Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/138

 104 RAZIYA, THE MOHAMMEDAN EMPEESS OF 'INDIA supremacy. Raziya, daughter of Altamish, less for- tunate, sat on the throne of Delhi for only three years and a half (1236-1240)." The story of Raziya 's short-lived reign has already been sketched in this History, but we have also a good description of it from the Oriental chronicler Minhaj- as-Siraj, and this, with one unimportant omission, is used here. It will be noted that Minhaj always speaks of the queen as " Sultan," since this title, or that of Padshah, " king," was given to her, as well as to a few queens regent, despite the Mohammedan aver- sion to female rulers. 1 The account by Minhaj follows. ' Sultan Raziya was a great monarch. She was wise, just, and generous, a benefactor to her kingdom, a dispenser of Justice, the protector of her subjects, and the leader of her armies. She was endowed with all the qualities befitting a king, but she was not born a man, and for that reason, in the estimation of men, all these virtues were worthless. In the days of her father, Sultan Shams-ad-din Altamish, she had exer- cised authority with great dignity. Her mother was the chief wife of his Majesty, and Raziya herself re- sided in the chief palace in the Kushk-firozi. The Sultan discerned in her countenance the signs of power and bravery, and although she was a girl and lived in retirement, yet when he returned from the conquest of Gwalior, he directed his secretary, Taj-al-Malik Mahmud, who was the director of the government, to 1 The title Sultan is retained in the translation, especially as Sultana would not be an appropriate rendering, since sultana, in its original meaning, signifies " a scold."