During his expedition to Gwalior, Iltutmish (1210-36) massacred 7000 persons besides those killed in the battle on both sides. His attacks on Malwa (… - Iltutmish

The following anecdote is related of Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish. He was greatly enamoured of a Turkish slave girl in his harem, whom he had purchased, and sought her caresses, but was always unable to achieve his object. One day he was seated, having his head anointed with some perfumed oil by the hands of the same slave girl, when he felt some tears fall on his head. On looking up, he found that she was weeping. He inquired of her the cause. She replied, “Once I had a brother who had such a bald place on his head as you have, and it reminds me of him.” On making further inquiries it was found that the slave girl was his own sister. They had both been sold as slaves, in their early childhood, by their half-brothers; and thus had Almighty God saved him from committing a great sin. Badaoni states in his work, “I heard this story myself, from the emperor Akbar’s own lips, and the monarch stated that this anecdote had been orally traced to Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban himself.”

The tomb of Shamsu'd-Din Iltumish... was built in about 1235 by Iltumish himself, only five years after the construction of Sultan Ghari's tomb. Yet it is quite different from the latter and illustrates that phase in the develpment of Indo-Islamic architecture when the builder had ceased to depend for material on the demolition of temples, although the arches and semi-domes below the squinches were still laid in the indigenous corbelled fashion. ... The tomb is plain on the outside, but is profusely carved on the entrances and in the interior with inscriptions in Kufi and Naskh characters and geometrical and arabesque patterns in Saracenic tradition, although several motifs among its carvings are reminiscent of Hindu decoration. ... In view of its lavish ornamentation, Fergusson described it as 'one of the richest examples of Hindu art applied to Muhammadan purposes.' [...] The monument [Sultan Ghari] exemplifies the same phase in tomb-architecture, as we find in the Quwwatu'lIslam mosque: it is built with architrectural members removed from temples and employs the trabeated construction with which the indigenous architects were familiar.

“…To Iletmish we owe some of the finest Muslim works in India. The Arhai din ka-Jhopra began by Qutab al-Din in AD 1198-99, was also completed by him. Tod had said of it that it was ‘one of the most perfect as well as the most ancient monuments of Hindu architecture’, on the evidence of certain four-armed figures to be seen on the pillars…