Page:A Brief History of the Indian Peoples.djvu/123

Rh Ghazní, but a practical conqueror. The objects of his distant expeditions were not temples but Provinces. Subuktigín had left Peshawar as an outpost of Ghaznf (977 ); and Mahmúd had reduced the Western Punjab to an outlying Province of the same kingdom (1030 a.d.). That was the net result of the Turkí invasions of India from Ghazní (977-1186). But Muhammad of Ghor left the whole north of India, from the delta of the Indus to the delta of the Ganges, under skilful Muhammadan generals, who on his death set up as kings on their own account (1206 A. D.).

Kutab-ud-din, 1206-1210.—His Indian Viceroy, Kutab-ud-dín, proclaimed himself sovereign of India at Delhi, and founded a line which lasted from 1206 to 1290. Kutab claimed the control over all the Muhammadan leaders and soldiers of fortune in India from Sind to Lower Bengal. His name is preserved at his capital by the Kutab Mosque, with its graceful colonnade of richly-sculptured Hindu pillars, and by the Kutab Minár, which raises its tapering shaft, encrusted with chapters from the Kuran, high above the ruins of old Hindu Delhi. Kutab-ud-dín had started life as a Túrkí slave, and several of his successors rose by valour or intrigue from the same low condition to the throne. His dynasty is accordingly known as that of the Slave Kings. Under them India became for the first time the seat of resident Muhammadan sovereigns. Kutab-ud-dín died in 12 10.

The Slave Dynasty, 1206-1290.—The Slave Dynasty found itself face to face with the three dangers which have beset the Muhammadan rule in India from the outset, and beneath which that rule eventually succumbed. First, rebellions by its own servants—Musalmán generals, or viceroys of Provinces; second, revolts of the Hindus; third, fresh invasions, chiefly by Mughals, from Central Asia.

Altamsh, 1211-1236.—Altamsh, the third and greatest Sultán of the Slave Dynasty, had to reduce the Muhammadan governors of Lower Bengal and Sind, both of whom set up as independent rulers; and he narrowly escaped destruction by a Mughal invasion from Central Asia. The Mughals under Changíz Khan pierced through the Indian passes in pursuit of an Afghan prince;