Women and children were the prize of the warriors, and as early as the days of Qutbuddin Aibak "even a poor Muslim householder (who was also a soldie… - Qutb-ud-din Aibak

He then marched and encamped under the fort of Delhi... The city and its vicinity were freed from idols and idols-worship, and in the sanctuaries of the images of the Gods, mosques were raised by the worshippers of one God.'...
'Kutbu-d din built the Jami' Masjid at Delhi, and adorned it with stones and gold obtained from the temples which had been demolished by elephants, and covered it with inscriptions in Toghra, containing the divine commands.

In Aibak’s expedition to Benares, ‘which was the centre of the country of Hind… here they destroyed nearly one thousand temples, and raised mosques on their foundations; and the knowledge of the law (Sharia) became promulgated, and the foundations of religion were established,’ adds Nizami. In January 1197, Qutbuddin Aibak advanced against Nahrwala, the capital of Gujarat and ‘fifty thousand infidels were dispatched to hell by the sword and from the heaps of the slain, the hills and the plains became of one level’ and ‘more than twenty thousand slaves, and cattle beyond all calculation fell into the hands of the victors.’ On Aibak’s brilliant achievement in the expedition to Kalinjar in 1202, records Nizami: ‘The temples were converted into mosques… and the voices of summoners to prayer ascended to the highest heaven and the very name of idolatry was annihilated.’ ‘Fifty thousand came under the collar of slavery and the plain became black as pitch with Hindus,’ continues Nizami.

The first thing the Muslim Sultanate of Delhi started on was construction of impressive buildings. The first sultan Qutbuddin Aibak had to establish Muslim power in India and to raise buildings "as quickly as possible, so that no time might be lost in making an impression on their newly-conquered subjects". Architecture was considered as the visual symbol of Muslim political power. It denoted victory with authority. The first two buildings of the early period in Delhi are the Qutb Minar and the congregational mosque named purposefully as the Quwwat-ul-Islam (might of Islam) Masjid. This mosque was commenced by Aibak in 592/1195. It was built with materials and gold obtained by destroying 27 Hindu and Jain temples in Delhi and its neighborhood. A Persian inscription in the mosque testifies to this. The Qutb Minar, planned and commenced by Aibak sometime in or before 1199 and completed by Iltutmish, was also constructed with similar materials, "the sculptured figures on the stones being either defaced or concealed by turning them upside down". A century and a quarter later Ibn Battutah describes the congregational mosque and the Qutb Minar. "About the latter he says that its staircase is so wide that elephants can go up there." About the former his observations are interesting. "Near the eastern gate of the mosque their lie two very big idols of copper connected together by stones. Every one who comes in and goes out of the mosque treads over them. On the site of this mosque was a bud khana, that is an idol house. After the conquest of Delhi it was turned into a mosque."