Delhi Sultanate: A Visual History

The Delhi Sultanate was founded in 1206 when Qutb al-Din Aibak, a Ghurid slave general, made himself independent ruler of the Ghurid conquests in northern India. Five successive dynasties, the Mamluk, Khalji, Tughlaq, Sayyid and Lodi, ruled from Delhi until 1526. It repelled the Mongols, and under Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughlaq briefly conquered almost the whole subcontinent, but Timur's sack of Delhi in 1398 shattered it. Babur's victory at Panipat in 1526 replaced it with the Mughal Empire.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Delhi Sultanate. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Sultanate territory

Timeline of the Delhi Sultanate

1. 1206
   Aibak becomes sultan
2. 1236
   Razia SultanReigns to 1240.
3. 1296
   Alauddin KhaljiMongols defeated; the Deccan raided.
4. 1327
   Capital moved to DaulatabadAnd back again.
5. 1347
   Bahmani Sultanate breaks away
6. 1398
   Timur sacks Delhi
7. 1451
   Lodi dynasty
8. 1526
   First Battle of PanipatBabur ends the sultanate.

The slave kings

Muhammad of Ghor's conquest of Delhi (1192) and the Ganges plain was consolidated by his slave Aibak and Aibak's son-in-law Iltutmish, who built the Qutb Minar and secured recognition from the Abbasid caliph. Iltutmish named his daughter Razia as heir; she reigned from 1236 to 1240 before the nobles deposed her. Balban ruled with an iron hand and held off the Mongols.

Khalji and Tughlaq expansion

Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316) crushed repeated Mongol invasions, conquered Gujarat and the Rajput forts of Ranthambore and Chittor, sent Malik Kafur raiding to the southern tip of India, and imposed strict price controls to feed a huge army. Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-1351) ruled the largest sultanate, but his schemes, moving the capital to Daulatabad and issuing token copper currency, ended in famine and revolt; the Bahmani and Vijayanagara states broke away in the south.

Timur and the Lodis

Timur sacked Delhi in 1398, massacring its inhabitants, and the sultanate shrank to a regional state. The Sayyid and then Afghan Lodi dynasties recovered some ground; Sikandar Lodi founded Agra. Ibrahim Lodi's harshness led disaffected nobles to invite Babur, who killed him at Panipat in April 1526.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Ghurid dynasty (1148 to 1215)
• Mughal Empire (1526 to 1857)
• Timurid Empire (1370 to 1507)
• Chagatai Khanate (1226 to 1347)
• First Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1663)
• First French colonial empire (1534 to 1814)

Wars of the same era and region

• Ghurid and early Delhi Sultanate conquest of North India (1192 to 1235)
• Conquests of Timur (1370 to 1405)
• Bahmani-Vijayanagar wars (1362 to 1509)
• Mongol invasions and conquests (1206 to 1368)
• Akbar's conquest of North India (1556 to 1605)

8 surprising things about the Delhi Sultanate

1. Razia Sultan dressed in male attire, rode into battle and was the only woman to rule Delhi in her own name.
2. The Qutb Minar, begun by Aibak, is 73 metres tall and was the tallest minaret in the world for centuries.
3. Alauddin Khalji's market regulations fixed the price of everything from grain to slaves and horses.
4. Muhammad bin Tughlaq forced Delhi's whole population to march 1,100 km to his new capital, then marched them back.
5. His token copper coinage failed because forgers produced them by the million.
6. Ibn Battuta served as a judge in Delhi and left, terrified of the sultan, on an embassy to China.
7. The Delhi Sultanate turned back the Mongols repeatedly, one of the few states to do so.
8. The Lodi Gardens in Delhi contain the tombs of the last dynasty.

Sources

• Delhi sultanate Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Delhi Sultanate Wikipedia
• Delhi Sultanate World History Encyclopedia
• Peter Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History (1999) Cambridge University Press

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