CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 35 of 120

Correct — B, Balban. The Turkan-i-Chihalgani, the Corps of Forty, was the body of Turkish nobles built up by Iltutmish, and after his death in 1236 it made and unmade sultans for thirty years. Balban knew it from the inside — he had been one of the Forty himself, and had risen through it as naib to the puppet sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud. Once he took the throne in his own name in 1266 he set about destroying it: rivals were poisoned, demoted or sent to distant posts, and their place was taken by a court theory that put the sultan beyond the reach of any noble. He called himself Zil-i-Ilahi, the Shadow of God, claimed descent from the legendary Afrasiyab, and made courtiers perform sijda and paibos. A network of barids reporting only to him watched the rest.

• (a)Iltutmish — Iltutmish created the Forty rather than destroyed it. He assembled the corps of trusted Turkish slave-officers as the instrument of his own rule; the trouble began after his death, when the group turned into a kingmaker.
• (c)Alauddin Khalji — By Alauddin's accession in 1296 the Forty had already been broken for thirty years and the Khaljis had displaced the Ilbari Turks altogether. He is remembered for market control, the branding of horses and the Mongol wars, not for this.
• (d)Muhammad bin Tughluq — The Tughluqs are a century later still. Muhammad bin Tughluq's disputes were with a nobility that was no longer exclusively Turkish, and his name attaches to the token currency and the shift of the capital to Daulatabad.

The Turkan-i-Chihalgani or Chalisa was a group of about forty Turkish slave-nobles raised by Iltutmish. It was the ruling elite of the early Delhi Sultanate, and between 1236 and 1266 it was strong enough to depose sultans, including Razia. Balban's kingship was designed to end that, replacing consultation among peers with an absolutist theory of the sultan as God's shadow on earth.

Two of the four options are internally linked and that is where the marks are: Iltutmish is the maker of the Forty and Balban the breaker, and a hurried reading reverses them. Placing the reigns settles it — Iltutmish 1211–1236, Balban 1266–1287, Alauddin Khalji 1296–1316, Muhammad bin Tughluq 1325–1351. Only Balban's reign lies inside the window in which the Forty were still a force. The same logic makes him the natural answer to any item about the Persianised court ceremonial of the Sultanate.

• The Turkan-i-Chihalgani, or Corps of Forty, was formed by Iltutmish and dominated the Sultanate after his death in 1236.
• Balban was himself one of the Forty before he became sultan, and reigned from 1266 to 1287.
• He broke the group up and put in its place a theory of kingship expressed in the titles Zil-i-Ilahi and niyabat-i-khudai.
• He introduced the Persian court practices of sijda, prostration before the sultan, and paibos, kissing his feet, and also the festival of Nowruz.
• A body of barids, secret news-writers answerable to the sultan alone, reported on nobles and provinces.

• Swapping Iltutmish and Balban — one built the Forty, the other destroyed it.
• Assuming Balban stood outside the group; he was one of the Forty before he turned on it.

As a ruler-to-measure match, an assertion–reason on Balban's centralisation, or a statement-set on Sultanate court ceremonial.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Persian court practices of sijda and paibos were introduced in the Delhi Sultanate by which one of the following Sultans?

  • (a)Qutbuddin Aibak
  • (b)Iltutmish
  • (c)Balban
  • (d)Firuz Shah Tughlaq

  Answer(c) Balban — prostration before the sultan and the kissing of his feet were part of the Persianised ceremonial with which he raised the throne above the nobility.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Turkan-i-Chihalgani, the corps of forty Turkish nobles, was created by which one of the following rulers?

  • (a)Muhammad Ghori
  • (b)Qutbuddin Aibak
  • (c)Iltutmish
  • (d)Balban

  Answer(c) Iltutmish — he built the corps as the instrument of his own rule; it became a kingmaker only after his death in 1236.