The dynasty, which hailed from the Garmsir region of present-day Afghanistan, was founded in 1204 by Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, a Muslim Turko-Afghan[3][4] general of the Ghurid Empire.

Under the rule of Iwaz Khalji, Bengal experienced major developments such as its first naval force, flood defence systems and linkage with the Grand Trunk Road.

The Khalji dynasty was of Turko-Afghan[7][8][9] origin whose ancestors, the Khalaj, are said to have been initially a Turkic people or a Turkified people[10] of possibly of Indo-Iranian origin[11] who migrated together with their ancestors the Hunas and Hephthalites from Central Asia,[12] into the southern and eastern regions of modern-day Afghanistan as early as 660 CE, where they ruled the region of Kabul as the Buddhist Turk Shahis.

[17] André Wink however, states that Khaljis were a Turkicized group and remnants of early Indo-European nomads such as Kushans, Hephthalites, and Sakas who later merged with the Afghans.

[21] Many of them traced their origins to Garmsir and under the leadership of Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, they desired to be employed by the provincial Delhi army of the Ghurid Empire.

[22] After being refused rank by Delhi governor Qutb al-Din Aibak, the Khaljis proceeded eastwards where they commanded different troops and were granted land-estates in places such as Mirzapur.

Shiran, who was governing the capital, immediately visited Devkot where he paid his respects to his deceased leader and was nominated as Bakhtiyar's rightful successor by the Khalji nobles.

This peace was however short-lived as Ali Mardan managed to escape the prison in 1208 and flee to the Delhi court where he requested Sultan Qutb al-Din Aibak to intervene.

He founded Bengal's first naval force, innovated flood defence systems and linked Lakhnauti with the Grand Trunk Road.

[34] In 1227, Iwaz was killed in battle by an army led by Iltutmish's son Nasiruddin Mahmud who once again established Bengal as a province of the Delhi Sultanate.

The 19th-century British historian Henry George Raverty, who first translated the book into English, found the mention of Ikhtiyaruddin Dawlat Shah Balka in two manuscripts, both of which claimed he was Iwaz's son.

The English writer Edward Thomas discovered coins which bear the name of Dawlat Shah bin (son of) Mawdud in 627 AH (1230 CE).

The Persian historian Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani, who was alive during the Khalji rule, credits Bakhtiyar for the construction of a madrasa (Islamic school), possibly the first in the Bengal region.

He also arranged for the arrival of Muslim preachers from the Middle East and Central Asia; for example, Jalaluddin bin Jamaluddin Ghaznavi, who had travelled from the Ghurid capital Firozkoh to give religious lectures in the Khalji court, was awarded 18,000 takas for this service.

[42] Praising Sultan Iwaz Shah as Burhan-i-Amir al-Mu'minin,> the khanqah contains the earliest known stone inscription mentioning a Muslim ruler in Bengal.