KHIZR KHAN AND DEVAL DEVI – A LOVE LOST FROM DAY ONE

KHIZR KHAN AND DEVAL DEVI
A LOVE LOST FROM DAY ONE

Battle between father and son

Tomb of Alauddin Khilji
Tomb of Alauddin Khilji

Sultan Allauddin Khilji was a remarkable man. Like all other Sultan, the Hindu writers have painted a horrible image of him, contrary to the facts. In a remarkable book (1990) on the Sultan, Dr Ghulam Sarwar Khan Niazi has done away with all the wrongs falsely attributed to that man.

Sultan Allauddin Khilji
Sultan Allauddin Khilji

Amir Khusrow in 1316 (revised 1318 after death of Khizr Khan) wrote a MASNAVI that is a poem, by the name of ASHIQA, on the tragic romance of Khizr Khan and Deval Devi. A very complicated relation. Sultan Alauddin Khilji was not on good terms with his wife Mahru, who was mistreating him all the time. Allauddin Khilji fell in love with a Hindu Princess Kamla Devi, and married her. Sultan Allauddin had an eldest son, who was his heir and his name was Khizr Khan (Mahru’s son). Kamla Devi had a daughter from a Hindu Raja from previous marriage. Queen Kamla Devi requested Sultan Allauddin to get her beloved daughter back from her ex-husband and the Sultan sent his army to retrieve her from her father. The mother and daughter moved into the palace, and the Prince fell in love with the daughter of his mother. Although they were not brother and sister, yet the relation was very complicated. Khizr was so hopelessly in love with Deval Devi, that he ran away with her. Kamla Devi did not like that, and disallowed this relation. The Sultan too voted against the relation, but Khizr Khan disobeyed even his own father on the matter. Queen Mahru resented both Kamla Devi and now resented her daughter even more. She insisted that her son Khizr Khan marry her niece, the daughter of Alp Khan. Khizr Khan succumbed but soon fell ill. Queen Mahru seeing the possibility of losing her son agreed to the other marriage finally. The eunuch Kafur Khan intrigued against them, and removed people from power. Mubarak Shah rebelled against those in power, and first put Kafur Khan to death, and then he had Khizr Khan murdered. Then to spite the memory of this love, he took Deval Devi forcibly in his harem as a slave girl. The end was most tragic. It is the first famous romance of a Muslim Prince with a Hindu Princess, and is a celebration of that relation in the tradition of famous love legends. The end result was a natural tragedy.

Khizr Khan Deval Devi
Khizr Khan Deval Devi

Legend has it that Khizr Khan and Deval Devi love for each other was phenomenal. He had taken her to Delhi, and fell in the intrigues of the Court. He sacrificed an empire for her. So much fabricated stories exist about this episode, that none is reliable. The most reliable of course is Amir Khusrow himself, who wrote a poem about the love affair (1295-1320) of the two. And the beautiful part of this narrative is that Khizr Khan had himself requested Amir Khusrow to write about his love affair. And the details of the affair were provided to him by a slave girl of the court. It was written when this thing was still in process. Who won and who lost? That does not matter. For the Sultan responsibility mattered most. For the Prince love mattered more than that. Conflict was a natural outcome. The result the love affair was celebrated with manuscripts of ASHIQA appearing in Indian history from time to time. Emperor Akbar had many Royal copies made, and it is the first illustrated manuscript done at his court. Seals prove that many Emperors were very fond of reading it. In fact it was a favourite even of Emperor Aurangzeb. And people think that he had no appreciation of anything Hindu. Then why he patronized them all the time.

54 thoughts on “KHIZR KHAN AND DEVAL DEVI – A LOVE LOST FROM DAY ONE”

        1. God may bless all those in India too or elsewhere. We are not parochial, we have world view of life.

        1. Wrong word. Integration required mobility. Not all mobility involved violence. Human beings moved due to necessity all the time. No where in the world belongs to anyone particular. It all belongs to Allah. Humanity takes over its destiny. USA was considered a place of Red Indians. Now research has established that there were other people there 30,000 years ago. We are all human beings. Movement should bring tolerance for other ways of life. Moronic rulers instigate violence for petty reasons.

        2. Aditi if you dig deep there’s no such thing as aryan invasion and we have declared 1crore rupees reward who will prove it to us 😁

          1. History pinches everyone is welcome to their versions. The wounds are too deep.

    1. That is the most sexist communalist thing one can hear. Please do not spread such obnoxious and irresponsible comments regarding any women irrespective of religion

  1. whatever it is history is all truth and end result, muslims invaded India never conqured Indian culture. 300 years forced for conversion still India is as proud as old. Fear to god (allah/christ/Bhagwan) whatever name or form, truth is God…. Violence is short lived, false hood is dream in air… momentary … All who ruled with cruelity are buried and life is usual…

    1. You are absolutely wrong there. Muslims converted a class ridden society into an egalitarian one. What could be better than that? Of course there is s much more. If your hype that Muslims were so cruel, most of Hindu population would not have sided with them. Communicate with us. We will educate you. Not one Muslim in Lahore in around 950 AD, and thousands after 1000 AD. And not all came from abroad. Most were from here, when the lower found classes found love and respect from the outsiders rather than their own tyrant Rajas.

      1. dude your answer lies in your own comment , see still around 60% of indian population is under other backward caste or scheduled caste . To make you even more clear let us understand demography and Hindu population which is a Muslim country you can see a drastic down fall in the percentage of Hindu population In Pakistan which can make you better understand how things have been that time if this is now in today’s world

  2. Everyone has heard about the story of the advent of Islam in this region. And everyone has their own view on it. Obviously for us Muslims, Muhammed bin Qasim is the hero, not because he was a Muslim, but he came in form of undoing wrongs committed here. The Muslim women who had requested to be rescued and how they were rescued by this young man, a mere 17 years old. Many ethnically bound here equate Dahir as their hero, for limited ethnic reasons. Here Qasim was the good guy, and it can be judged from his behavior here. No less that the people of SIND worshiped him as a hero and made a life size statue of him in the chowk of their major city.
    Qasim married Ladi, the sister of Raja Dahir, and had two sons. It may surprise people to know that many years after Qasm, his son ruled SIND for a given period of time, all because Qasim had given so much love to Hindu citizens, that they loved him equally in return.
    Has there been such love from the bigoted Narendar Modi to his Muslim citizens?

    1. I beg to differ, in the chronicle of Chachnaama it is clearly written that Quasim had come here not only to stop piracy in Deval but to spread Islam and in doing so he attacked not less than 6 Kingdoms. Do you think? he was punishing these Kings and their subjects for kidnaping those Muslim women.
      This is all bullshit, God, Glory and allah showed to him paty to invade India and as Hindu-peace loving Quasim, I want to refer you to Chachnaama again cause it is written by a Muslim (I know You won’t take any other Hindu source)
      He himself ordered his people to destroy big temples in Deval and Brahimanabad and built Masjid over there.
      There was alot of conversion, all muslims rulers/invaders have record on giving mercy to war prisoner for accepting Islam.

      This clrealy shows Muslim biased nature.

    2. Quasim married Dahir’s second wife, Dahir first wife immolate her self in johar rather than defiled by a muslim.
      Second wife didn’t not have courage to jump into Johar so she decided to succumb to quasim. and offcouse it was beneficial for Dahir to marry a hindu royal lady to gain favour from the subjects.
      It was a great achievment. He was initially a extreamist muslim but later deed revealed that he became somewhat tolerant towards Hindus as he himself started living among them and started to feel that they were Humans too.

      1. The Chach nama is not a complete document and at times show the general knowledge (street gossip) about Sind. But it is a worthy source. It may surprise you to know that Muhammed bin Qasdim did not die as bombasted in Sindhi folklore as being packed in a skin and sent home due to the wile nasture of Dahir’s daughters. He lioved through it. More on that later. Muhammed bin Qasim was so much loved by people that a statue was made of him in the city square in those times, and it may amuse you that even after the Islamic power was gone, his son became RULER OF SIND on his own merit. We will put more things later. Suffice we both enjoy our views but stifling the truth leads nowhere but stunted in abyss of the mind.

      2. In the times of Raja Dahir you could easily marry your sister. Yes, to save his crown Dahir married his sister. Why forget this? Qasim rescued the poor girl from her wretched brother, as well as saved her from the wrath of his soldiers. Chachnama clearly tells us she went with Qasim of her own choice, riding camel out of the fort.

  3. A note from history is in order. Imad ud din Muhammed son of Qasim sent a petition from the Hindus of Sind to the Caliph of Islam, who gave this reply:

    “It appears that the chief inhabitants of Brahmanabad have petitioned to be allowed to repair the temple of Budh and pursue their religion. As they have made submission, and have agreed to pay taxes to the Khalifa, nothing more can be required from them. They have been taken under our protection and we cannot in any way stretch out their hands upon their lives and property. Permission is given to them to worship their gods. Nobody must be forbidden or prevented from following his own religion. They may live in their houses in whatever manner they like.”

    Consider it for a moment. What can be more secular than that?

  4. The culture of Muslims converted millions here into Islam. This pain cannot go away for it is a fact of history. Why crib now after 1200 years!

  5. Our Indian friends have resorted to their traditional way of dealing with intellectual threat, simple abusive language. One gentleman from Ghaziabad UP is trying his luck in spinning street smart abuses. Now you know why there were conversions. Not able to tackle IQ with even EQ. Bhagwan app ko aqal day. Hum nay maaf kiya.

  6. There appear to be some misconceptions about the spread of Islam in the subcontinent on this thread. The certain facts are from the British census of 1881, which indicated that 20 % of British India’s population (today’s India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) was Muslim.

    Census data since then indicates that in the 125 years since then, the Muslim population in the same region has grown to 32 %. Therefore, the most dynamic phase of Muslim population growth in the subcontinent has come in the last 100 years, driven by the general high population growth rates, and particularly high fertility rates among Muslims. This is especially true in the regions that comprise today’s Pakistan, where the population has increased by a factor of 10 in the last 100 years.

    So contrary to the claims made by some on this thread, the period of Turko-Iranian rule in India (lasting nearly 800 years) was not a period of dynamic Muslim population growth in India, although it was a period in which Persian and Islamic culture spread in the subcontinent. On the whole, conversions were rare, and the main groups to convert were those close to the royal circles.

    Despite the egalitarian ideas expressed in the Koran, Islam in India remained a marker of the distinct culture of a ruling elite, or that of elite migrants. Criticisms of native traditions from Muslim scholars in this period tended to focus more on idol-worship than any social inequalities. In fact, Muslim scholar’s as recent as Sir Syed Ahmed Khan were comfortable with the caste system. The caste system is followed by South Asian Muslims as well, and there is an active movement in India to obtain affirmative action for low caste Muslims as there is for low caste Hindus.

  7. Here Hindus & Muslims is not a problem everyone ruled as what their heart says .Here only love is the matter and this is the history we don’t no what had happened & situations we have to accept thats it

  8. Wrong. We do our research very well. Our source is Amir Khusrow who was asked to write this tale.Obviously there are as many versions as one can think of. Our reference is of the period of the incident itself. Madam you do your research too.

  9. Delhi, Mumbai and Amritsar, please stop fighting for no reason or rhyme. Khizar and Deval are dead and gone. No one can tell you hundred percent correct version. History is never recorded that fully. Live up to the romantic notion of a couple being in love. Love conquers all. Now you three cities people, respect each others point of view. Love conquers all!

  10. This is absolute rubbish. Kamala devi was captured by Alauddin Khilji and forced to convert to islam and then married to him (forcefully). However, Kamala devi’s daughter Devala devi (from her earlier rajput husband) was not captured. Devala devi was later married off to Shankardev Rao of Devgiri, Maharashtra. However, she was later captured by Alauddin khilji’s son and forcefully converted to islam. She was forcefully married to Khizr Khan and subjected to sexual abuse. Another rajput who was captured by Alauddin Khilji in his campain of gujarat in 1298 was renamed Khusrao Khan and was subjected to sexual abuse by Mubarak Khilji (Alauddin khilji’s son). Khusrao khan later fell in love with devala devi and they plotted to kill Mubarak khilji and take the empire (mubarak khilji had earlier killed his father and taken the throne from him). Khusrao khan then said this once he became emperor:

    ” Till date, Even though I was forced to live as a Muslim, I am still a Hindu in spirit. Hence, I, Sultan of the throne, declare that I am no longer a Muslim. I hereby declare that I am a Hindu. I am the Hindu Samrat (Emperor) of India.. Deval Devi, who also was hindu before she was captured and forcibly converted, is my Wife and henceforth be called as empress of India.”

    So, the actual love story was between Devala devi and Khusrao khan.

  11. Rape a woman and later make court poets to write a poem about their ‘love’.Funny people you are.Learn a bit of true history and live true lives.Truth liberates you.
    Mubarak Khilji was fond of boys and was also fond of dancing in harems crossdressed.He was killed by another Hindu eunuch Khusro Khan who took Deval Devi as his queen and declared himself Hindu again.Ghazi Malik killed Khusro Khan later.
    It was an abduction by Khilji army of Deval Devi not a love story.Stop giving a love story dimension to an abduction,rape and a forced marriage.You may find it ok but to the modern world,it is a crime.

  12. Hahaha..
    Alauddin Khilji had murdered his uncle.. who was his father-in-law too … to userp the throne. What a brilliant man indeed!! What a brilliant family indeed!!!! What a brilliant civilization indeed!!!

  13. I feel we should probe 2 questions here : one, whether Deval was also attracted to one Khizr on her own or did she simply succumb to his advances due to her captivity ;and two , what really happened to her after Khizr’s death because Amir Khusro is silent on both these iss ues.

  14. there is historical evidence that proves that Khizr Khan continued to womanize other girls even after he married Deval Devi

  15. @ARIF RAHMAN CHUGHTAI: do not think that you only have complete knowledge of history. Mugal rule of India was barbaric, millions of hindu males were killed, their women were raped (how disgusting is it to be raped by the killers of your family members, the infamously famous “spoils of war” allowed by religious texts, sick). Millions of hindus were killed in the name or religion (either convert or get killed), thousands of temples were destroyed.
    These are facts and there are enough proofs for the acts mentioned above if you really want to find facts and not to be a part of a propaganda.
    Having said that, we cannot blame Muslims of today for what a barbaric mugals did to hindus in medieval periods .
    And one important addidtion, even today in places like pakistan and bangladesh, many non-muslims girls are forcefully converted and raped by muslim fanatics, can you deny that fact? even in 21st century we are seeing such heinous organised crimes by a few fanatic muslims, goes to tell what the situation might be when fanatic ruled India..

  16. Whatever might be the truth the thing here is that most people r bad here in the whole subcontintent itself.everyone claims to be really good and others really bad.so there s no point fighting.the wrong ones will bite the dust for sure and good will rise like a phoenix.make no mistake.

  17. few rulers were good most were bad who lived for carnal desires and committed atrocities in the name of religion the two philosohies basically differ then why crow-picking? acceptable to one may be detestable to other let everyone follow one’s own creed and beliefs why force and imposition, mr. chagatai said hindu girls are seductive and then blew his horn repeatedly, what is wrong in that yes hindus have been beautiful, attractive, seductive, wealthy, learned, civilized and harmless people who generally never invaded any nation, never converted any person, never raped women and forcibly married, never enslaved children, never demolished places of worship, some got converted who could not prefer death before dishonour others were massacred mulim historians have glorified hidu genocide in their annals, were muslim girls ugly, did not the invaders have bread in their countries, why did they enter in neighbour’s house to pillage why can’t they tolerate a person of different creed are they prompted and incited to kill, loot and construct pillars of human heads, your hero was stitched in ox-hide and dragged to Baghdad by order of Khalifa Walid historians tell us the Sindhi princesses avenged themselves, most mughal kings were cross-breed productions why? were the muslim girls fruitless? so one must not jibe in this fashion, make progress through goodness only these are not medieval times, incivil horsemen, archers, barbarians are lost in the pages of history never to surface therefore change the mindset so that better sense may prevail

    1. SINCE the whole character of muslim world is framed by the eddicts of quraan and hadis that r not changable,the inspirations r the same and the result is therefore,also the same.even today we may expect the same barbaric behavior from this comm.. as witnessed in Syrian isis and BAGDAADI,LET THEY GET A CHANCE.however,this may only be hoped that a better sense will prevail and they will also learn to live with other religions.although the hope is remote only.

  18. Whatever be the cunning politics and cruel wars of those days, the beauty and charms of Deval Devi and her equally beauteous and charming mother, Rani Kamla Devi are legendary in history of Khilji India with the possible exception of Queen Padmini who also was sought by Sultan Allaudin .
    Therefore we must try to find out as to what was so extraordinary in the mother-daughter duo that captivated the imagination of energetic men like Allaudin and his son K hizr Khan leading inter alia to the ruin of a powerful dynasty

  19. Hindus usually don’t marry cousins.This must be a lie to defame a ruler .Arab people who were into the process of colonising were behind this lie.

  20. One example of cruelity by Moghals. The eldest son of Jahangir was Khusrou Mirza and look what his own father and brothers did with him. Visit his tomb at Allahabad(Prayag).
    In 1605, the emperor Akbar died. Akbar had been deeply disappointed with Khusrau’s father Jahangir. Perhaps due to this background, Khusrau rebelled against his father in 1606 to secure the throne for himself.
    Khusrau left Agra on April 6, 1606[14] with 350 horsemen on the pretext of visiting the tomb of Akbar at nearby Sikandra. In Mathura, he was joined by Hussain Beg with about 3000 horsemen. In Panipat, he was joined by Abdur Rahim, the provincial dewan (administrator) of Lahore. When Khusrau reached Taran Taran near Amritsar, he received the blessings of Guru Arjan Dev.

    Khusrau laid siege on Lahore, defended by Dilawar Khan. Jahangir soon reached Lahore with a large army and Khusrau was defeated in the battle of Bhairowal. He and his followers tried to flee towards Kabul but they were captured by Jahangir’s army while crossing the Chenab.[16]

    Khusrau was first brought to Delhi, where a novel punishment was meted out to him. He was seated in grand style on an elephant and paraded down Chandni Chowk, while on both sides of the narrow street, the noblemen and barons who had supported him were held at knife-point on raised platforms. As the elephant approached each such platform, the luckless supporter was impaled on a stake (through his bowels), while Khusrau was compelled to watch the grisly sight and listen to the screams and pleas of those who had supported him. This was repeated numerous times through the entire length of Chandni Chowk.
    Khusrau was then blinded (in 1607) and imprisoned in Agra. However, his eyesight was never completely lost. In 1616, he was handed over to Asaf Khan, the brother of his step-mother Nur Jehan. In 1620, he was handed over to his younger brother Prince Khurram (later known as emperor Shah Jahan), who incidentally was Asaf Khan’s son-in-law. In 1622, Khusrau was killed on the orders of Prince Khurram.
    After the death of Jahangir in 1627, Khusrau’s son, Prince Dawar was briefly made ruler of the Mughal Empire by Asaf Khan to secure the Mughal throne for Shah Jahan.

    On Jumada-l awwal 2, 1037 AH (December 30, 1627), Shah Jahan was proclaimed as the emperor at Lahore. On Jumada-l awwal 26, 1037 AH (January 23, 1628), Dawar, his brother Garshasp, uncle Shahryar, as well as Tahmuras and Hoshang, sons of the deceased Prince Daniyal, were all put to death by Asaf Khan, who was ordered by Shah Jahan to send them “out of the world”, which he faithfully carried out.

  21. These days a lot of hullabaloo exists in India over a commercial film, “Padmavati” based on a work of Malik Muhammad Jaisyee , ‘Padmavat’i in which it is depicted that sultan Allaudin Khilji invades C hittor to abduct (and then probably marry )its queen of legendary beauty, Rani Padmavati (Padmini) who when her husband is defeated and killed in action against Khilji,s troops commits self-immolation(jauhar). A section of learned historians refute this story as mere fiction. I wonder what would another set of enlightened historians comment on the story of another queen, Kamla Devi and her daughter, Deval Devi to absolve the character of Allaudin Khilji ?

  22. Deval Devi passed through the hands of three men. Khizr Khan, Sultan Qutubuddin Mubarak Shah Khilji & Sultan Nasiruddin Khusrau Shah (a hindu convert; the former lover & later murderer of Sultan Qutubuddin Mubarak Shah Khilji). You say Khizr Khan loved her. Did she love him back? Imagine the tribulations of a cultured Hindu princess being tossed around like an object in the hands of fratricidal muslim invaders.

  23. When Deval was brought as a captive to be reunited with her mother , Rani Kamla Devi she was hardly 9/10 years old and had not even attained her puberty. However as soon as Khizr Khan saw her, he was absolutely enamoured of her beauty and madly wanted her. What could be expected of such a young girl to respond to her lover’s lewd advances towards her especially when she and her mother were captives ? Her enormous beauty also left her no choice but to acquiesce in her 2 subsequent lovers’ desire to marry her.

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