Once Altunia was doing well for himself the ruthless Sher Khan Sanqar of Lahore spread the rumour that the slave Jamaluddin Yaqut was having a secret affair with Razia. The Turkish advisers first got her to post Altunia as governor of Bathinda, with the seducing suggestion that if she wished to marry him it was best that he serve at a distance to avoid rumours, plus it would add to his stature. But both Altunia and her slave Qaqut stood in their way. A conspiracy was hatched to draw her into battle and finish her off. The rising to power of a woman for the very first time in the sub-continent unsettled the mostly aristocratic Turkish governors of the numerous provinces of the sub-continent, not to speak of the ‘ulema’ who served them. This is where her childhood family acquaintance and friend, and ultimately her husband, Malik Ikhtiaruddin Altunia, comes into the picture. To protect and look after the beautiful Razia Sultana, as well as keep spy on her, he assigned Yaqut to her service. At that time the Governor of Lahore was a Turkish noblemen called Sher Khan Sanqar, who as accounts have it had a tall and strong Abyssinian Siddi ‘habshi’ slave called Jamaluddin Yaqut. Her coming to power resulted in the Turkish nobility and the ‘ulema’ opposing a woman coming to power. In such an environment we see that on his death a struggle for power ensued and his daughter, Razia Sultana, whom he favoured over his four incompetent sons, came to power after overpowering her eldest brother and mother. He had invited the finest poets and writers from Iran and Turkey to enrich intellectual life in the sub-continent, and more importantly he invited the finest Sufi saints. When Iltutmesh died in 1236 he was buried near the Qutab Minar, which he had helped to complete. It was under his rule that Lahore the mud-walled city and its fort gained importance and was made the capital of the Punjab. His contribution is massively underestimated.īlood and gore attracts more attention than peace and love: that silent convincer. He was an exceptionally gifted ruler, and was instrumental in the peaceful spread of Islam in the sub-continent. From 1021AD when Mahmud ravaged Lahore, we move down just 200 years and the city was being ruled by the Mamluk Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, with Sultan Shamusuddin Iltutmesh in power, who reigned from 1211-1236.
But this piece is about another slave who initially lived in Lahore and moved about with the rulers of those times.
One assumes that today such an ‘issue’ is meaningless. Once Allama Iqbal’s verse had immortalised their relationship, the matter stood confined to religious equality only. Mahmud of Ghazni and his relationship to his beautiful Georgian slave Ayaz, whose grave stands in the middle of Rang Mahal, has many shades.
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