100 Delhi Sultanate of human actions and emotion in this Christian epic The poem has a ternary structure, which highlights the importance of the number 3, associated with the theological concept of the Trinity He began writing the epic in 1307 or 1308 In the Venetian edition of 1555, the work became known as the Divine Comedy, as it is commonly referred to today This relates to Dante’s view of his work as the “sacred poem.” The poem, with over 14,000 lines of verse, tells of a pilgrim’s fictional journey from hell to purgatory to paradise, in the year 1300 The pilgrim descends to Hell on Good Friday, only to leave it on Easter Sunday to reach Purgatory Three days later he passes through the Earthly Paradise, before rising up to the limits of the universe to witness ethereal Godly visions See also Italian Renaissance Further reading: Cosmo, Umberto A Handbook in Dante Studies Oxford: Blackwell, 1960; Quinones, Ricardo J Dante Alighieri Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1998; Scott, John A Understanding Dante Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004 Nurfadzilah Yahaya Delhi Sultanate The influx of Muslim Turks into the Indian subcontinent began in the 11th and 12th centuries It was spearheaded by a series of military dynasties, including the Ghaznavids, who ruled parts of Persia and invaded northern India, and the Ghurids, who started off as allies of the great Ghazanavid ruler Mahmud of Ghazni, but broke away after his death in 1030 and conquered much of northern India for themselves Aibak, a Turk born in Central Asia and taken to Nishapur as a slave of the Ghurid ruling house, served as a Ghurid administrator from 1192 until 1206, when he was freed and named sultan, or ruler, of a new dynasty based in the city of Delhi by his former masters While in the service of the Ghurids, he led a series of military campaigns in India, expanding the empire’s territory significantly and subjugating most of the land between the Indus and Ganges Rivers Aibak’s reign, during which he spent the majority of his time trying to establish political institutions and geographic boundaries, was relatively short and he died in 1210 Aibak was succeeded by his son, Aram in Lahore, who had little experience in politics and was overthrown and killed in 1211 by Aibak’s son-in-law, Shams ud-Din Iltutmish, who was favored by the army Immediately upon assuming control of the sultanate, Iltutmish was faced with military challenges from both the neighboring Ghaznavids and the Muslim state in Sind In a series of wars against them, Iltutmish reasserted his authority and by 1228 had conquered all of Sind According to the Muslim historian Ibn Batuta, Iltutmish was the first ruler of Delhi to reign independently of a larger state and in 1228–29 he received emissaries from the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, the premier Muslim state, at least in name, of this period Under his leadership, the Delhi Sultanate escaped destruction when the Mongol leader Genghis Khan swept westward through Central Asia Iltutmish died in 1236 and was succeeded by a series of weak rulers and the Turkish nobility, nicknamed “the Forty,” who controlled the sultanate’s most important provinces His son Rukn ad-Din Firuz Shah ruled for seven months before being deposed by his sister, Raziyya, whom their father had initially chosen as the new ruler before his death The sultana had been trained in political administration during periods when her father went off on military campaigns and left her in charge of maintaining the government Raziyya encountered stiff opposition from many of the sultanate’s officials, and she was overthrown in 1240 Iltutmish’s youngest son, Mu‘izz ad-Din Bahram Shah, ascended the throne and worked to strengthen the northern frontier against the Mongols He stopped an attempt by his sister to regain control of the sultanate However he too was overthrown in 1242 by senior government officials and was subsequently executed The new sultan, Nasir ud-Din Mahmud, was a recluse and granted political authority to Ghiyath ad-Din Balban, his slave and future son-in-law Under Balban, the sultanate continued to ward off Mongol raiding parties and stopped revolts by rebellious Hindu rulers When Sultan Nasir ud-Din, who had no children, died in 1265, Balban formally assumed the title of sultan, ruling for two decades until 1286 The sultanate’s army was reorganized and improved under Balban and he ordered the construction of forts in and around Lahore in order to present a defensive line against the Mongol leader Hulagu Khan, who had invaded Iran in 1256 and was actively campaigning throughout Persia and the Arab Middle East during the second half of the 1250s Between 1280 and 1283 one of the sultanate’s governors, Tughril, rebelled against Balban and the sultan led a military campaign against him, which resulted in the governor’s death during a raid by Balban’s forces on his camp The early period of the Delhi Sultanate came to an end in 1290 when Balban’s son, Bughra Khan, refused