page_title: Ghiyas ud din Balban
section_title: Reign as Sultan
hierarchical_section_title: Ghiyas ud din Balban / Reign as Sultan
caption_attribution_description: English: this is a copper coin of Giyaz uddin balban. from the Slave Dynasty that is in my personal collection. My email id is &lt;drnsreedhar@hotmail.com&gt;
context_page_description: Ghiyas ud din Balban; was the ninth sultan of the Mamluk dynasty of Delhi.
  Ghiyas ud Din was the wazir of the last Shamsi sultan, Nasiruddin Mahmud. He reduced the power of the treacherous nobility and heightened the stature of the sultan. Despite having only few military achievements, he was the most powerful ruler of the sultanate between Shamsuddin Iltutmish and Alauddin Khalji.
  His original name was Baha Ud Din. He was an Ilbari Turk. When he was young he was captured by the Mongols, taken to Ghazni and sold to Khawaja Jamal ud-din of Basra, a Sufi. The latter then brought him to Delhi in 1232 along with other slaves, and all of them were purchased by Iltutmish.
  Balban belonged to the famous group of 40 Turkic slaves of Iltutmish.
  Ghiyas made several conquests, some of them as vizier. He routed the Mewats that harassed Delhi and reconquered Bengal, all while successfully facing the Mongol threat, a struggle that cost his son and heir's life. So it came to pass that upon his death in 1287, his grandson Qaiqubad was nominated sultan, undermining the achievements of his grandfather.
context_section_description: Since Sultan Nasiruddin did not have a male heir, so after his death, Balban declared himself the Sultan of Delhi. Balban ascended the throne in 1266 at the age of sixty with the title of Sultan Ghiyas-ud-din-Balban.
  During his reign, Balban ruled with an iron fist. He broke up the 'Chahalgani', a group of the forty most important nobles in the court. Balban wanted to make sure everyone was loyal to the crown by establishing an efficient espionage system, in the style of the Umayyad Barid. Sultan Balban had a strong and well-organized spy system. Balban placed secret reporters and news-writers in every department. The spies were independent authority who were only answerable to Sultan.
  Furthermore, Balban had his nobles punished most harshly for any mishap, including severe treatment of their own slaves. One of his nobles, Malik Baqbaq, the governor of Budaun, was punished for ordering one of his slaves to be beaten to death, apparently when being drunk. Another governor, Haibat Khan, was handed over to the slave's widow for punishment. Balban employed spies, barids, to inform on his officials. About his justice Dr. Ishwari Prasad remarked "So great was the dread of Sultan's inexorable justice that no one dared to ill-treat his servant and slaves."
  Balban re-organised the military against the threat of the Mongols. He re-organised the revenues of the Iqatadars, which have been passed on to the children of their original holders from the time of Shams ud-din, or maintained their hold of the Iqta even after they ceased to serve in the military. The old Muqta's, who could not serve as military commanders (emirs) for their revenue, were to be dismissed from their fief and settled with a pension of forty to fifty tankas. The younger Muqtas had been taxed for the surplus revenue (which was not taken from them as it should have) and the children and women who took possession of the Iqta of their forebears, were to be deprived of their Iqtas and compensated with the money required to sustain them. However, he was partially dissuaded from this ruling due to the advice of the old Kotwal, Fakhr ud-din, and the old nobles retained their lands.
  Balban's steps against the nobility were so extreme as to raise suspicion from his brother, Sher Khan, who is said to have never visited Delhi. It appears that resentment between the brothers had to come to a degree that made the Sultan poison his brother
  "Balban's court was an austere assembly where zest and laughter were unknown and where wine and gambling were banished."  He "introduced rigorous court discipline such as prostration before the king and kissing his feet."  Nevertheless, Ghiyasuddin Balban still went on hunting expeditions, though these were more frequently used as a form of military training. There were large scale conversions to Islam in Punjab under his reign.  Balban was the first who introduced the famous Persian Festival of Nauroz.
  He started Iranian method Sijda and Paibos to the sultan in India. He also introduced the Persian festival Navroz (meaning New year). He himself called the Niyabat-i-Khudai.
caption: Coin during the reign of Balban
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