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Abstract
The purpose of the research is to contest the popular portrayal of the first and the last female ruler to sit on the throne of Delhi, Sultan Raziyyat ud Dunya Wa Ud Din (1236-40) of the Ilbari Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, using the primary source of Minhaj-i-Siraj Juzjani’s account called Tabqat-i-Nasiri. Comparisons through the work of Isami would also be drawn. Contestations around her media portrayals and that she is more than just her relationship with Yakut & Mirza Altunia. It also seeks to answer questions of her cross-dressing and contesting its association to gender transformation as proposed by scholars like Alyssa Gabbay, and how the subcontinent's patriarchy affected her dethronement and not just some mere “favoring of an Abyssinian slave.” It also seeks to question the lenses through which women rulers are generally viewed, as emotional beings incapable to make rational and strategic decisions and the difference in attribution by historians, challenging the existing historiography around the figure.
The paper is primarily based on the translated account of Minhaj-i-Siraj Juzjani and Isami.