Kalapahada (in Odia language) or Kala Pahar was a Muslim General of the Bengal Sultanate under the reigning Karrani Dynasty.
Sultan Sulaiman sent his army into Odisha to expand his Sultanate under the command of his son "Bayazid and general Kalapahar alias Raju". They defeated and killed the king Mukund-Dev. The general Kalapahar led a contingent deep into the kingdom to subjugate it. [1]
He also successfully fought the Cooch Behar army after the Koch king had attacked the Sultanate; Sukladhwaja was imprisoned and the capital seized. [1] However, fearing an attack from the Mughal armies, Sultan Sulaiman ordered Kalapahad to withdraw and restored status-quo. [1] In 1575, the Sultan's son Bayazid was treacherously murdered. Kalapahar rallied around Daud Karrani who ascended to the throne of the Bengal Sultanate but were defeated at Battle of Rajmahal in July 1576. [2]
The term Kalapahad (or Black Mountain in English) has come to mean iconoclast among the Hindu population in Bengal, East and Northeast India. [3] It has also been used derogatorily against Bengali Muslims and other Muslims of the eastern part of the subcontinent. In March 2021, the Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah referred to AIUDF leader Badruddin Ajmal as Kalapahad and as an infiltrator. [4]
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Saifuddin Hamza Shah was the fourth Sultan of the first Ilyas dynasty of Bengal reigning from 1410 to 1412.
Alī Mubārak, better known by his regnal title `Alā ad-Dīn `Alī Shāh was an independent Sultan of Lakhnauti in Bengal. He was the foster brother of Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, the eventual founder of the Bengal Sultanate.
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Sulaiman Khan Karrani was an Afghan Sultan of Bengal. He ascended to the throne after the death of his brother Taj Khan Karrani. According to the Riyaz-us-Salatin, he shifted the seat of government from Gaur to Tanda.
Bayazid Khan Karrani was the third Sultan of the Bengal Sultanate's Karrani dynasty.
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Jalaluddin Fateh Shah was the last ruler of later Ilyas Shahi dynasty of the Bengal Sultanate reigning from 1481 to 1487. He was the uncle and successor of Sultan Shamsuddin Yusuf Shah.
The Bengal Sultanate was a late medieval sultanate based in the Bengal region in the eastern South Asia between the 14th and 16th century. It was the dominant power of the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, with a network of mint towns spread across the region. The Bengal Sultanate had a circle of vassal states in the Indian subcontinent, including parts of Odisha in the southwest, Arakan in the southeast, and Tripura in the east.
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ʿAlā ad-Dīn Fīrūz Shāh was the son and successor of Sultan Nasiruddin Nasrat Shah of Bengal. He served as a governor of Chittagong during his father's reign, and was a patron of Bengali literature. Firuz Shah ascended the throne in 1533, though it was not unanimously recognised by all the nobles of Bengal. The conflict with the Ahom kingdom continued during his reign and the Bengali army led by Turbak Khan had reached as far as Kaliabor. Within three months as Sultan, Firuz Shah was assassinated by his uncle, who succeeded him as Sultan Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah.
The Khalji dynasty was the first Muslim dynasty to rule the Bengal region in the Indian subcontinent. The dynasty, which hailed from the Garmsir region of present-day Afghanistan, was founded in 1204 by Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, a Muslim Turko-Afghan general of the Ghurid Empire. The Khaljis initially pledged allegiance to Sultan Muhammad of Ghor until his death in 1206, though their rule in Bengal was mostly independent. Under the rule of Iwaz Khalji, Bengal experienced major developments such as its first naval force, flood defence systems and linkage with the Grand Trunk Road. The dynasty was based in the city of Lakhnauti in northern Bengal, later expanding eastwards and southwards. Nasiruddin Mahmud, the son of Mamluk sultan Iltutmish of Delhi managed to conquer Bengal in 1227; although the Khaljis briefly reasserted their independence, they surrendered to the Mamluks in 1231, who replaced them with a series of regional governors.
Tanda, also known as Tandah and Khwaspur Tandah, was a historic 16th-century city of Bengal in the eastern part of South Asia, and one of the most prominent medieval capitals; serving the Karrani Sultans of Bengal and the early Mughal governors of Bengal.
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Ismail Khan Lodi (Persian: اسماعیل خان لودی; also known by his daak naam Khanja Khan, was a Pashtun general of the Mughal Empire and a former viceroy of Odisha. He also served under the Karrani dynasty of the Sultanate of Bengal.
Ismail Khan was a nobleman of the Sultanate of Bengal. He was the brother of Isa Khan, the leader of the Baro-Bhuiyan confederacy.