Episode 54 – Razia Sultan

In this episode, we’re going to talk about a fearless woman who dared to break the glass ceiling, to challenge gender norms, casteism and generally to do the sensible thing.

All those might make you think its a contemporary story. But its not.

Today’s episode was by special request from a long term listener who wanted to hear the story of Sultan Razia. We typically do Indian mythology and legends and sometimes history on this show. This episode unambiguously belongs in the history category, and was set about 800 years ago.

Sultan Razia was the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate. But we’ll actually start by talking about her grandfather. Qutb Al din Aibak has a rags to riches story. At an early age, he was sold in a slave market. Luckily for him, the person who took him on was a Sultan! While it started as a financial transaction, it ended up in something very different.

Muhammed of Ghor had a huge empire in the 12th century. He had no heirs, but luckily for Qutub, and other people in the Sultan’s service, they were all treated just as if they were his children. Qutub got the finest education and military training. 

And when Muhammed of Ghor passed away, Qutub inherited from him the Delhi Sultanate – it was practically an empire! Extending from Lahore in modern day Pakistan to Benares in the east. Obviously including the capital of Delhi. Otherwise the name Delhi Sultanate wouldnt make much sense.

But even as he had been growing into the rank of General in Muhammed of Ghor’s army, he paid it forward. He himself adopted a boy from the slave market, much as had been done for him, and later made him his successor and his son-in-law, all at the same time!

That boy was Iltutmish. Unlike his adoptive father and his adoptive grandfather, Iltutmish did have children. 5 of them. 4 boys and a girl.

You might begin questioning his sanity when I tell you that two of those sons had the exact same name! The eldest and the youngest were both called Nasiruddin Mahmud.

I cant imagine a situation where that would not be confusing!

And yet, despite this obvious lack of judgement, Iltutmish did something very sensible. He named his daughter Razia his successor. When he talked it over with his sons they had a strong reaction!

“But Dad! I am the oldest!” said Nasiruddin Mahmud. The older one obviously.

The second son, Muiz Ud Din Bahram added “You cant! The stock market will tumble! Unemployment will be at an all time high! Yields will be in correction territory”

Obviously no one understood him. Until Ruknuddin the next son translated it – “Girl ruler bad. Boy ruler good”

“Goo goo gaga” said Nasiruddin Mahmad. Not the oldest, the youngest. Because this one was still just a toddler.

“I’m not looking at age or gender. I’m looking for competence.”

Nasiruddin Mahmud tried again “But Daddy! No one else in our world has ever appointed a female ruler before”

“They dont know what they’ve missed, by simply excluding 50% of the candidates. I’m going by purely by competence. Age and gender dont matter. Isnt it true, she’s the best amongst you all?

She’s had straight As in all of her studies, while the rest of you have barely managed to scrape by. She’s the better than all of you at riding horses, she’s better at archery. And I bet that at swordfighting she can probably defeat all of you with one hand tied behind her back, and maybe even blindfolded. What’s more – the last time I visited Gwalior I left her in charge and she’s done an incredible job”

The boys didnt respond to that. Truth be told, they were immersed in their own comic books and video games so much that they hadnt even noticed that their Dad was out of town. Or that Razia was running the country.

So that’s what Iltutmish dictated in his will – that Razia would be the next Sultan.

Unfortunately for the family, there was tragedy after tragedy. The older Nasiruddin Mahmud was killed when he was out fighting to expand his father’s kingdom.

And a few years later, it was unfortunately time to execute Iltutmish’s will, because he passed away. But they did not actually execute Iltutmish’s will.

We with a cut to a secret underground hideout where 4 men sat playing poker. Given the secrecy, let’s leave names out of it. Let’s simply refer to them what they were wearing.

The first man, Yellow Turban, slammed his cards down in anger and said – “I cant stand it. I wont watch a girl.. a girl become our ruler!”

“Neither can I. What would you have us do about it?” asked the second, Long kurta.

“We are nobles.” interjected Whitebeard “Razia cant rule without the support of our armies and our contacts”

This was true. 

The fourth man, Blue shoes said “But we cant simply withdraw our support. We need an able alternative candidate to replace her”

“Right” said Yellow Turban. “And I propose we nominate Ruknuddin Firuz instead”

“I dont like it!” replied Blueshoes. “Even The Baby Nasiruddin Mahmud will make a better emperor than Ruknuddin. For that matter, even the dead Nasiruddin Mahmud will make a better emperor”

Long Kurta spoke up “We can do anything we want. All we have to do is to supply Ruknuddin with his stash of comic books and toys and keep him out of the way. We can do the real ruling”

“You mean, you want to do the real ruling, you want to be Sultan” challenged Whitebeard.

Long Kurta replied “Gentlemen, relax, I would much rather rule from the sidelines. I have no love for the spotlight. Now I promise, all we have to do is to maneuver this little boy away from affairs of state and use him to rubber stamp our decisions”.

That sounded convincing to the conspirators. And so they supported Ruknuddin Firuz instead.

Razia had known she would be the ruler one day. Her father had promised her the throne. But she also knew that she could not be ruler without the support of the nobles. She was all alone except for maybe her father’s estate lawyer. There was no way to stake her claim here.

It was a huge empire. Iltutmish had started with a pretty big area and expanded it several times over. This was going to be a challenging task for any ruler.

Ruknuddin was exactly as competent a ruler as his father expected. That is to say, he was a total loss! He’d rather spend his time watching cricket or reading comic books.
Everything was going according to the conspirators’ plan. But to their surprise, he began relying on his mother instead for advice on running the empire. But she was just as unqualified.

The best that can be said about her was that she wanted the best for her son. The way she did that was by trying to eliminate their political rivals.

If Ruknuddin had asked his Sister instead, much of the chaos that followed could have been avoided, and the empire would have been in much better shape.

Cut back to the secret hideout, again at the card table sat the same 4 conspirators.

“It was a mistake to have trusted you.” Blueshoes glared at Long Kurta.

“And you wanted to baby on the throne” shot back Long Kurta

“And why not? A baby is easier to control!” said Blueshoes

They all rolled their eyes. Clearly Blueshoes was the only man in the room who hadnt any kids yet.

Whitebread said “let’s have Razia rule the Kingdom.”

Yellow Turban got up in anger. “What?! Havent you heard enough of my misogynistic remarks every Saturday night?”

“Let me explain” said Whitebeard. “It’s simple. A woman is easy to control. Our entire society is built around the principle of men controlling women. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years. It’ll be just the same here with Razia”

That put the problem in a new perspective. “Hmm, there’s something in what you say old man” said Yellow Turban.

The others agreed, but they didnt have much to do.

Ruknuddin and his incompetent mother did the job for them. They tried to have Razia assassinated, but the mistake was that they were clumsy. They failed and they left a paper trail a mile long. CSI Delhi had no problems apprehending the culprits within hours of the botched assasination attempt.

Ruknuddin and his mom were executed and the nobles chose Razia as their ruler.

They had all agreed on the basis of nothing at all that Razia would be just a figurehead, and that because she was woman, she could be easily manipulated. They were about to find out why that kind of thinking is completely wrong.

Razia took charge! And by that I mean that she did NOT spend her 4 years in office at golf courses or on twitter or in selling her fashion line to other kingdoms in exchange for favorable trade deals

She connected directly with the people, and not through campaign rallies either. She had roads constructed, local law enforcement, centers for education, created a new tax code and improved the quality of life of her people. She was a popular ruler, and she had their full support. But that actually didnt matter when it was the Nobles she needed on her side. And there were a few things that had rubbed them the wrong way.

“It was your bright idea” Yellow Turban said to Whitebeard. “Women can be controlled, huh? She’s been in office for 3 years, and how many pay raises have you been able to finagle?”

Whitebeard offered an explanation – “She’ll come around, you’ll see. She just needs to stop showing her face to everyone.”

“That part annoys me. A pardah is our cultural imposition on women. If we let her walk about without a veil, what will all the other women in the country do? How do we keep them all suppressed? And have you seen how she dresses?”

“She dresses like the Sultan she claims to be” replied Blueshoes. “But we cant have that”

Long Kurta replied “Of course not. We must also do something about how she is appointing all her loyalists everywhere. Take her fiance, Altunia for example. She made him governor of Bhatinda. And her slave, the one from Abyssiniya, Yaqut? She made him Stable Manager! That guy doesnt deserve anything”

It was true. Razia herself preferred being addressed as Sultan. Sultana is typically the wife or consort of a ruler. Sultan indicates a ruler.

The nobles were uncomfortable with a woman appearing in public without a veil. But Razia needed to see eye to eye with her people.

The nobles who were extremely racist were especially offended by Yaqut being appointed Stable Manager. Not that they wanted to manage the Stables themselves. They would have preferred a Turkic slave to be Stale Manager. It was a rather reputable and powerful position.

But Yaqut, the Stable Manager was Razia’s friend. He had helped her avoid the assassination attempt from Ruknuddin and his mom, and she was indebted to him.

Yellow Turban proposed a plan. “So,” he said “all we have to do is a little something I like to call divide and conquer”

“If you’re doing mathematics, I’m out.” replied Blueshoes.

“No. Just hear me out will you!” replied Yellow Turban. “Now all we need is to hire a private eye”

“What’s a private eye?” asked Whitebeard

“A person who investigates a crime, for a fee”

“What crime needs investigating here?” asked Blueshoes

“That’s just what we’ll find out, wont we?” replied Yellow Turban.

They went ahead and hired a private detective from the Pinkerton agency.

This investigator was equipped with the fastest portable spy painting kit. He climbed trees, hid behind bushes to see what Razia was upto and would quickly capture snapshots of her onto his canvas
He’d send in daily copies of his paintings to his clients the Nobles, along with a report. Unfortunately for the nobles there wasnt anything incriminating. Until one day, there was. Razia and Yaqut were sitting by the pond, and she was laughing out loud at a joke he’d just told her. The perspective of the painting was perfectly suited for what the Nobles had in mind. They dashed off a copy to Altunia.

It had exactly the effect they wanted. Altunia triggered by jealousy and racism lured her and a section of her army to his province where Yaqut was killed and Razia imprisoned.

The men in the underground bunker finally breathed a collective sigh of relief and celebrated all night! They were replacing Razia on the throne with Behram, her brother.

All was not dark for Razia though. She did make up eventually with Altunia.

After Altunia finally believed that she had not been unfaithful. He asked her, “But it’s all water under the bridge, now right? You said some things, I said some things. Let’s just let it go”

Razia grumbled a bit, but seeing as he had been careful to not let her out of prison yet, she agreed with him. It was all just a misunderstanding.

“Okay then, will you marry me?” He asked her

“That’s a strange way to ask. But yes, I will” she replied. She needed him to get her throne back.

They were married quickly enough. And on their honeymoon they decided to go back to Delhi! With Altunia’s army! They were going to take back her Sultanate.

“Wait a minute. Back up there.” Razia said. “Did you say Altunia’s army? What about the army I came to Bhatinda with?”

“Oh, I should probably have told you this before.” said Altunia. “I… um…. Er had them all killed”

“What?!” asked Razia. “We’re about to take on the entire Delhi Sultanate home army with just your small Bhatinda army?”

“Well,” said Altunia “technically it’s not a small army. I mean they were a small army before I fought your soldiers and took you prisoner. Your soldiers pared down my army quite a bit, so the adjective you’re looking for is tiny, not small. And I’m including the cooks, the bakers and the shoeshiners”

“One fine time to tell me” said Razia as she spotted her brother’s huge army headed for them. 

She lowered the visor on her armor and charged! There could only have been one outcome from that. Altunia and Razia were both killed in the battle.

That’s all I have about Razia.

Some notes on the show

Qutub Al-Din Aibak – Razia’s grandfather was responsible for the Qutb Minar which is a pretty famous building in Delhi. Check out these pictures:
Qutb Minar
An Aquatint
How it looked in 1890
How it looks today

Razia was neither the first female ruler in India, nor was her reign long. It was over in a mere 4 years.

But she’s one of the earliest examples of a woman taking on a male-dominated society and emerging on top. She was the self-proclaimed pillar of women.

Her burial site in India is unfortunately in a serious state of neglect. Check out this picture

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, by listener request, we’re back to a story about me! The story is from the Ramayana, so this one’s got to do with Ravana, the 10 headed demon antagonist of the epic. And the planets, down here on Earth! And there’s also a guest appearance from Hanuman!

I’ll see you next time!