Delhi’s Only Female Ruler: Razia Sultan

Razia was the daughter of Sultan Shams ud Din Iltutmish of the Mamluk Dynasty who ruled Delhi, India in the 13th century. The third of the Mamluk kings, he was actually the first Muslim sovereign to rule from Delhi, and is therefore considered the effective founder of the Delhi Sultanate (an area or kingdom). 

Iltutmish was unusual in the fact that he gave an equal education to his daughter as well as his three sons. This education centred in warfare (such as martial arts and archery) and administration; essential at a time when numerous rivals battled for the right to lead and war was the path to kingship. He was a great leader himself, saving Delhi and Lahore from the Mongols when Genghis Khan descended to the region in 1219.

According to tradition, Iltutmish chose his eldest son, Nasiruddin, to succeed him. However, Nasiruddin unfortunately died prematurely and, veering from tradition, Iltutmish decided to bestow leadership upon his daughter instead of one of his other sons. His sons were known for their pursuit of hedonism, rather than their leadership skills, so it made sense to pass the throne to Razia. But even though Razia was the most competent of potential successors, she was still a woman. Upon her father’s death, his Muslim advisors refused to accept Iltutmish’s wishes and instead passed the throne to her half-brother Raknuddin Firuz Shah. 

Though nominally in charge, it was in fact still a woman who controlled the state - his mother, Shah Turkan. She attempted to have Razia assassinated, but it failed and both Shah Turkan and Firuz were themselves assassinated just six months later, leaving Razia to ascend to the throne in November 1236. In power for approximately four years, Razia Sultan proved to be as good a leader as her father, if not better. She expanded the state’s territory, founded research centres and public libraries and fostered peace, prosperity and the pursuit of knowledge in philosophy, science, literature and more. 

As one can imagine, Razia Sultan was very unconventional for the time. She adopted masculine attire in the court and battlefield and refused to go by ‘Sultana’, a word that denotes the wife or mistress of a Sultan, instead taking the title of ‘Sultan’. Of course, her success combined with the fact of her gender brought her many enemies. When rumours began to circulate that Razia Sultan had fallen in love with an African slave of the court, Jamaluddin Yaqut, it was enough for the kadis (judges) to rule that she had violated Shariah law and should step down as leader.

Unsurprisingly, given what we know of her, Razia Sultan did not accept this fate. She marched to battle to challenge the Turkish general Altuniya (sometimes written as Iltuniah) who was to be her successor. She was defeated in battle and taken prisoner but, in a classic enemies-to-lovers scenario, Altuniya fell for Razia and together they tried to take back Delhi. However, fate was no longer on her side and she was once again defeated. The narratives differ as to how exactly Razia Sultan died. One account claims that, exhausted and fleeing the battlefield, she was robbed and murdered by a farmer as she slept in his barn. Another states that she was murdered by bandits while asleep under a tree. Whatever the case, we do know that she was murdered towards the end of 1240, ending her reign and her brief 35 years of life. 

Razia Sultan is now buried in the area she ruled over for four short years. The tomb can be reached through a narrow alleyway in the Bulbuli Khana neighbourhood of Old Delhi. Neglected and ignored, it seems a sad final resting place for the first and last female leader of the Delhi Sultanate.