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BALBAN AS MINISTER OF STATE 83 hired bullies. From all sides entreaties came to the banished general, beseeching him to come back. The Turkish chiefs even rose in arms, and this demonstra- tion procured the dismissal of Rihan and the restoration of Balban to all his honours (1254). Not only were men delighted at this act of justice, but it was observed that even the Almighty manifested His pleasure by sending down the long-needed rains. " The success of Ulugh Khan shone forth with brilliant radiance; the garden of the world began to put forth leaf, and the key of divine mercy opened the doors of men's hearts." For twenty years in all Balban served the Sultan indefatigably, and they were years full of rebellion, conspiracy, and Mongol alarms. His royal master led the life of a dervish, copied Korans to pay his modest needs, and lived in the simplest manner, attended by one wife, who cooked his dinner and was allowed no female servants. He was a kind and scholarly gentle- man, who delighted in the society of the learned, but he was no king for India in the thirteenth century. Fortunately for him, he had a deputy in Balban fully able to fill his place in the anxious cares of kingship. To this conspicuously able minister were due the two great measures of the reign: the organization of the frontier provinces and tribes under his able cousin Sher Khan, by which the attacks of the Mongols were successfully repelled; and the steady suppression of Hindu disaffection in all parts of the kingdom, a per- petual and never-extinguished source of danger. The constant jealousies and revolts of the overgrown Turk-