The Delhi Sultanate or the Sultanate of Delhi was a late medieval empire primarily based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for more than three centuries. The sultanate was established in 1206 in the former Ghurid territories in India. Its history is generally divided into five periods: Mamluk (1206–1290), Khalji (1290–1320), Tughlaq (1320–1414), Sayyid (1414–1451), and Lodi (1451–1526). It covered large swaths of territory in modern-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, as well as some parts of southern Nepal.
The foundation of the sultanate was laid by the Ghurid conqueror Muhammad Ghori, who routed the Rajput confederacy, led by Ajmer ruler Prithviraj Chauhan, in 1192 near Tarain, in a reversal of an earlier battle. As a successor to the Ghurid dynasty, the Delhi Sultanate was originally one of several principalities ruled by the Turkic slave-generals of Muhammad Ghori, who had inherited and divided the Ghurid territories amongst themselves. Khalji and Tughlaq rule ushered a new wave of rapid and continual Muslim conquests deep into southern India. The sultanate reached its geographical zenith under the Tughlaq dynasty, occupying most of the Indian subcontinent during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. A major political transformation occurred across northern India, triggered by the Central Asian king Timur's devastating raid on Delhi in 1398, coinciding with the re-emergence of rival Hindu powers such as Vijayanagara Empire and Kingdom of Mewar, and new Muslim sultanates such as the Bengal and Bahmani sultanates asserting independence. In 1526, Timurid ruler Babur invaded northern India and conquered the sultanate, leading to its succession by the Mughal Empire.
The establishment of the sultanate drew the Indian subcontinent more closely into international and multicultural Islamic social and economic networks, as seen concretely in the development of the Hindustani language and Indo-Islamic architecture. It was also one of the few powers to repel attacks by the Mongols (from the Chagatai Khanate) and saw the enthronement of one of the few female rulers in Islamic history, Razia Sultana (r. 1236 – 1240). The sultans generally accepted Hindu officials and vassals as well as native Muslims converted from Hinduism in the administration, and presented themselves as a paramount power instead of sovereigns, according to the Hindu political traditions. However, there were cases like Bakhtiyar Khalji's annexations, which involved a large-scale desecration of Hindu and Buddhist temples and the destruction of universities and libraries. Mongolian raids on West and Central Asia set the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, intelligentsia, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from those regions into the subcontinent, thereby establishing Islamic culture there.
Name
Although conventionally named after its principal capital city, Delhi, the terminology applied to the Delhi Sultanate was often not fixed. It was called the "Empire of Delhi" (Persian: Mamalik-i-Delhi) by Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani and Ziauddin Barani, while Ibn Battuta referred to the empire under Muhammad bin Tughlaq as "Hind and Sind". The Delhi Sultanate was also known as the "Empire of Hindustan" (Persian: Mamalik-i-Hindustan), a name that gained currency during this period.
History
Background
Like other agrarian societies in history, those in the Indian subcontinent have been attacked by nomadic tribes throughout its long history. The northwestern subcontinent was a frequent target of tribes raiding from Central Asia in the pre-Islamic era, and the Muslim intrusions and later Muslim invasions were not dissimilar to those of the earlier invasions during the 1st millennium.
The rise of the Delhi Sultanate in India was part of a wider trend affecting much of the Asian continent, including the whole of southern and western Asia: the influx of nomadic Turkic peoples from the Central Asian steppes that traces back to the 9th century when the Islamic caliphate began fragmenting in the Middle East. Muslim rulers in rival states began enslaving non-Muslim nomadic Turks from the Central Asian steppes and raising many of them to become loyal army slaves called Mamluks. Soon, Turks were migrating to Muslim lands and becoming Islamicized. Many of the Turkic Mamluk slaves eventually rose to become rulers and conquered large parts of the Muslim world, establishing Mamluk Sultanates from Egypt to present-day Afghanistan, before turning their attention to the Indian subcontinent.
By 962 CE, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in South Asia faced a series of raids from Muslim armies from Central Asia. Among them was Mahmud of Ghazni, the son of a Turkic Mamluk military slave, who raided and plundered kingdoms in northern India from east of the Indus river to west of the Yamuna river seventeen times between 997 and 1030. Mahmud of Ghazni raided the treasuries but retreated each time, only extending Islamic rule into western Punjab.
The series of raids on northern and western Indian kingdoms by Muslim warlords continued after Mahmud of Ghazni. The raids did not establish or extend the permanent boundaries of the Islamic kingdoms. In contrast, the Ghurid Sultan Mu'izz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori (commonly known as Muhammad of Ghor) began a systematic war of expansion into northern India in 1173. He sought to carve out a principality for himself and expand the Islamic world. Muhammad of Ghor created a Sunni Islamic kingdom of his own extending east of the Indus River, and he thus laid the foundation for the Muslim kingdom called the Delhi Sultanate. Some historians chronicle the Delhi Sultanate from 1192 due to the presence and geographical claims of Muhammad of Ghor in South Asia by that time.
Muhammad of Ghor was assassinated in 1206 by Isma'ili Shi'a Muslims. After the assassination, his Mamluks, including Taj al-Din Yildiz, Qutb ud-Din Aibak, Bahauddin Tughril and Nasir ad-Din Qabacha, divided the empire among themselves. One of Ghor's slaves (or Mamluks), the Turkic Qutb ud-Din Aibak, assumed power, becoming the first Sultan of Delhi.
Dynasties
Mamluk dynasty (1206–1290)
Qutb ud-Din Aibak, a former slave of Mu'izz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori, was the first ruler of the Delhi Sultanate. Aibak was of Turkic Cuman-Kipchak origin, and due to his background, the dynasty he founded is known as the Mamluk dynasty. Aibak reigned as the Sultan of Delhi for four years, from 1206 to 1210. He was praised by the contemporary and later accounts for his generosity and was known with the sobriquet of Lakhbaksh (provider of lakhs).
After Aibak died, Aram Shah assumed power in 1210, but he was assassinated in 1211 by Aibak's son-in-law, Shams ud-Din Iltutmish. Iltutmish's power was precarious, and several Muslim amirs (nobles) challenged his authority as they had been supporters of Qutb al-Din Aibak. After a series of conquests and brutal executions of opposition, Iltutmish consolidated his power.
His rule was challenged several times, such as by Qubacha, and this led to a series of wars. Iltutmish conquered Multan and Bengal from contesting Muslim rulers, as well as Ranthambore and Sivalik from the Hindu rulers. He also attacked, defeated, and executed Taj al-Din Yildiz, who asserted his rights as heir to Mu'izz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori. Iltutmish's rule lasted until 1236. Following his death, the Delhi Sultanate saw a succession of weak rulers, rebellious Muslim nobility, assassinations, and short-lived tenures. Power shifted from Rukn ud-Din Firuz to Razia Sultana and others, until Ghiyas ud-Din Balban came to power and ruled from 1266 to 1287. Ghiyasuddin Balban destroyed the power of the Corps of Forty, a council of usually forty Turkic slaves who had played a role as kingmakers and had been independent of the sultan. He was succeeded by 17-year-old Muiz ud-Din Qaiqabad, who appointed Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji as the commander of the army. Khalji assassinated Qaiqabad and assumed power in the Khalji Revolution, thus ending the Mamluk dynasty and founding the Khalji dynasty.
Qutb ud-Din Aibak initiated the construction of the Qutb Minar but died before it was completed. It was later completed by his son-in-law, Iltutmish. The Quwwat-ul-Islam (Might of Islam) Mosque was built by Aibak, now a UNESCO world heritage site. The Qutub Minar Complex was expanded by Iltutmish, and later by Ala ud-Din Khalji in the early 14th century. During the Mamluk dynasty, many nobles from Afghanistan and Persia migrated and settled in India, as West Asia came under Mongol onslaught.
Khalji dynasty (1290–1320)
The Khalji dynasty was of Turco-Afghan heritage. They were originally Turkic, but due to their long presence in Afghanistan, they were treated by others as Afghan as they adopted Afghan habits and customs.
The first ruler of the Khalji dynasty was Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji. He was around 70 years old at the time of his ascension and was known as a mild-mannered, humble and kind monarch to the general public. Jalal ud-Din Firuz ruled for 6 years before he was murdered in 1296 by Muhammad Salim of Samana, on the orders of his nephew and son-in-law Juna Muhammad Khalji, who later came to be known as Ala ud-Din Khalji.
Ala ud-Din began his military career as governor of Kara province, from where he led two raids on the Kingdom of Malwa (1292) and Devagiri (1294) for plunder and loot. After he acceded to the throne, expansions towards these kingdoms were renewed including Gujarat, which was conquered by the grand vizier Nusrat Khan Jalesari, the kingdom of Malwa by Ainul Mulk Multani, as well as Rajputana. However, these victories were cut short because of Mongol attacks and plunder raids from the northwest. The Mongols withdrew after plundering and stopped raiding the northwest parts of the Delhi Sultanate.
After the Mongols withdrew, Ala ud-Din Khalji continued to expand the Delhi Sultanate into southern India with the help of Indian slave generals such as Malik Kafur and Khusro Khan. They collected much war booty (anwatan) from those they defeated. His commanders collected war spoils and paid ghanima (Arabic: الْغَنيمَة, a tax on spoils of war), which helped strengthen the Khalji rule. Among the spoils was the Warangal loot that included the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond.
In South India, Malik Kafur's 1311 campaign reached the Pandya kingdom, plundering the Nataraja Temple at Chidambaram and the Renganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam before sacking the Pandyan capital at Madurai to seize accumulated treasury. The subsequent Delhi incursions under the Thugluqs led to the establishment of Madurai Sultanate (1335–1378). Contemporary Sanskrit sources, such as Gangadevi's Madhurāvijayam, document the widespread cessation of worship in temples. While also documenting the ruins of agricultural infrastructure during this period, her text frames Kumara Kampana's southern campaign as a liberation of sacred sites by Vijayanagara Empire.
Ala ud-Din Khalji changed tax policies, raising agricultural taxes from 20% to 50% (payable in grain and agricultural produce), eliminating payments and commissions on taxes collected by local chiefs, banning socialisation among his officials as well as inter-marriage between noble families to help prevent any opposition forming against him, and he cut salaries of officials, poets and scholars. These tax policies and spending controls strengthened his treasury to pay the keep of his growing army; he also introduced price controls on all agricultural produce and goods in the kingdom, as well as controls on where, how, and by whom these goods could be sold. Markets called "shahana-i-mandi" were created. Muslim merchants were granted exclusive permits and monopoly in these "mandis" to buy and resell at official prices. No one other than these merchants could buy from farmers or sell in cities. Those found violating these "mandi" rules were severely punished, often by mutilation. Taxes collected in the form of grain were stored in the kingdom's storage. During the famines that followed, these granaries ensured sufficient food for the army.
Historians note Ala ud-Din Khalji as being a tyrant. Anyone, Ala ud-Din suspected of being a threat to this power, was killed along with the men, women, and children of that family. He grew to eventually distrust the majority of his nobles and favoured only a handful of his slaves and family. In 1298, between 15 000 and 30 000 Mongols near Delhi, who had recently converted to Islam, were slaughtered in a single day, due to a mutiny during an invasion of Gujarat. He is also known for his cruelty against the kingdoms he defeated in battle.
After Ala ud-Din died in 1316 by assassination through his nobles, his general Malik Kafur, who was born to a Hindu family but converted to Islam, assumed de facto power and was supported by non-Khalji nobles like Kamal al-Din Gurg. However, he lacked the support of the majority of Khalji's nobles who had him assassinated, hoping to take power for themselves. However, the new ruler had the killers of Kafur executed.
The last Khalji ruler was Ala ud-Din Khalji's 18-year-old son Qutb ud-Din Mubarak Shah Khalji, who ruled for four years before he was killed by Khusrau Khan, another slave-general with Indian origins, who reverted from Islam and favoured his Hindu Baradu military clan in the nobility. Khusrau Khan's reign lasted only a few months, when Ghazi Malik, later to be called Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, defeated and killed him and assumed power in 1320, thus ending the Khalji dynasty and starting the Tughlaq dynasty.
Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1413)
Ghiyath al-Din Tughlaq, of Turko-Mongol or Turkic extraction, ruled for five years and built a town near Delhi named Tughlaqabad. His son Juna Khan and general Ainul Mulk Multani conquered Warangal in south India. According to some historians such as Vincent Smith, he was killed by his son Juna Khan, who then assumed power in 1325.
Juna Khan, better known as Muhammad bin Tughluq, ruled for 26 years. During his rule, the Delhi Sultanate reached its peak in terms of geographical reach, covering most of the Indian subcontinent.
Muhammad bin Tughluq was an intellectual, with extensive knowledge of the Quran, Fiqh, poetry and other fields. He was also deeply suspicious of his kinsmen and wazirs (ministers), extremely severe with his opponents, and took decisions that caused economic upheaval. For example, he ordered the minting of coins from base metals with face value of silver coins – a decision that failed because ordinary people minted counterfeit coins from base metals they had in their houses and used them to pay taxes and jizya.
