Rafiq Zakaria, writing in his book, Razia Warrior Queen of India, quotes Minhaj on Razia as follows, "[She was] a great sovereign, sagacious, just, beneficent, the patron of the learned, a dispenser of justice, the cherisher of her subjects and of warlike talent, and was endowed with all the admirable attributes and qualifications necessary for kings... . She was endowed with all the qualities befitting a king, but she was not born of the right sex and so in the estimation of men all these virtues were worthless."
In his research, Zakaria consulted early sources to put together a work of historical fiction based on the life of the sultana. In Zakaria's portrayal, Razia was essentially hamstrung by her emotions. Zakaria believes that Altunia was deeply in love with Razia, but that he was repeatedly rebuffed by her aloofness. Zakaria speculates that the queen may have been too preoccupied with the affairs of state or may have been psychologically blocked"possibly from her upbringing"to have given sway to her emotions.
Zakaria argues that besides the prejudice Razia would have faced because of her sex, she would also have been targeted for her racial tolerances. On one hand, she met criticism from the Turkish Amirs, who were the royal multi-tribal leaders, and the Maliks, who led the small communities, for the favoritism she showed toward her Abyssinian slave, Jamaluddin Yaqut. Whether Yaqut was Razia's lover has been debated for centuries, but even if he was not, Zakaria feels that the fact that he continued getting promotions to higher ranks would have elicited the envy of the Maliks. (Casting a new slant on the historical debate, Zakaria points out that Altunia would probably not have married Razia if he had been convinced she had had an affair with her slave Yaqut.)
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