It was from the ranks of these Mamlukes that the 13th century dynasties of India and Egypt emerged. Islam had taken them from the slave ships of the Vikings to the luxurious thrones of Asia and Africa. Through their exploits they rose through the court ranks, married the daughters of the sultans and themselves became kings and sultans.
In an age when the path to kingship led through the army, the Mamlukes were not only great soldiers but were in close proximity to the center of power.
Therefore, as the Mamlukes became Muslim, they became free men and women, with full privileges accorded to all believers. Some of the slaves were from Turkish tribes (prior to their conversion to Islam) in which case there was both an affinity of blood with their Turkish owners as well as an affinity of profession.Īccording to the Shariah, a Muslim may not hold another Muslim as a slave. As the Mamlukes were inducted into the armies and the Turks dominated the armed forces, the slaves came to be referred to as Mamluke Turks. The Turks displaced the Arabs and the Persians from the centers of power in Asia during the 9th and 10th centuries and became kingmakers. However, it was with the rise of the Turks that the Mamlukes came into their own. The Spanish court of Cordoba as well as the Fatimid court in Cairo employed Mamluke bodyguards. Young Mamluke men were trained in special camps as bodyguards, taught the precepts of Islam and inducted into the army. The European slaves were in great demand in Muslim courts because the men made excellent soldiers and the women were sought for their fair skin. The root word in Arabic for Mamluke is m-l-k (malaka, to own). Ibn Fadlun gives a graphic picture of the deplorable conditions in the Viking slave ships. Men, women and children were captured in northern and eastern Europe, brought down the Volga River and sold to Muslim and Jewish merchants. Eastern Europe, fossilized as it was between local fiefdoms, was a particular target of these raids. The Vikings raided Europe with unrelenting ferocity in search of booty and slaves. In the 9th and 10th centuries, there was a brisk slave trade down the Volga River, near the Caspian Sea. The history of the Mamlukes illustrates this observation. Islam liberated men and women from the shackles of slavery and made them masters of the world. Not just the musical beats, but even the silent pauses used at appropriate intervals in the song create a hauntingly melancholic yet mellifluous effect.Contributed by Prof. Khayyam wanted the orchestration of the song to depict the musical influences of the regions the historical Razia Sultan travelled through while arriving in India from Turkey. The combination of sounds of these instruments conjures up a visual of crashing waves in listeners’ minds. The sarangi which had not been frequently used in Hindi songs of that era, adds depth to the music. The song was penned by poet Jan Nisar Akhtar, but what elevated it to another level was the combination of percussion instruments and santoor, played by maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma. ‘Aey dil-e-nadaan’ is picturised on Hema Malini who plays Razia. Starring Hema Malini and Dharmendra, Kamal Amrohi’s Razia Sultan is based on Delhi’s only woman ruler. ThePrint attempts a list of his best songs across different genres and moods.Īlso read: Upkar - film born of churn in newly-Independent India gave Bollywood a hit formula ‘Aey dil-e-nadaan’, Razia Sultan (Melancholic) The past week was Khayyam’s second death anniversary. His music was composed according to the demands of the script and the song. In terms of musical genre, it is difficult to put a label on his versatility. Some of his best compositions put to music poems written by Mir Taqi Mir, Nida Fazli, Sahir Ludhianvi, and Jan Nisar Akhtar. Khayyam was trained in classical music in his youth and was fond of poetry - he brought the best of both to his work. “I could easily have done 200-plus films like most contemporary musicians, but I was clear that I didn’t want to compromise on quality,” said the legendary music maestro, better known as ‘Khayyam’, in one of his last interviews two years before his death in 2019.įootpath (1953), Phir Subah Hogi (1958), Shola aur Shabnam (1961), Trishul (1978), Umrao Jaan (1981) and Razia Sultan (1983) are, to many of Khayyam’s fans, all about the music and they would return to these films more than once just for the pleasure of listening to the songs. New Delhi: Mohammed Zahur Hashmi composed the music of just 57 films but their songs are undoubtedly some of the most beautiful to be heard on the silver screen.