Corps of Forty
The Corps of Forty (Persian: گروه چهارده, Urdu: گروہِ چالیس), also known as Dal Chalisa or Turkan-e-Chahalgani, was a council of 40 mostly Turkic slave emirs who administered the Delhi Sultanate as per the wishes of the sultan.Although all power was vested in the sultan, as the head of state, head of government, commander of the sultanate's armies and the final decision-maker in the judicial system, he needed help ruling his kingdom effectively.[2] After Iltutmish's death, the balance of power shifted and the sultan became a puppet of these emirs.They would enthrone and depose Iltutmish's children and grandchildren, often murdering them when they proved troublesome.Without the Chahalgani around to maintain a Turkic monopoly on power, this left them vulnerable to the Khalji faction, which took power through a series of assassinations,[4] and ultimately overthrew the Turks in the Khalji Revolution.