Recently a name of Khilji dynasty Sultan, Alauddin Khilji, has been in news because Sanjay Leela Bhansali decided to make a movie on him. We don’t know the script yet, but reportedly it is based on so called love story (most likely a one sided lust) of Alauddin Khilji and a Rajput queen Padmavati (or Padmini). The story of Khilji and Padmavati has been immortalized by poem of Malik Mohammad Jayasi, named “Padmavat”, written in 16^th century.  What story Bhansali comes up with is a matter of speculation but looking at the cast (Ranveer Singh plays title role) Khilji may have been projected as a hero or at least a wronged Villain. As we have seen in many Bollywood movies, including recent movie by the name Raees, a Villain in a movie can be projected to be much better than the supposed Hero of that movie.

Whether Bhansali shows this in his movie or not, remains to be seen, but let the truth be known that Alauddin Khilji led a sultanate with the ferocious zeal of Islamic Jihad. His reign saw the blatant persecution of Hindus and some worst crimes against woman and children.

The Khilji Dynasty

Khilji dynasty ruled Delhi and major portion of North and Northwest of India between years AD 1290 to 1320. Khilji (or sometimes called Khalji) was a Muslim clan originated in Turkey. Although Turkic in origin, the dynasty’s name comes from the Khilji village in Afghanistan, where the clan spent a few generations before moving eastward in India.  The founder of the sultanate was one Jalaluddin who led the vassal state under Mamluk dynasty ad served Ghiyasuddin Balban who was the Sultan of Delhi. During his lifetime, Ghiyasuddin’s successors were murdered and a factional war erupted within the dynasty. The last successor was a 17-year-old boy who was made Sultan by one faction. Jalauddin then led a coup to dethrone and murder the last Sultan of Mamluk dynasty. He thus started one of the bloodiest Muslim dynasties of India, the Khilji dynasty, not before spilling a lot of blood in the process.

Alauddin Khilji

Alauddin Khilji, also known as Juna Khan, was nephew and son-in-law of Jalaluddin. Although Jalaluddin was accepted as a Sultan by a faction of Turkic and Arabian Sultanates he went out of favor in Islamic world in his old age due to variety of reasons. The Turkic, Arabian powers and Indian Muslim Emirs supported Juna Khan covertly or overtly in taking over as Sultan. In AD 1295-96 Juna Khan, one of the commanders of Sultan’s army, attacked Deogiri with a force of 8000 Afghan soldiers. The attack as described by some local tales was gruesome. The army destroyed the villages completely and raped an unaccountable number of women and children during the attack. All temples were said to have been razed before the army attacked the Deogiri fort. The villagers were converted to Islam en-masse. The Yadav king of Deogiri was left poor and powerless before his son gathered the army back and declared Deogiri independent later again.

Alauddin Khilji, upbeat with his victory over Deogiri, returned to Delhi. The same year he killed his uncle to usurp power with the support he gained from Islamic world. The account of this murder detailed by Ziauddin Baruni, the historian in AD 1350 shows in his book Tarikh-i-Firujshahi how ghastly the murder was and the extent to which Alauddin was cruel.

As Baruni describes, he met his uncle on the day of murder with one of his most faithful aide Mohammad Salim like any normal day. While the uncle lovingly kissed both the eyes of Alauddin, he gave signal to his aide and Salim drew a sword and killed the uncle. Alauddin then cut off Jalaluddin’s head and paraded it in city on a spear.

After becoming a king Alauddin, attacked many neighboring kingdoms starting with Gujarat. He attacked Khambat state, which had capital near present day Ahmedabad. The account of Gujarat conquest given by his own court historians are chilling. Amir Khusrow, one of his courtier and poet wrote in Tarikh-i-Alai –

“When Sultan Alauddin was well established in his dominion….. the vein of zeal or subjection of infidelity and destruction of idols in the month of Zi’l – hijja 698 H (AD 1298) his brother Malik Muizzuddin and Nusrat Khan….. were sent to Kambayat, one of the most celebrated cities of Hind in wealth and population. With a view of holy war and not for the lust of conquest he enlisted under their banners 14,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry…. The idolaters were awaken by surprise from their carelessness, not knowing where to go, and mothers forgot their children, dropped them from their embrace. The Muhammadan forces started to kill and slaughter on the right and on the left unmercifully, throughout the impure land, for the sake of Islam. They took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens amounting to 20,000 and children of both sexes more than a pen can enumerate….. Many temples were broken and idols were trodden under the feet of the soldiers, largest of which is called Somnath… the fragments were conveyed to Delhi and entrance of Jami Masjid was paved with them, (so) that people remember and talked about this magnificent victory.”

As can be seen from passage above, Khilji was not only a cruel person but also religiously zealous for the spread of Islam. Amir Khusrow has further described how Sultan was guided by Khalifa to “bring light in darkness for Hindustan”, how the temples are destroyed by Khilji starting from his first expedition in Deogiri. Khusrow describes the temples as places where Satanism was practiced “from the time of Jinns”. Mind you, Amir Khusrow is called “Parrot of India” and was supposed to be a mystique of Sufi lineage. He was a disciple of Nizamuddin Aulia.

Khilji later attacked Rajputana and southern India. One of this conquests in Rajasthan (Chittorgarh) became famous after Malik Mohammad Jayasi wrote “Padmavat” as mentioned earlier. We will talk about “Padmavat” and queen Padmavati in a later discussion but it is sufficient to say here that Khilji was a lustful man in addition to being cruel.

Alauddin Khilji’s personal life was rather colorful. He was supposed to be in a homosexual relationship with one of his generals named Malik Kafur. Malik was a eunuch and converted to Islam later by Khilji. It was said that Khilji, smitten by his effeminate beauty, castrated him and converted him to Islam before starting homosexual relations with him. This was in addition to the harem of hundreds of wives and thousands of captive maids he maintained.

The readers should decide whether such a man should be given any sympathetic treatment in any art form or not. However, the writer wishes that if he could influence Bhansali’s storyline, he would make him show all these historical facts if Bhansali must make a movie on Alauddin Khilji.