Turkan-i-Chahalgani

Also called: The Forty, Chalisa · Topic: Turkic Invasions and the Delhi Sultanate · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

Turkan-i-Chahalgani ("the Forty"), also called the Chalisa, was a group of about forty powerful Turkish nobles at the Delhi court. Most of them had started life as slaves of Sultan Iltutmish (r. AD 1211–36) [1]. He bought them, trained them and gave them high posts. After his death they became the real power behind the throne, until Balban, who had himself been one of the Forty, broke their power.

The group matters because it shows the main weakness of early Sultanate rule. There was no fixed rule for who would be the next sultan. So whoever controlled the army and the nobles could make or unmake a sultan.

Explanation

Background: why Iltutmish created the Forty

• The first rulers of Delhi were Mamluks ('Slave dynasty'). A mamluk was a soldier bought as a slave, trained for war, and later freed and promoted. Qutb-ud-din Aibak rose this way [3].
• Iltutmish, Aibak's son-in-law and successor [1], had also been a slave once. He needed nobles he could trust completely.
• His solution was to build his own circle of loyal slave-officers:
• He bought young Turkish slaves and trained them as soldiers and officers.
• He promoted them to top posts as governors, army commanders and holders of iqta (a piece of land whose revenue an officer collected in place of a salary).

• Because they owed everything to him, he expected them to stay loyal to him and to his family.

• Later writers called this circle the "Forty". The number was probably a round figure, not an exact headcount.

Main features

• Turkish and slave in origin. Members were mostly Turks who had first been bought as slaves (bandagan, meaning slaves bound to a master).
• A closed club. They kept the highest offices among themselves. They looked down on non-Turkish nobles, Indian Muslims and freeborn newcomers.
• Loyal to the master, not to his family. Their loyalty was personal to Iltutmish. After he died, it did not pass on to his children.
• Equals among themselves. Each member saw himself as equal to the others. So none of them happily accepted another as master. This made them rivals as much as allies.

How their power grew after Iltutmish (1236–1266)

• They became kingmakers. Iltutmish's children sat on the throne one after another, but the Forty decided who stayed and who went.
• Razia (r. 1236–40), Iltutmish's daughter, tried to rule on her own. She promoted non-Turkish nobles, such as the Abyssinian Yaqut, to high posts. The Turkish nobles turned against her, and she was overthrown and killed.
• Weak sultans followed: Bahram Shah, then Masud Shah. Each was removed when the nobles wanted it.
• Under Nasir-ud-din Mahmud (r. 1246–66), real power lay with Balban as naib (deputy, the real ruler on the sultan's behalf).
• This fits the larger pattern in the study note: violent succession was the norm, and nearly two sultans out of three took power by removing the ruler before them.

Results: how Balban broke the Forty

• Balban became sultan himself (r. 1266–87). Because he had been one of the Forty, he knew exactly how dangerous they were.
• His steps against them:
• He punished powerful nobles harshly for small faults, removed some and had others killed. This was his "blood and iron" policy.
• He set up a network of spies (barids) to report on every noble.

• He raised the sultan far above the nobles through his theory of kingship. The sultan was the zil-i-ilahi ("shadow of God on earth"), and he brought in court rituals such as sijda (lying face-down before the ruler) and paibos (kissing the ruler's feet).

• Result: the Forty lost their power as a group, and the crown became stronger than the nobility.

• The long-term cost: with the experienced Turkish nobles gone, the Mamluk line was weak after Balban's death. In 1290, Jalal-ud-din Firuz Khalji seized power and founded the Khilji dynasty [3]. This also ended the Turkish nobles' monopoly on high office.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: 13th century, under the Mamluk ('Slave') dynasty, the first of the five Delhi dynasties. Formed under Iltutmish (AD 1211–36) [1]. Most powerful c. 1236–1266. Broken under Balban.
• Place: the court at Delhi, and the iqtas the nobles held across north India.
• Key people: Iltutmish (founder), Razia (opposed by them), Nasir-ud-din Mahmud (ruled while they were strong), and Balban (a member who later destroyed them).
• How we know:
• Minhaj-us-Siraj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, written at Nasir-ud-din Mahmud's court, describes Iltutmish's slave-officers one by one.
• Ziauddin Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, written about a century later, is the main source for the name "the Forty" and for Balban's struggle against them.

• Some historians therefore doubt that the Forty was a formal body of exactly forty men. They read it as Barani's label for Iltutmish's senior Turkish slave-nobles.

• Linked monument: the tomb of Iltutmish stands in the Qutb Minar complex, Delhi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site [2].

Don't confuse with

• Mamluk ('Slave') dynasty. This is the ruling house, from Aibak onwards. The Forty were nobles under that dynasty, not the dynasty itself.
• Iqta system. Iqta was a way of paying officers with land revenue. The Forty were the people who held the biggest iqtas. One is a system, the other a group.
• Mughal mansabdars. Mansabdars were officers ranked in a graded order created by the emperor. The Forty were a closed Turkish slave-noble club that could overthrow the sultan.
• Balban vs Alauddin Khalji. Both kept nobles under tight control with spies. But it was Balban who destroyed the Forty, and he had once been a member of the group.

Prelims Hooks

• The Forty (Turkan-i-Chahalgani / Chalisa) was formed under Iltutmish (AD 1211–36) [1]. It was not formed under Aibak or Balban.
• The Forty was destroyed by Balban, who had himself been a member. This is a common "which of the following" trap.
• Razia was overthrown mainly because the Turkish nobles opposed her promotion of non-Turks, such as Yaqut.
• The name "the Forty" comes mainly from Ziauddin Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi. Iltutmish's slaves are also described in Minhaj-us-Siraj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri.
• Balban's kingship ideas: zil-i-ilahi, sijda, paibos, used to raise the crown above the nobles.
• The Forty belong to the Mamluk period, the first in the order Mamluk → Khilji → Tughlaq → Sayyid → Lodi.

Mains Points

• The struggle between crown and nobility explains Sultanate instability.
• With no fixed law of succession, armed nobles decided who ruled.

• The Forty made and unmade Iltutmish's heirs. This matches the study note's pattern: nearly two in three sultans seized power by removing the ruler before them, and reigns averaged about nine years.

• Balban's solution worked in the short term but backfired later.

• Balban crushed the Forty with harsh punishment, spies and a godlike idea of kingship, and the crown grew strong.

• But wiping out the experienced Turkish nobles left the dynasty weak. Within a few years the Khiljis seized power in 1290 [3], which widened the ruling class beyond Turks.

• Historians disagree about the Forty. Barani wrote about a century later and had his own views on noble birth, so some historians see "the Forty" as a later label rather than a fixed body of forty men. A good GS-I answer uses the term but notes that it rests mainly on Barani.

Related concepts

• Delhi Sultanate
• Mamluk dynasty
• Iltutmish
• Sultan Ghari
• Raziya Sultan
• Ghiyasuddin Balban
• Theory of kingship of Balban
• Sijda and paibos
• Sayyid dynasty
• Lodi dynasty

Read more

• The five dynasties and the character of Sultanate rule