Q1.
Looking at Fig. 2.6, why do you think Ala-ud-din Khilji called himself ‘the second Alexander’?
Answer
Because he was claiming to be a world-conqueror — and he was making that claim on the one object that reaches everybody: money.
Look carefully at what Fig. 2.6 actually shows. It is a silver coin — a tanka of about 10.7 grams, photographed from both sides. Both faces are filled edge to edge with writing in the Persian script inside a plain border. There is no portrait, no crown, no picture of a battle — only words. One of those words is the title the caption translates: Sikander Sani, ‘the second Alexander’.
Three things follow from that:
- Who Alexander was, to him. Alexander came from the west, conquered the Persian empire and reached the Indus. For a ruler in Delhi whose court language was Persian, Alexander was the standard measure of conquest. To call yourself the second Alexander is not to claim to be like him — it is to claim to be his successor in world conquest.
- What he had just done. The title fits his record. At the turn of the 14th century he campaigned over large areas of north and central India, sacked and plundered many cities, and repelled several invasions by Mongol forces who were trying to add India to the Mongol Empire — which then covered most of Asia. Meanwhile his slave-general Malik Kafur carried the Sultanate's reach southward.
- Why on a coin. A coin is the cheapest and widest advertisement a medieval ruler had. It passes from hand to hand in every market, is kept, hoarded and carried across borders, and it outlives the ruler. A title struck into silver announces itself thousands of times a day without a single herald.
Why it happens: a ruler who takes power by force needs to explain why he should be obeyed. Ala-ud-din Khilji could not claim an ancient royal line — the Khiljis had themselves displaced the Mamluks. So he claimed something a lineage cannot give: the standing of the greatest conqueror the Persian world remembered. Titles like this were arguments about legitimacy, not descriptions.
How to read a source like this: the coin is strong evidence for what Ala-ud-din wanted people to believe, and weak evidence for what he actually achieved. Compare it with the title Gajapati, Narapati or Ashwapati on page 32 — every dynasty of the period advertised itself through a name.