Malik Kafur read out a will that made a six-year-old sultan of Delhi, blinded the heirs, and was beheaded 35 days later

Malik Kafur, a eunuch, commanded Sultan Alauddin Khalji's armies in the Deccan. Amir Khusrau's account says Kafur persuaded the dying sultan to confine his heir, Khizr Khan, in Gwalior Fort, under an oath not to take his life. Alauddin died in January 1316. On the second day Kafur assembled the nobles and produced a will of the late sultan in favour of Shihabuddin Umar, removing Khizr Khan as heir apparent. Ziauddin Barani writes that the new sultan was five or six years old. Kafur ran the government. He sent Malik Sumbul to put out Khizr Khan's eyes at Gwalior. He sent his barber to blind Khizr Khan's brother Shadi Khan in the palace with a razor. He took the queen mother's gold, silver and jewels and confined Prince Mubarak, intending to blind him too. Thirty-five days after Alauddin's death, the palace guards (paiks) went with drawn swords to Kafur's bedroom and cut off his head. They freed Mubarak, who ruled as regent for some months, then took the throne as Qutbuddin, sent the child to Gwalior and had him blinded. He had Kafur's killers dispersed and killed. Barani says some believed Kafur had murdered Alauddin^†.