Qutubuddin Aibek was one of the trusted slave officers of Muhammad Ghori. After the latter's death, Aibek inherited his Indian possessions and set up as an independent ruler with his headquarters at Lahore. He thus laid the foundation of the first independent Turkish kingdom in northern India, whose boundaries extended from the north-west frontier to Bihar and Bengal in the east. It was untangled by Aibek from the apron strings of the Ghaznavid Empire.
Qutubuddin Aibek was a Turk of the Aibek tribe, which, in the Turkish language, means 'Lord of the Moon'. It was so named because of the handsome and attractive features of its men and women, though Qutubuddin himself was rather ugly in appearance. He was taken prisoner and sold as a slave while yet a boy to a kind-hearted ghazi of Nishapur (Persia). He received education in Islamic theology and learned horse riding and swordsmanship along with the sons of his master. After the death of the latter, his sons sold him off to Muhammad Ghori.
Aibek caught the fancy of his new master because of his martial qualities and intelligence. Very shortly, he was promoted Amir-i-Akhur—'the master of the royal stables'. He rose to prominence during the Indian campaigns of Muhammad Ghori. After his victory over Prithvi Raj III, the Chauhan ruler of Delhi and Ajmer, in 1192, Muhammad Ghori appointed Aibek as the viceroy of his Indian possessions. He set up his military headquarters at Indraprastha, near Delhi, and extended the dominions of his master by continuous warfare against the Rajput chieftains of northern India.
Aibek strengthened his position by entering into matrimonial alliances with other distinguished nobles of Muhammad Ghori. Tajuddin Yaldoz, the leader of all the slave officers of Muhammad Ghori, gave his daughter in marriage to Qutubuddin at the bidding of his imperial master. Aibek gave his sister in marriage to Nasiruddin Qabacha, another slave officer of Muhammad Ghori who held charge of Sind. Qutubuddin's daughter was married to Iltutmish, one of his own Turkish slave officers.
Aibek raised a huge standing army and, during the lifetime of Muhammad Ghori, established his hold practically over the whole of northern India.
Muhammad Ghori could not name his successor because of his sudden death; his empire was, therefore, parcelled out among the Ghurid nobles and slave officers. More than three months after the death of Muhammad Ghori, Qutubuddin Aibek assumed reins of government as an independent ruler at Lahore on June 24, 1206. He started his reign with the modest titles of 'Malik' and 'Sipahasalar', which had been conferred upon him by Muhammad Ghori much earlier.
He did not strike coins nor had the khutba read in his name. He did not assume the title of Sultan either; it was because he had not received formal manumission from Muhammad Ghori and, as a shrewd man, he did not want to arouse the jealousies of Turkish nobility as well as the Muslim populace by assuming royal insignia while still technically a slave in the eyes of Islamic law.
In 1208–1209, Aibek went to Ghazni at the invitation of its people and held it under his occupation for a short while. It was there that Ghiyasuddin Mahmud, the nephew and legal successor of Muhammad Ghori, who was content with his rule over the ancestral principality of Ghur, sent deeds of manumission and investiture to Qutubuddin and conferred upon him the title of 'Sultan'.
Qutubuddin Aibek was a brave, energetic, and capable military general. He rendered a yeoman's service to Muhammad Ghori in the conquest of northern India and founded the first independent Turkish dynasty; he ruled for four years only. During this period, he did not make fresh conquests because his entire attention was devoted to the establishment of law and order and strengthening of his army of occupation. His main objective was to establish a separate entity of the infant Turkish state in India, whose existence depended upon its military strength and the fixation of its specific frontiers.
In order to achieve this objective, he kept himself aloof from Central Asian politics and offered tough resistance to the rulers of Ghazni and other Turkish nobles, including Tajuddin Yaldoz, who asserted their claims of sovereignty over Hindustan. Qutubuddin Aibek established friendly relations with the rival Turkish nobles and slave officers of Muhammad Ghori who held important military-cum-political assignments in India and brought them under his subordination through persuasion or force.
He avoided clashes with the Rajput chiefs who were eager to recover their lost territories and regain independence. Soon after his accession to the throne, the Chandelas recovered Kalinjar, and the Pratiharas snatched Gwalior from the hands of the Turks. Similarly, the Gahadavala chief Harish Chandra reoccupied some territories in the Badaun region, but Aibek could do very little about it. Large areas within the heart of the Turkish dominions were held by the Hindu chieftains, whom Aibek failed to bring under his effective control. His task was only half-done when, in 1210, he died from a sudden fall from a horse at Lahore while playing Chaugan (polo). He was buried at Lahore.
Though not a brilliant administrator, Qutubuddin Aibek protected the life and property of his subjects and laid the rudiments of civil administration through the agency of his military officers. Local administration was left in the hands of the village panchayats and other local agencies of the pre-Muslim era. He granted partial civil liberties to the Hindus in return for the payment of Jaziya and was known as the 'just monarch' among his co-religionists.
Qutubuddin Aibek was a man of letters; he possessed high moral character and refined tastes. He extended patronage to the learned; Hasan Nizami and Fakhr-e-Mudabbir dedicated their books to him. Very generous and kind-hearted, Qutubuddin Aibek earned the title of Lakhdata or Lakhbaksh ('giver of lakhs') because of his liberal distribution of money in charity to the poor and the needy.
He showed some taste for architecture by building two mosques—one at Delhi and the other at Ajmer. He laid the foundation of the first of the so-called 'seven cities' of medieval Delhi by constructing buildings in the vicinity of the old Rajput fort, called Qila-i-Rai Pithora. He started the construction of the Qutub Minar (in 1199 A.D.), the tallest stone tower in India (238 feet in height), in honour of Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, a famous Sufi saint of his times; it was completed by Iltutmish.
Qutubuddin Aibek was succeeded by his inexperienced and incapable son Aram Shah, who ruled at Lahore for about eight months before being defeated and deposed by Iltutmish.
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