Balban

(i) Ghiyas-ud-din Balban first acted as naib (deputy) to the Sultan and later as Sultan and ruled from 1266 to 1287.

(ii) Balban stressed the special position of Sultan as 'Shadow of God' (Zill-al-Allah) on earth. 

(iii) Balban emphasised court splendour, decorum and etiquette. He also believed in severe setting example punishments even to the nobles.

(iv) Balban's immediate successors, however, were unable to manage either the administration or the intergroup conflicts between the old Turkish nobility and the new forces, led by the Khaljis.

The Khaljis

(i) Under the Khaljis external policy of conquest and internal methods of absolute control were followed through military expeditions and regulations.

(ii) The Khaljis used their Afghan descent to win the loyalties of the discontented nobles, who felt that they had been neglected by the earlier Sultans.

(iii) Jalaluddin Khalji was the first ruler to put forward the view that the state should be based on the willing support of the governed and that since the majority of Indians were Hindus, the state cannot be truly Islamic.

(iv) During the reign of Alauddin Khalji, the sultanate briefly assumed the status of an empire.

(v) Centralization and heavy agrarian taxation were the principal features of Alauddin's rule.

(vi) The magnitude and mechanism of agrarian taxation enabled the Sultan to achieve two important objectives:

(a) to ensure supplies at low prices to grain carriers (b) to fill the state granaries with a buffer stock, which, linked with his famous price regulations, came as a solution to the critical financial problem of maintaining a large standing army.