Delhi Sultanate

Legacy

The sultanate established Islam as a lasting force in South Asia and fostered the blending of cultures that produced the Urdu language and Indo-Islamic architecture.

Timeline of Delhi Sultanate

1. 1211
   Iltutmish seizes the throne after Aibak's death

   The Delhi Sultanate grew out of the Indian conquests of Muhammad of Ghor, whose Turkic slave-commander Qutb ud-Din Aibak ruled the Ghurid lands in India after 1206. Iltutmish had been sold into slavery as a boy and bought by Aibak, rising to govern Badaun. When Aibak died, Iltutmish overthrew his unpopular successor Aram Shah in 1211 and made Delhi his capital. India's former Ghurid lands were then split among rival commanders. Iltutmish spent the next years fighting them and bringing rebel Hindu chiefs back under Delhi's control.

2. 1228
   Iltutmish annexes much of Punjab and Sindh

   Since Aibak's death, Sindh and much of Punjab had been held by Nasir ad-Din Qabacha, another former Ghurid slave, based at Uch and Multan. In the early 1220s the Indus valley was fought over by Qabacha, Khwarazmian refugees and the Mongols, and Iltutmish kept out. In 1228 he invaded, defeated Qabacha and annexed large parts of Punjab and Sindh. Soon after, the Abbasid caliph recognised his authority in India. The Sultanate on the map now stretched from the Indus to Bengal.

3. 1236
   Razia becomes sultan, one of few female rulers in Islamic history

   Iltutmish had chosen his daughter Razia as heir, saying she was more capable than his sons. But when he died in 1236 the nobles put her half-brother Ruknuddin Firuz on the throne. During a rebellion against him and his mother, Razia won over the people of Delhi and took power in 1236. The first female Muslim ruler of the Indian subcontinent, she disappointed the Turkic nobles, who had expected a figurehead, by ruling in her own right and promoting non-Turkic officers. They deposed her in 1240, and she was killed soon after.

4. 1266
   Balban takes power and breaks the 'Forty'

   Balban had been a slave and one of the 'Forty', the powerful group of Turkic nobles at the Delhi court. After twenty years as chief minister to Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud, on Mahmud's death in 1266 Balban took the throne himself. Determined to restore the crown's authority, he broke up the Forty, set spies on his officials and insisted that the sultan was the 'shadow of God', requiring courtiers to prostrate themselves before him. He crushed rebels in Mewat and Bengal and held off the Mongols, keeping the Sultanate together.

5. 1290
   Khalji revolution ends the Mamluk dynasty

   After Balban's death in 1287, his grandson Qaiqabad proved a weak ruler and was paralysed by illness. Nobles placed his infant son Kayumars on the throne and tried to kill Jalal-ud-Din Khalji, a senior commander. In 1290 Jalal-ud-Din deposed Kayumars and made himself sultan. His Khalji clan was of Turkic origin but had long lived in Afghanistan, and the old Turkic nobility saw them as outsiders. The 'Khalji revolution' ended the rule of the slave sultans, often called the Mamluk dynasty, and opened power to a wider group of nobles.

6. 1299
   Alauddin Khalji's armies invade Gujarat (annexed 1304)

   Alauddin Khalji seized the throne in 1296 by murdering his uncle Jalal-ud-Din, and he set out to conquer the rich kingdoms beyond the Sultanate. Gujarat, in western India, was a wealthy trading region ruled by the Vaghela king Karna. In 1299 Alauddin's generals Ulugh Khan and Nusrat Khan raided it and sacked its cities. It was finally annexed in 1304. Gujarat's ports and wealth now belonged to Delhi, and the map pushed west to the Arabian Sea.

7. 1303
   Chittor captured; a major Mongol invasion of Delhi is repelled

   Chittor, in Mewar, was a great hill fortress ruled by the Guhila king Ratnasimha. Alauddin set out in January 1303 and took it in August after a siege of nearly eight months. Later legends, especially the poem Padmavat, say he wanted Ratnasimha's beautiful queen Padmini, but most historians reject this story. While Alauddin was away, a Mongol army from the Chagatai Khanate under Taraghai invaded and besieged Delhi for over two months. Alauddin held out in a fortified camp at Siri until the Mongols withdrew, and he then strengthened his frontier defences.

8. 1311
   Malik Kafur's campaign sacks Madurai in the far south

   Alauddin's slave-general Malik Kafur led a series of campaigns south of the Vindhya mountains, against kingdoms that had never been ruled from Delhi. After forcing the rulers of Devagiri (1308) and Warangal (1310) to pay tribute, he set out in October 1310 for the far south. In 1311 he besieged the Hoysala capital, Dwarasamudra, and then raided the Pandya kingdom of Madurai, reaching almost to the southern tip of India. He returned with enormous treasure, elephants and horses. These were mostly raids, but they made Delhi the dominant power across the peninsula.

9. 1320
   Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq founds the Tughlaq dynasty

   After Alauddin's death in 1316, the Khalji dynasty collapsed amid murders and plots, and in 1320 the throne was seized by Khusrau Khan. Ghazi Malik, a veteran commander who had fought the Mongols on the north-western frontier, rose against him, defeated him and became sultan as Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. He founded the Tughlaq dynasty and built the fortress city of Tughlaqabad near Delhi. His armies brought Warangal under direct rule in 1323. He died in 1325 when a pavilion built in his honour collapsed.

10. 1327
    Muhammad bin Tughluq moves the capital to Daulatabad

    Muhammad bin Tughluq ruled one of the largest areas of any Delhi sultan, reaching down to Madurai in the far south. In 1327 he ordered the capital moved from Delhi to Devagiri in the Deccan, which he renamed Daulatabad. It lay in a more central position for ruling both north and south, and Ibn Battuta says it was safer from Mongol attack. He even summoned nobles, officials and scholars to move there, causing great hardship. Soon after, revolts broke out in Madurai (1334), Bengal and elsewhere, and the empire began to shrink.

11. 1347
    Bahmani Sultanate breaks away in the Deccan

    As revolts against Muhammad bin Tughluq's harsh rule spread in the 1340s, rebel officers in the Deccan rose against Delhi in 1347. Their first leader, Ismail Mukh, stepped aside for Zafar Khan, founder of the Bahmani Sultanate with its capital at Gulbarga. Delhi lost its lands south of the Vindhyas, and the Bahmanis went on to fight the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire to the south. On the map the Sultanate retreats to northern India.

12. 1398
    Timur sacks Delhi

    By the 1390s the Tughlaq dynasty was in decline, split by rival claimants to the throne. In 1398 Timur, the Turko-Mongol conqueror from Samarkand, invaded India and on 17 December defeated the army of Sultan Mahmud Shah II outside the city. Delhi, then one of the richest cities in the world, was sacked and left in ruins. Estimates of those killed range from 100,000 to 200,000. The Sultanate never recovered its former power, as provincial governors broke away.

13. 1414
    Khizr Khan founds the Sayyid dynasty

    Khizr Khan had been governor of Multan and had dealt with Timur as an envoy and negotiator during his invasion. In 1414 he took Delhi and founded the Sayyid dynasty, which claimed descent from the Prophet, though historians doubt the claim. Afraid of offending Timur's successors, he never took a royal title and ruled with modest titles instead. The Sayyids controlled only a small area around Delhi and constantly fought rebellious governors. On the map the Sultanate is at its smallest in this period.

14. 1451
    Bahlul Lodi founds the Lodi dynasty

    Bahlul Lodi was the chief of an Afghan tribe who governed Sirhind in Punjab. The last Sayyid ruler, Alam Shah, withdrew to Badaun, and in 1451 he abdicated in Bahlul's favour. Bahlul became the first Afghan sultan of Delhi and founded the Lodi dynasty. He crushed rebellions and in 1479 defeated and annexed the Jaunpur Sultanate to the east. Under the Lodis the Sultanate grew again across the Ganges plain, and the map expands to cover much of northern India.

15. 1526
    Babur defeats and kills Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat

    Ibrahim Lodi, sultan from 1517, quarrelled with his relatives and nobles. Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of Punjab, invited Babur, a Timurid prince ruling Kabul, to invade. On 21 April 1526, at Panipat north of Delhi, Babur's army defeated Ibrahim's forces, using field cannon and firearms, among the first in India. Ibrahim was killed in the battle. The Delhi Sultanate came to an end, and Babur founded the Mughal Empire, which ruled most of the subcontinent for the next two centuries.

Periods and reigns

• Qutb ud-Din Aibak (r. 1206–1210) 1210
• Iltutmish 1211–1236
• Razia 1236–1240
• Balban 1266–1287
• Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji 1290–1296
• Alauddin Khalji 1296–1316
• Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq 1320–1325
• Muhammad bin Tughluq 1325–1351
• Firuz Shah Tughlaq 1351–1388
• Nasir ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughlaq 1394–1413
• Khizr Khan (Sayyid) 1414–1421
• Bahlul Lodi 1451–1489
• Sikandar Lodi 1489–1517
• Ibrahim Lodi 1517–1526

Rulers

• Qutb ud-Din Aibak 1206 – 1210

  Founder; began the Qutb Minar

• Iltutmish 1211 – 1236

  Consolidated the sultanate

• Razia Sultana 1236 – 1240

  The only woman to rule the Delhi Sultanate

• Alauddin Khalji 1296 – 1316

  Repelled the Mongols and raided the south

• Muhammad bin Tughluq 1325 – 1351

  Ambitious ruler whose realm briefly reached the far south

• Firuz Shah Tughluq 1351 – 1388

  Builder of canals, towns and forts

• Ibrahim Lodi 1517 – 1526

  Last sultan, killed by Babur at Panipat

Realms on the map

• Delhi Sultanate 1210–1528
• Mamluk Dynasty 1210–1293
• Khalji Dynasty 1294–1325
• Tughlaq Dynasty 1326–1414
• Sayyid Dynasty 1415–1452
• Lodi Dynasty 1453–1526
• Allegiance of Delhi Sultanate to Abbasid Caliphate 1210–1259

Chapters

• The world in 1279: Mongols Conquer China
• The world in 1300: The Mongol Peace
• The world in 1400: Timur's Storm
• The world in 1492: Worlds About to Collide
• The world in 1500: Sea Roads Open