Mongol invasions of India
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The Mongol Empire launched several Mongol invasions into the Indian subcontinent from 1221 to 1327. However, most of attacks unreached success, Mongols threatened Indian locals and leaders for so long. After the collapse of the Mongol Empire, the final Turco-Mongol invasion occurred when Timur sacked and plundered Delhi, the capital of the Delhi Sultanate, though he left India soon after.
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[edit] First Mongol intrusion into India
After defeating Jalal ad-Din at the Battle of Indus in 1221, Genghis Khan sent two tumens to pursue him. Meanwhile General Bala had chased Jalal ad-Din throughout the Punjab plains, had attacked outlying towns like Bhera and Multan and had even sacked the outskirts of Lahore. The October heat put a stop to their operations and the Mongols returned to Chingiz, confident that Jalal ad-Din could never again be a threat to them. However, survivors from the Battle of the Indus were also wandering through the Punjab at that time and these eventually formed the nucleus of a small army for the Sindhu prince.Jalal ad-Din though met with a cruel disappointment when his request for an alliance, or even an asylum, with the Muslim rulers in India was turned down.
Jalal ad-Din fought against the local rulers in the Punjab, who sported titles like Rana and Rai, and usually defeated them in the open but could not occupy their lands. At last he proposed an alliance with the Gakkhar chieftain of the Salt Range and married his daughter—the Gakkhar Rai’s son joined the Muslim army with his clansmen and received the title of Katlagh Khan. Jalal ad-Din soldiers were under his officers Uzbek Pai and Hassan Qarlugh.
While fighting against the local governor of Sindh, Jalal ad-Din heard of an uprising in the Kirman province of southern Iran and he immediately set out for that place, passing through southern Baluchistan on the way. Jalal ad-Din was also joined by forces from Ghor and Peshawar—belonging to the Khilji, Turkoman, and Ghori tribes. With his new allies the Turk prince marched on Ghazni and defeated a Mongol division under Turtai, which had been assigned the task of hunting out Jalal ad-Din. The victorious allies quarreled over the division of the captured booty and the Khilji, Turkoman, and Ghori tribes deserted Jalal ad-Din and returned to Peshawar.
At this time Ogedai had become Khagan—a Mongol general named Chormaghan sent by him attacked and defeated the prince and ended his rebellion forever. Another Mongol general named Pakchak attacked Peshawar and defeated the army of tribes who had deserted Jalal ad-Din but were still a threat to the Mongols. These men, mostly Khiljis, escaped to Multan and were recruited into the army of the Delhi Sultans.
When the striking power and reach of the Mongol armies had been displayed so graphically, the ambitions of the Muslim chiefs within the Delhi Sultanate were fired. One Delhi prince traveled all the way to Kara Korum to seek the assistance of Mongke Khan for seizing the throne from his elder brother. In 1257 the governor of Sindh offered his entire province to Hulagu Khan of Persia and sought Mongol protection from his overlord in Delhi, the Mongol Khan sent a strong force under Sali Bahadur into Sindh.
But Hulagu refused to sanction a grand invasion of the Delhi Sultanate and a few years later diplomatic correspondence between the two rulers confirmed the growing desire for peace. Hulagu after all had many other areas of conquests to take care of. Large-scale Mongol invasions of India ceased and the Delhi Sultans used the respite to recover the frontier towns like Multan, Uch, and Lahore…and punish the local Ranas and Rais who had joined hands with either the Khwarazim or the Mongol invaders.
Large numbers of tribes that took shelter in the Delhi Sultanate as a result of the Mongol Cataclysm changed the balance of power in North India. The Khilji tribe firstly usurped power from the older Delhi Sultans and began to rapidly project their power into other parts of India. At about this time the Mongol raids into India were also renewed.
[edit] The Chagatai Mongols Vs Delhi sultanate
When Kublai Khan died in 1294, the former Mongol Empire was divided into independent khanates. One such khanate was the Chagatai Khanate which covered Central Asia and its leader at that time was Duwa Khan. Duwa was active in Afghanistan, and attempted to extend Mongol rule to India, but there he was defeated by a formidable foe, Alauddin Khilji’s General Zafar Khan of the Delhi Sultanate in 1296-1297. The Mongols thereafter repeatedly invaded northern India. On at least two occasions, they came in strength. The second time around, they took Delhi but could not keep their hold on the Sultanate.
The two armies met at Jalandhar in 1297.Zafar Khan defeated the Mongols in this first invasion. The Mongols attacked again under the command of Saldi and captured the Fort Siri. Zafar Khan holding the honour of being one of the few undefeated military commanders in history had no problem crushing this army, recaptured the fort and brought 2,000 Mongols prisoners before Alauddin Khilji. It was one of the worst defeats and experience for the Mongols. Legend has it that Zafar Khan created such great terror in the minds of the Mongols that whenever their horses refused to drink water, the Mongols would ask them if they had seen Zafar Khan. The first invasion of the Mongols was an abysmal failure with Zafar Khan almost grinding them into the dust.
[edit] Battles for Delhi 1299-1308
But in 1299 the Mongols came back. It says much for the tenacious Mongol spirit that they were back so soon and in such strength that they took over the Fort Siri, just beyond Delhi, which Alauddin Khilji had built. This time they came under a leader who was a legend in his own right, Qutlugh Khwaja, the feared Central Asian warrior now commanding a force of 200,000 Mongols. Alauddin Khilji realized that the Mongols meant business. If Qutlugh Khwaja had come himself it meant war, not for gold but for the kingdom itself.
The situation was serious enough for the usually individualistic Alauddin Khilji to be forced into take advice from others. Alauddin Khilji was urged to sue for peace by his advisors as Qutlugh was virtually wiping his feet at the doorsteps of Delhi.However Alauddin Khilji did not become the sultan by playing it safe. He rejected their advice and said,
- "If I were to follow your advice how could I show my face, how could I go into my harem? No, come what may tomorrow, I must march into the battlefield".
Ignoring their advice the young sultan attacked the Mongols. The advance guard of the army was led by Zafar Khan himself. He defeated the Mongols again and went off in hot pursuit of them as they withdrew. However, the wily Qutlugh tricked Zafar into a position where he was first surrounded and then killed by the Mongols. Alauddin Khilji took this loss calmly – Zafar Khan had been entirely too popular for his comfort anyway. However, the death of the general did not improve matters for the Mongols. In face of Ala-ud-Din Khilji ‘s continued offensives, they had to retreat to the unconquerable heights from where they had come.
The Mongols took, what was for them, a long time to rally from this setback. They attacked at the worst time possible for Alauddin Khilji – when he was busy laying siege to Chittor. This time the Mongols traveled light. An army of 12,000 under Targhi’s leadership trickled into India like a shadow and moved to Delhi at a pace that was astonishing even by Mongol standards. Such was the swiftness of the attack that many governors could not send their troops to Delhi in time.
Alauddin Khilji was forced to duck into Siri and stay put for about two months. The Mongols stomped through and pillaged not only the surrounding areas, but Delhi itself. However they could not get into Siri. Although minor skirmishes were fought, a decisive win eluded both parties. This deadlock dragged on for more than a couple of months. In the end when Alauddin Khilji must have been rolling his eyes to heaven and fervently hoping for a miracle to help him, his prayers were answered.
The Mongols were a nomadic restless lot, and Targhi was more impatient than most of them. When Alauddin Khilji dug in his heels and stayed put in his seemingly impregnable fortress for months, Targhi lost interest in the whole affair, washed his hands off it and ordered his army to withdraw.
Barani, the contemporary historian at that time, attributed this ‘marvel’ to the prayers of the Sufi mystic Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya. Alauddin Khilji’s defenses were so strong and enduring that the whole situation had really become quite an impasse. He wisely realized that the Mongols could not hold out forever and had to go home to Central Asia some time. That was where the Mongol power was concentrated and they could not afford to be away for too long.
Targhi had to go back with the consolation that he was leaving behind a much disturbed and thoughtful Alauddin Khilji. The seriousness of the Qutlugh Khwaja and Targhi led Mongol invasions which had left Siri panting for breath. They forced Alauddin Khilji to take stock of the situation. A defensive measure like hiding in Siri till the Mongol storm blew over must have gashed his proud spirit. He had the forts along the border strengthened and equipped with larger garrisons. New, more effective fortifications were built along this area. A whole new army, with its own special governor, was created whose portfolio was managing and guarding the border areas.
Despite these measures, the Mongols under the leadership of Ali Beg and Tartaq, suddenly appeared in Punjab and the neighbourhood of Amroha. The Mongols plundered Punjab and burnt everything to cinders along the way.
But this time Alauddin Khilji was ready for them. He sent a strong army led by two of his toughest generals Ghazi Malik and the famous Malik Kafur after them. They surprised the Mongols on their way back to Central Asia with their plunder. The two generals pooled in their immense talents and defeated the Mongols. The Mongol generals were captured and brought back to Siri, along with other prisoners. Ala-ud-Din Khilji had the generals trampled to death by elephants while the other prisoners were put to death and their heads hung from the walls of the fort.
However the Mongols must have had stomachs of cast iron. Even after the gory treatment meted out to their last expedition, they came in again in 1306. They crossed the Indus near Multan and were moving towards the Himalayas, when Ghazi Malik (who was by then the governor of Punjab) intercepted them. About 50,000 Mongols were made prisoners including one of their generals. Ala-ud-Din Khilji put them all to death and sold their wives and children as slaves. The last Mongol invasion took place in 1307-8 under Iqbalmand and Tai Bu. He had just about managed to cross the Indus when Alauddin Khilji’s armies overtook them and put them all to the sword.In that very year their monarch Duwa Khan died and in the unending dispute over his succession this spate of Mongol raids into India ended.
After 1308, the Mongols did not attack India again for a while. There were a number of reasons for this. Principal among these was of course that Alauddin Khilji, by repeated ruthlessness, finally managed to drive home the point that he would deal firmly and mercilessly with invaders into his territory. This was one of the greatest achievements of Alauddin Khilji. He was an original thinker and brilliant as a strategist. If the Mongols had still been serious about an Indian empire, they could have kept sending armies to India till the cows came home. It is to Ala-ud-din’s credit that he drove the idea of an Indian empire from the heads of the Mongols.
But he did not stop there, Alauddin Khilji had to be sure that the Mongols would never come back .The only way to do that was to attack them– he sent plundering armies under the veteran general Ghazi Malik to Kandhar, Ghazni and Kabul. The Mongols were already so much in awe of him that they did not even bother to defend their own territories against him. These offensives effectively crippled the Mongol line of control leading to India.
The remaining Muslim Mongols living in Delhi were denied high posts in the Muslim army and were also discriminated against in the matter of land grants. They attempted to kill Alauddin Khilji while he was out hawking in the outskirts of Delhi. The attempt failed and Alauddin Khilji ordered a general massacre of these Mongols and their women and children.
The next major Mongol invasion took place after the Khiljis had been replaced by the Tughlaq tribe in the Sultanate. In 1327 the Chagatai Mongols under Tarmashirin sacked the frontier towns like Lamghan and Multan and besieged Delhi—the Tughlaq ruler paid him a large ransom to spare his Sultanate from further ravages.
Tarmashirin was a Buddhist who later converted to Islam. The religious tensions in the Chagtai Khanate dissipated its strength and no more large-scale invasions or even raids took place in India. However small groups of Mongol adventurers were hiring out their swords to the many local powers in the northwest—and by this time the Mongol attempt to conquer India had finally ended in failure. Tarmarshirin tried to reestablish diplomatic relations between Chagataid mongols and Delhi sultanate, few years after plundering India.
Amir Qazaghan raided northern India with his Qaranaus. He also sent several thousand troops to aid the Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq, against rebels in his country in 1350 or 1351.
[edit] Sack of Delhi
Ironically the Chagatai Khanate had also split up by this time and an ambitious Mongol Turk chieftain named Timur had brought Central Asia and the regions beyond under his own control. He followed the twin policies of Imperialism and Islamization, shifting various Mongol tribes to different parts of his empire and giving primacy to the Turkic people in his own army. Timur also reinforced the Islamic faith over the Chagtai Khanate and after a long gap put the laws of the Quran over Chingiz Khaan’s shaminist laws. He invaded India in 1398 to make war on the mostly infidel rulers and to plunder the wealth of the country.
Timur’s empire broke up and his descendants failed even to hold on to Central Asia, which split up into numerous principalities where also ruled the Mongol Khans. The descendants of the Mongol Chagtais and the descendants of the Timur lived side by side, occasionally fighting and occasionally inter-marrying—one of the products of such a rare marriage was Babur. His mother belonged to the family of the Mongol Khans of Tashkent, who in the 16th Century were more powerful than Babur’s family, and Mongol soldiers initially formed the bulk of his army.
But Babur was a true descendant of Timur and shared his beliefs—he believed that rules and regulations of Genghis Khan were deficient as he remarked,
- “they had no divine authority.”
And even though his own mother was a Mongol, Babur hated the Mongols race and wrote a stinging verse in his autobiography:
- “Were the Mughals an angel race, it would be bad,
- Even writ in gold, the Mughal name would be bad.”
When Babur occupied Kabul and began invading the Sub-continent plains, he was called a Mughal like all the earlier invaders from the Chagtai Khanate had been. Even the invasion of Timur had been considered a Mongol invasion since the Mongols had ruled over Central Asia for so long and had given their name to its people. Timur of course had returned home but Babur stayed and formed the greatest empire of India,the Mughal Empire.
The military heritage of the Mongols, unlike their secular laws, had no conflict with the question of religion. Hence both Timur and Babur continued the military system of Chingiz Khan—one part of this system was the name Ordu used for the collective of tents that formed the military camp—it was now pronounced Urdu. In all their campaigns in India the Mughal camp was called the urdu and this word became current in the languages of the various soldiers that formed the body of this camp.
In course of time these Indian and foreign languages mingled together in the urdu and a new language of that name was born. This language of the military camp survived in some of the North Indian cities after the fall of the Mughal Empire. Ironically the Urdu that passed through all these centuries of political changes ultimately became the language of poetry, of music, and of other forms of cultural expression—today it is recognized as one of the national languages of Pakistan and modern India.
[edit] References
Harold Lamb, "Genghis Khan: Emperor of all men".
