Raziyya Sultana
Raziyya was the only woman to rule the Delhi Sultanate, and she was explicit that the objection to her was that she was a woman. Her father Iltutmish had consolidated the sultanate his own father-in-law founded, obtained recognition from the caliph in Baghdad, and introduced the silver tanka. He nominated her as his successor over his surviving sons, on the stated ground that they were incapable, which the nobility ignored on his death in 1236 in favour of her brother. Her brother lasted seven months. She appealed directly to the population of Delhi against the court, and was put on the throne by something close to a popular acclamation - a route to power the Turkish military aristocracy had not anticipated and did not accept. She ruled for about three and a half years. She dropped the veil, appeared in court in the tunic and headdress of a man, rode at the head of her own army, and had coins struck in her name. She also promoted men from outside the Turkish nobility - including an Abyssinian, Jamal al-Din Yaqut, made master of the stables - and it was the relationship with him, real or alleged, that gave her enemies their pretext. A revolt of the provincial governors deposed her in 1240. She married one of them, tried to recover the throne by force, was defeated and killed. The historian Minhaj, who knew her, wrote that she had every quality of a king except birth as a man, and that this was of no use to her.
- Lived: 1205 CE – 1240 CE
- Nationality: Indian
- Roles: head_of_state
