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122 army, levied an immense booty, and carried it back 700 miles to the seat of his governorship on the banks of the Ganges. He then lured the Sultán Jalál-ud-dín, his uncle, to Karra, in order to divide the spoil, and murdered the old man in the act of clasping his hand (1295 a.d.).

Reign of Ala-ud-din, 1295-1315. Alá-ud-dín scattered his spoils in gifts or charity like a devout Musalmán, and proclaimed himself Sultan. The twenty years of his reign established the Muhammadan sway in Southern India. He reconquered Gujarat from the Hindus in 1297; captured Rintimbur, after a difficult siege, from the Jaipur Rájputs in 1300; took the fort of Chitor, and partially subjected the Sesodia Rájputs (1303); and, having thus reduced the Hindus on the north of the Vindhyas, prepared for the conquest of Southern India or the Deccan. But before starting on this great expedition he had to meet five Mughal inroads from Central Asia. In 1295, he defeated a Mughal invasion under the walls of his capital, Delhi; in 1304-5, he encountered four others, sending all his prisoners to Delhi, where the Chiefs were trampled by elephants, and the common soldiery slaughtered in cold blood. He crushed with equal cruelty several rebellions which took place among his own family during the same period—first putting out the eyes of his insurgent nephews, and then beheading them (1299-1300).

His Conquest of Southern India.—His affairs in Northern India being thus settled, he undertook the conquest of the south. In 1303, he had sent his eunuch slave, Málik Káfur, with an army, through Bengal, to attack Warangal, the capital of the south-eastern Hindu kingdom of Telingána. In 1306, Káfur marched victoriously through Málwá and Khandesh into the Maráthá country, where he captured Deogiri, and persuaded the Hindu king Rim Deo to return with him to do homage at Delhi. Meanwhile the Sultan Alá-ud-dín was conquering the Rajputs in Márwár. His slave general, Káfur, made expeditions through Mahárashtra and the Karnátik, as far south as Adam's Bridge, at the extremity of India, where he built a mosque.

Extent of the Muhammadan Power in India, 1306.—The Muhammadan Sultan of India was no longer merely an