Sultan Iltutmish, having captured territories in Bengal,…
1236 CE
Sultan Iltutmish, having captured territories in Bengal, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Sind, dies in 1236, having become the first sultan to appoint a woman as his successor when he designated his daughter Razia as his heir apparent.
The Muslim nobility has no intention of acceding to Iltutmish's appointment of a woman as heir, and after the sultan dies on April 29, 1236, Razia's brother, Rukn ud din Firuz, is elevated to the throne instead.
Ruknuddin's reign is short.
With Iltutmish's widow Shah Turkaan for all practical purposes running the government, Ruknuddin abandons himself to the pursuit of personal pleasure and debauchery, to the outrage of the citizenry.
Both Ruknuddin and his mother Shah Turkaan are assassinated on November 9, 1236, by the elite group of forty nobles, Chihalgani ("the Forty"), after only six months in power.
With reluctance, the nobility agrees to allow Razia to reign as Sultan of Delhi.