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This article is about the film. For the monarch, see Razia Sultana. For the 2015 television series, see Razia Sultan (serial).

1983 Indian Hindi-Urdu film directed by Kamal Amrohi

Razia Sultan is a 1983 Indianperiodbiographical film, written and directed by Kamal Amrohi, and starring Hema Malini, Parveen Babi and Dharmendra in lead roles. Upon release, it was a box office disaster, mainly due to its high production value. It was the most expensive Indian film made until then.

N.B. Kulkarni won the Filmfare Award for Best Art Direction, the only win for the film. Khayyam received a Filmfare nomination for Best Music Director. Lyrics were by Jan Nisar Akhtar and two songs picturized on Dharmendra as Yakut Jamaluddin, Abyssinian slave by Nida Fazli; one song by Kaifi Azmi; both walked into the project when Akhtar died. Some songs were sung by Lata Mangeshkar, including "Aye Dil-e Nadaan". Kamal Amrohi shot some scenes of Razia Sultan in Tonk between 1981-82.

Plot

The film is based on the life of Razia Sultan (1205–1240), the only female Sultan of Delhi (1236–1240) and her speculated love affair with the Abyssinian slave, Jamal-ud-Din Yakut.

Cast

Soundtrack

It was the second time that Khayyam worked for a Kamal Amrohi's film. Earlier he had given music for Shankar Hussain, a movie produced by Amrohi. There is a story as to how Kamal got liking for Khayyam's music. Once Kamal Amrohi and his wife Meena Kumari liked a song that they had listened to on the radio. The song was "Parbaton Ke Pedon Par" and was sung by Mohammed Rafi and Suman Kalyanpur. Later on, they learned that this song was composed by Khayyam for a movie called Shagoon (1964). However, by the time Razia Sultan went on the shooting floors, Laxmikant–Pyarelal became the most-sought-after music director duo. So, Kamal Amrohi signed them. But, he did not like one fast-paced tune composed by the duo for the fil

Razia Sultana of Delhi (1205-1240)

Contributed by Prof. Dr. Nazeer Ahmed, PhD.

Islam liberated men and women from the shackles of slavery and made them masters of the world. The history of the Mamlukes illustrates this observation. In the 9th and 10th centuries, there was a brisk slave trade down the Volga River, near the Caspian Sea. The Vikings raided Europe with unrelenting ferocity in search of booty and slaves. Eastern Europe, fossilized as it was between local fiefdoms, was a particular target of these raids. Men, women and children were captured in northern and eastern Europe, brought down the Volga River and sold to Muslim and Jewish merchants. The celebrated writer Ibn Fadlan (d 960 CE) gives a graphic picture of the deplorable conditions in the Viking slave ships.

The root word in Arabic for Mamluke is m-l-k (malaka, to own). The European slaves were in great demand in Muslim courts because the men made excellent soldiers and the women were sought for their fair skin. Young Mamluke men were trained in special camps as bodyguards, taught the precepts of Islam and inducted into the army. The Spanish court of Cordoba as well as the Fatimid court in Cairo employed Mamluke bodyguards. However, it was with the rise of the Turks that the Mamlukes came into their own. The Turks displaced the Arabs and the Persians from the centers of power in Asia during the 9th and 10th centuries and became kingmakers. As the Mamlukes were inducted into the armies and the Turks dominated the armed forces, the slaves came to be referred to as Mamluke Turks. Some of the slaves were from Turkish tribes (prior to their conversion to Islam) in which case there was both an affinity of blood with their Turkish owners as well as an affinity of profession.

According to the Shariah, a Muslim may not hold another Muslim as a slave. Therefore, as the Mamlukes became Muslim, they became free men and women, with full privileges accorded to all believers. In an age when the p

A descendant of the Moslems of Turkish extraction who invaded India in the eleventh century, Razia (died 1240) was the only woman ever crowned in the Delhi sultanate, which ruled parts of India from 1210 to 1526. Razia reigned for approximately three and a half years (1236-1240), and although she made important reforms in government, she was ultimately unable to reconcile her Muslim nobility to her ruling as a woman.

The Delhi Sultanate

In 1192 A.D., the Turkish leader, Muhammad of Ghur, defeated the Rajputs at the second battle of Tarain, gaining control of the Kingdom of Delhi. After establishing his reign, Ghur returned to Afghanistan, leaving his conquest in the hands of his trusted slave, Qutb-ud-din Aibak. When Ghur died in 1206 without leaving an heir, Qutb-uddin declared himself Sultan of Delhi. Qutb-ud-din's reign marked the beginning of the Delhi sultanate under the Slave dynasty—so named because many of the sultans of this time were former slaves. 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 l