Qutb-ud-din is best remembered for his destruction of Hindu and Jain temples and for building mosques.
Iltutmish
Although Qutb-ud-din's son Aram Baksh inherited the throne in 1210 following the death of his father, he quickly proved himself to be incompetent. Following an abbreviated reign, Qutb-ud-din's son-in-law, Shamsuddin Iltutmish, assumed power.
Iltutmish had come to Delhi as a slave. After gaining the confidence of his master, Qutb-ud-din, he rose to become a provincial governor. Upon Qutb-ud-din's death, Iltutmish had the backing of the Amirs--the Turkish nobility--to succeed Qutb-ud-din as sultan.
At the time of Iltutmish's death in 1236, he had been in power for 26 years. As sultan, he had consolidated Turkish control of northern India and his empire extended from Prashar in the northwest to the Brahmaputra River in Bengal and Gujurat and Orissa in the south. Iltutmish had introduced important reforms to the Delhi sultanate--including a monarchy, a ruling class, and coinage--and had left a legacy as a patron of the arts.
Razia Sultana
Iltutmish became the first sultan to appoint a woman as his successor when he designated his daughter Razia as his heir apparent. (According to one source, Iltumish's eldest son had initially been groomed as his successor, but had died prematurely.) But the Muslim nobility had no intention of acceding to Iltutmish's disregard of tradition in appointing a woman as heir, and after the sultan died on April 29, 1236, Razia's brother, Ruknuddin Feroze Shah, was elevated to the throne instead.
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