"Din! Din! Fateh Mahomed!" once and for all overcame the Hindu war-cry of, "Victory, Victory!" In the years to come success and failure were to attend both; but only in detail. The great issue between Brahmanism and Mahomedism was fought out on the vast Karnâl battle-plain in A.D. 1193, when, as the chronicler of Islâm says,
"one desperate charge carried death and destruction throughout the Hindu ranks. The disorder increased everywhere, till at length the panic became general. The Moslems, as if they now only began to be in earnest, committed such havoc, that this prodigious army once shaken, like a great building tottered to its fall, and was lost in its own ruins."
How many thousand pagans "went below?" Who knows? But one is sure that Mahomed Shahâb-ud-din duly praised God from whom all blessings flow. His subsequent atrocities prove that he must have relied on something which he deemed Divine Guidance; mere humanity could never have been so cruel.
Half Râjput chivalry lay dead under the stars, but the flower of it was hiding in the sugar-cane brakes, stealing his way back to Delhi, to the Princess Sunjogâta his wife, who, as she had watched him go forth, lance in rest, his sword buckled on by her own steady hands, had said with foreboding courage to her maidens: "In Yoginâpur (Delhi) I shall see him no more: we will meet in Swarga." The tale of what happened is almost beyond telling.
Prithvi Râjah was murdered in cold blood, murdered ignominiously. The Princess Fortunata escaped a like, or a worse, fate by a funeral pyre, and Delhi was given over to such hideous devils work as even that long-suffering city has never seen before or since. The followers of the Prophet wiped out their own and their God's disgrace in torrents of blood, filled their pockets by the way, went on to Ajmîr, enacted a like tragedy, and so returned northwards when the pink clouds of the low-lying groves of dâkh trees began to blossom about the battle-field where the sun of the Hindus had set for ever.
But Mahomed Shahâb-ud-din left his pet Turki slave Kutb-din-Eîbuk behind him at Delhi, and he, assuming almost regal honours, "compelled all the districts around to acknowledge the faith of Islâm."
How many murders go to the making of a Moslem is a question which might fairly be asked. Converts, however, hardly came in fast enough for Shahâb-ud-din's zeal, so the next year saw him back again to help his slave in crushing the Râjah of Kanauj, who, doubtless, had not been of Prithvi-Râj's host. Thence he marched to Benares, in which hot-bed of idolatry he thoroughly enjoyed himself by smashing the idols in a thousand temples, which he subsequently purified by prayer and purgation, and thereinafter consecrated to the worship of the true God.
This was his last real outing, for Fate--can it have been that she dissociated herself from his doubtful use of the white flag--began to play him false. His slave-viceroy showed inclination to plunder on his own behalf, and though the master once more returned to India, it was but a flying visit, apparently to check independence. To no avail, for Kutb-din-Eîbuk, "ambitious of extending his conquests, led an army into Râjputana, where, having experienced severe defeat, he was compelled to seek protection in the fort at Ajmîr."
For the fighting spirit in the Râjput was not to be quenched by blood, or burned out by fire. It was to flame up fiercely for many a century to come, until the wisdom of Akbar won it over to his side.
Mahomed Shahâb-ud-din's hands were, however, too full to permit of his giving much attention to India. His brother, Ghiâss-ud-din, the mere figure-head of a king, died in A.D. 1202, and though Shahâb-ud-din was crowned in his stead without any opposition, bad luck seemed to attend him afterwards. His army was literally cut down to a mere body-guard of a hundred troopers in Khorassan, and though his fortunes were recovered in some measure, his time seems to have been taken up in quelling the rebellions of his favourite slaves whom he had promoted to honour.