces with Altuniya to attack Delhi.
As soon as Raziya absented herself from Delhi, one of her many harem-brothers Muizzuddin Behram Shah set himself up as the new sultan. Instead of rushing to help his harem-sister Raziya in her difficult times, Muizzuddin turned against her. Such conduct has been the typical feature of Islamic rule in India.
Muizzuddin had now to defend his claim to the slave sultanate against the combined armies of Raziya and Altuniya. In the ensuing struggle, both Raziya and Altuniya were slaughtered. Their corpses were thrown by the roadside in October, 1240 A.D. Raziya's beggarly tomb can be found by the roadside inside the Turkman Gate of Old Delhi.
Among the scheming courtiers who took advantage of Raziya's absence from Delhi, Ikhtiyaruddin was the most nefarious. He is the one who had instigated Muizzuddin to grab the throne of Delhi. Ikhtiyaruddin was notorious for kidnapping women, any women, on whom he had set his lecherous eyes. And the sultan's own daughter did not escape his attention. This daughter of the sultan had been married to Kazi Nasiruddin. The Kazi was forced to talaq his wife so that Ikhtiyaruddin could drag her to his own bed.
Ikhtiyaruddin used to imitate Rajput royalty by getting music played, thrice daily, at the palace gate. He also had a caparisoned elephant standing at the palace door at all times. That was a status symbol of medieval times tantamount to the limousine of the 20th century.
Author : Shri Purushottam Nagesh Oak
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