Delhi Sultanate: Five Dynasties, Rulers, Timeline and Map, 1206 to 1526

Delhi Sultanate Time Period, Founder and the Five Dynasties

What Was the Delhi Sultanate and Who Founded It

Delhi first became the capital of a kingdom under the Tomara Rajputs, who were defeated in the middle of the twelfth century by the Chauhans of Ajmer. Those were the rulers of Delhi before the Sultanate. The change came with Muhammad Ghori, the Ghurid ruler, who routed a Rajput confederacy led by Prithviraj Chauhan near Tarain in 1192. When Ghori was assassinated in 1206, his Turkish slave-general Aibak took power in his Indian lands and became the first Sultan of Delhi.

Historians call the first line of rulers the Mamluk or Slave dynasty. A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, and Aibak, Iltutmish and Balban had all been slaves before they rose to command. The name covers three houses of slave origin that ruled from 1206 to 1290: the Qutbi, the first Ilbari and the second Ilbari. Persian was the language of administration throughout the Sultanate.

Delhi Sultanate Timeline: The Five Dynasties and Their Rulers

The five dynasties followed one another in this order: the Mamluks, the Khaljis, the Tughlaqs, the Sayyids and the Lodis. The Tughlaqs ruled longest, about 94 years, and the Khaljis for the shortest time, 30 years. Figure 1 shows the chief sultans of each line in the order they reigned, and the table gives each dynasty's years, founder and last ruler.

Delhi Sultanate Rulers, Dynasty by Dynasty

Slave Dynasty: Aibak, Iltutmish, Razia and Balban

Aibak ruled for only four years, from 1206 to 1210, with his capital at Lahore. He laid the foundation of the Qutb Minar and died at Lahore in 1210, when he fell from his horse while playing chaugan, a form of polo, and the pommel of the saddle pierced his ribs.

His son-in-law Iltutmish (1210 to 1236) consolidated the Sultanate. A group of forty nobles, the Chahalgani or the Forty, invited him from Badaun to replace Aibak's successor Aram Shah, and Iltutmish made Delhi his capital. He drove out his rivals Yildiz and Qabacha, took Multan, Bengal and Ranthambore, completed the Qutb Minar and set up the Sultanate's coinage. In 1228 the Abbasid caliph sent him robes of honour, recognising his authority in India.

Iltutmish named his daughter Razia as his heir in preference to his sons. She ruled from 1236 to 1240, when the nobles removed her. Balban, who had himself been one of the Forty, ruled from 1266 to 1287 and broke the power of that group. He took the title Zil-i-Ilahi, the shadow of God, enforced the Persian court rituals of sijda (prostration) and paibos (kissing the sultan's feet), and repelled the Mongol raids. In 1290 Jalaluddin Khalji had the young sultan Kaiqubad killed, murdered the infant Kayumars and took the throne. The full story is in Aibak and Iltutmish and the later Slave sultans, Razia and Balban.

Khalji Dynasty: Alauddin Khalji's Army, Conquests and Market Control

The Khaljis, of Turko-Afghan origin, came to power in 1290 under Jalaluddin Khalji, who was about seventy at his accession. His nephew and son-in-law Alauddin had him murdered in 1296 and became the strongest ruler of the line (1296 to 1316). As governor of Kara he had already raided Malwa and Devagiri; as Sultan he took Gujarat and Rajputana and sent his general Malik Kafur deep into southern India.

The Mongol attacks of 1299/1300 and 1302-03 shaped his government. Alauddin raised the largest standing army of any Delhi ruler and was the first sultan to pay his soldiers fully in cash, 238 tankas, the Sultanate's silver coins, a year to a trooper. He had the soldiers' horses branded so that no poor horse could pass the muster, and he controlled prices in the Delhi markets so that the pay would stretch; the chroniclers praised his reign for cheap prices and steady supplies. The last Khalji, Qutbuddin Mubarak Shah, was killed by Khusrau Khan, whom Ghazi Malik overthrew in 1320. More in Alauddin Khalji's conquests and market control.

Tughlaq Dynasty: Muhammad bin Tughlaq, Firoz Shah and Timur's Invasion

Ghazi Malik ruled as Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq from 1320 and built the fort of Tughlaqabad near Delhi in 1321. Under his son Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1324 to 1351) the Sultanate reached its farthest extent, over most of the subcontinent. NCERT dates his accession to 1324, while other accounts give 1325. His bold schemes are the best remembered of any sultan's:

• A second capital: Devagiri, renamed Daulatabad, to which the residents of the old city of Delhi were sent.
• Token currency: Coins of base metal, issued from 1329 to 1332, which people forged easily; they had to be withdrawn.
• Transoxiana: A large army raised to attack the Mongols in Central Asia, then disbanded.
• Revolts: From 1327 onwards; Madurai broke away in 1335, Vijayanagara was founded in 1336 and the Bahmani Sultanate in 1347.

Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351 to 1388) ruled for 37 years, a reign marked by prosperity. He dug five major canals, including a renovated Western Yamuna Canal, built his own city of Firozabad and made iqtas, the revenue assignments held by his officers, hereditary. After his death the dynasty sank into civil war: his great-grandson Tughluq Khan ruled briefly as Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq Shah II, and by the 1390s two relatives, Nasiruddin Mahmud at Delhi and Nusrat Shah at Firozabad, both called themselves Sultan. Timur, the Turko-Mongol ruler of Samarkand, sacked Delhi on 17 December 1398. Nasiruddin Mahmud fled to Gujarat and returned as the last, nominal Tughlaq ruler. See the Tughlaq dynasty.

Sayyid Dynasty: Khizr Khan and a Shrinking Sultanate

The Sayyid dynasty had four rulers in 37 years. Its founder, Khizr Khan, had been governor of Multan under Firoz Shah. After the sack of Delhi, Timur made him his deputy at Multan, with charge of Lahore and Dipalpur, and he captured Delhi on 28 May 1414. He did not take the title of sultan: he ruled as Rayat-i-Ala, a vassal, first of Timur and then of his son Shah Rukh, whose name was recited in the khutba, the sermon at Friday prayers.

His son Mubarak Shah, who proclaimed himself sultan in 1421, dropped the allegiance to the Timurids and forced Hoshang Shah of Malwa to pay tribute, but could not recover the lost lands in Punjab. Under the Sayyids the Sultanate shrank to a minor power. By the time of the last of them, Alam Shah, a saying ran that the kingdom of the king of the world stretched from Delhi to Palam, a distance of about 13 kilometres. In 1451 Alam Shah gave up the throne to Bahlul Lodi.

Lodi Dynasty: Bahlul, Sikandar and Ibrahim Lodi

The Lodis were Afghans. Bahlul Lodi (1451 to 1489), governor of Sirhind in Punjab, held together a loose confederacy of Afghan and Turkish chiefs. He spent most of his reign fighting the Sharqi sultans of Jaunpur and finally annexed their kingdom, bringing the region from Delhi to Varanasi back under Delhi.

His son Sikandar Lodi (1489 to 1517) is the best known of the line, and his reign shows the Sultanate reviving:

• Conquest: He annexed Bihar from the Sharqis.
• A new capital: He re-founded Agra in 1504 and moved his court there from Delhi.
• Control of the nobles: He made his Afghan nobles submit their accounts to a state audit.
• Learning: He wrote Persian poetry under the pen name Gulrukhi and had Sanskrit works on medicine translated into Persian.

The last Lodi, Ibrahim (1517 to 1526), was a capable soldier but rash in politics, and he lacked the support of the Afghan and Persian nobles and the regional chiefs. Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of Lahore, invited the Timurid ruler Babur to attack. Babur defeated and killed Ibrahim at the first battle of Panipat in 1526, which ended the Delhi Sultanate. Read the Sayyids, the Lodis and the fall of the Sultanate for the detail.

Mongol Invasions and the Expansion of the Delhi Sultanate

Mongol Invasions: From Chengiz Khan at the Indus to Timur

The Mongols were the Sultanate's gravest outside danger for over a century. In 1218 they destroyed the Khwarizmi empire of Central Asia, and in 1221 Chengiz Khan defeated its ruler Jalaluddin Mangburni at the battle of the Indus. This was in the reign of Iltutmish. Jalaluddin escaped into the Punjab and sought an alliance with Delhi; Iltutmish turned him down, and seems to have kept to Chengiz Khan's wish that he should not help the prince.

The most serious attacks came under Alauddin Khalji. In 1299 a Mongol force under Qutlugh Khwaja cut Delhi off from the surrounding country and even entered many streets of the city, the first serious Mongol campaign to take Delhi itself. In 1302-03 the Mongols came again and camped facing Alauddin for two months while he held his new garrison town of Siri. Both times they withdrew. Alauddin then raised a large army and repaired the forts near the Beas, and the later raids were beaten back.

Under Muhammad bin Tughlaq the balance tipped further. When the Mongols under Tarmashirin burst into Sindh and reached Meerut, about 65 km from Delhi, the Sultan defeated them near the Jhelum, occupied Kalanaur and for some time extended his power to Peshawar, beyond the Indus. The last great blow came from Timur, who sacked Delhi in 1398 under Nasiruddin Mahmud. The detail is in the Mongol invasions and the conquest of the Deccan.

Delhi Sultanate Map and Expansion: Internal and External Frontiers

In the early thirteenth century the Sultans controlled little beyond fortified garrison towns, and they depended on trade, tribute or plunder for supplies. The Sultanate expanded mainly under Balban, Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughlaq, in two directions:

• Internal frontier: Campaigns to secure the lands around the garrison towns. Forests in the Ganga-Yamuna doab were cleared, the land given to peasants, and new forts and towns built along trade routes.
• External frontier: Expeditions into southern India, begun under Alauddin Khalji and carried furthest by Muhammad bin Tughlaq, which brought back elephants, horses, slaves and precious metals.

Control was never complete. Bengal was hard to hold from Delhi, the south broke away soon after it was annexed, and even in the Gangetic plain there were forests the Sultan's armies could not enter. The traveller Ibn Battuta described chieftains who fortified themselves in bamboo groves so dense that only a powerful army cutting its way in could subdue them.

Delhi Sultanate Administration, Economy and Technology

Central Administration: The Sultan, the Wazir and the Departments

The Sultan was the centre of the state. No clear law of succession ever developed, so military strength usually decided who ruled, and the Sultan kept command of the army in his own hands. He governed through ministers he chose, and by the end of the thirteenth century a settled pattern of departments had emerged, shown in Figure 3.

• Wazir: Head of the revenue department, the diwan-i-wizarat. The early wazirs were military leaders; by the fourteenth century the wazir was an expert in revenue, with an auditor general and an accountant general under him.
• Ariz-i-mamalik: Head of the diwan-i-arz, the military department, which recruited, equipped and paid the army. Balban first set it up as a separate department.
• Chief sadr: Head of the diwan-i-risalat, which dealt with religious matters, pious foundations and stipends to scholars; he was usually also the chief qazi, the head of justice.
• Diwan-i-insha: The department of state correspondence, formal or confidential.

Intelligence agents called barids kept the ruler informed from every part of the empire. Firoz Shah Tughlaq added a department of slaves and a department of public works, which built his canals and buildings.

Iqta System of the Delhi Sultanate: Muqti, Amil and Land Revenue

When the Turks conquered the country, they divided it into tracts called iqtas and parcelled them out among their leading nobles. An iqta was an Islamic practice that the Turks brought with them: the revenue of a tract of land was assigned to a military officer in place of a salary. Its holder, the muqti or wali, kept order and collected the revenue, paid his soldiers out of it and kept the rest. These tracts later became the provinces.

As the central government grew stronger, it worked out each iqta's real income, fixed the salaries of the muqti and his soldiers in cash and made him send the balance to the centre. That surplus was called the fawazil, and state accountants audited the muqtis' books. Below the iqta came the shiq and the pargana, which was headed by the amil, the officer in charge of revenue collection. In the village the leading people were the khut (landowners) and the muqaddam (headman), with the patwari keeping the accounts.

The early Sultans, especially Iltutmish, preferred to rule through bandagan, slaves bought and trained for military service, because they depended wholly on their master. Alauddin Khalji brought the assessment and collection of land revenue under the state's own control and levied three taxes: kharaj on cultivation, about half of the peasant's produce, a tax on cattle and a tax on houses. The full working is in the administration of the Delhi Sultanate.

Delhi Sultanate Coins: Tanka, Jital and Token Currency

Iltutmish gave the Sultanate its coinage. The basic units were the silver tanka, weighing one tola of 96 rattis (11.2 grams), and the jital, a coin of copper mixed with a little silver; 48 jitals made one tanka. His silver tankas carried the name of the Abbasid caliph alongside his own titles, a sign of how much the early sultans valued the caliph's recognition.

Alauddin's prices were set in this money: wheat at 7½ jitals a man (about 15 kg) and rice at 5, and a trooper's pay of 238 tankas a year. Muhammad bin Tughlaq then tried his token currency. Short of precious metal, he issued coins of copper and brass, from 1329 to 1332, in place of gold and silver. People did not trust them: they saved their gold and silver and paid their taxes in tokens, which could also be forged easily, and the scheme had to be withdrawn. Trade, crafts and money are covered in the economy of the Delhi Sultanate.

Technology in the Delhi Sultanate Period: Rahat, Paper, Spinning Wheel, Arch and Dome

The Turks introduced or popularised a number of new crafts and techniques, and these reshaped work in the fields, the workshops and the army. Not all of them were new, but their spread and improvement, built on the skill of Indian craftsmen, changed daily life.

• Irrigation: An improved rahat, a wheel that lifted water from a deeper level, so that more land could be watered.
• Textiles: The spinning wheel and an improved loom; the cotton carder’s bow, the dhunia, cleaned cotton faster and better.
• Paper: Paper-making was one of the new crafts the Turks introduced, which made records and books easier to produce.
• Building: A superior mortar that let the Turks raise great buildings on the true arch and the dome.
• Cavalry and arms: The iron stirrup and armour for horse and rider, which fed a growing metal industry; at the very end of the period, Babur’s cannons decided the first battle of Panipat.

Together with the growth of farming, the spread of these crafts made the second half of the fourteenth century a time of growth and relative affluence. The change shows in the busier workshops, in better-watered fields and in the new buildings of arch and dome.

Delhi Sultanate Architecture, Monuments and Culture

Delhi Sultanate Monuments in Order of Building

Indo-Islamic architecture began under the Sultans. The new buildings rested on the true arch and the dome, and each dynasty left its mark on Delhi. In the order in which they were built:

The Quwwat-ul-Islam is the earliest surviving mosque of the Delhi Sultans. Aibak laid the foundation of the Qutb Minar and raised its first storey, Iltutmish added three more, and Firoz Shah Tughlaq and Sikandar Lodi later repaired it. Alauddin's Alai Darwaza, the southern gateway of the mosque, is the first building to use Islamic principles of construction and ornament; his plan for a minar twice the size of the Qutb stopped at the first storey. The Lodi Gardens in Delhi hold the tombs of the last two dynasties, and the Qutb Minar and its monuments are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The buildings are studied in detail in the Indo-Islamic architecture of the Delhi Sultanate.

Persian, Hindavi and Amir Khusrau: Language and Literature

Persian was the language of administration and of the court histories, and the Sultanate drew India into the wider Islamic world. One result of that contact was the growth of the Hindustani language. The finest writer of the age was Amir Khusrau (1253 to 1325), court poet and disciple of the Sufi Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi.

Khusrau wrote mainly in Persian but also in Hindavi, in many verse forms, and did much to develop the ghazal. He is regarded as the father of qawwali, the devotional singing of the Sufis, and introduced the ghazal style of song into India. His eloquence earned him the name Tuti-i-Hind, the parrot of India. Literature at the Lodi court leaned the same way: Sikandar Lodi wrote Persian verse and had Sanskrit medical works translated into Persian. Religion, the Sufis and the Bhakti saints of the period are covered in society and religion under the Sultanate.

Sources of Delhi Sultanate History

Persian Tawarikh, Barani and the Travellers' Accounts

Inscriptions, coins and buildings tell us a great deal, but the richest sources are the histories, the tawarikh (singular tarikh), written in Persian. Their authors were secretaries, administrators, poets and courtiers. They lived in cities, mainly Delhi, often wrote for the Sultans in the hope of rich rewards, and urged an ideal social order based on birthright and on distinctions of gender.

That outlook colours what they wrote. Minhaj-i Siraj accepted that Razia was more able than her brothers but was uneasy at a queen. Ziauddin Barani treated Muhammad bin Tughlaq's appointment of a wine distiller, a barber and a cook to high posts as a sign of lost judgement; he wrote his chronicle first in 1356 and again two years later, and the first version came to light only in 1971. Fakhr-i Mudabbir set out the circle of justice: a king needs soldiers, soldiers need salaries, salaries come from revenue, and peasants can pay only when they prosper under just rule.

Barani also explains a basic feature of the state. The Sultans had to add to the Muslim law regulations of their own, the zawabit; Alauddin told the chief qazi that he framed his laws to suit the needs of the state. For this reason Barani refused to call the state truly Islamic. Travellers add an outside view, above all Ibn Battuta of Morocco, whom Muhammad bin Tughlaq appointed a qadi, a judge, at Delhi.

Decline of the Delhi Sultanate and the Rise of the Mughals

Causes of Decline: Overreach, Nobility, Timur and Regional States

The decline began at the height of the Sultanate's power, under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, and ran for almost two centuries. Its main causes were:

1. Overreach and revolt: The shift to Daulatabad and the failed token currency bred discontent, revolts broke out from 1327, and the south broke away as Madurai, Vijayanagara and the Bahmani Sultanate.
2. An unstable nobility: Slaves and clients were loyal to their master but not to his heirs, so every succession invited conflict; Firoz Shah’s hereditary iqtas weakened the centre’s hold further.
3. Timur’s invasion: The sack of Delhi in 1398 left the Sultanate in anarchy.
4. Regional states: By the fifteenth century Jaunpur, Bengal, Malwa, Gujarat, Rajasthan and the whole of the south had rulers of their own.
5. The last Lodi: Ibrahim alienated his nobles, one of whom invited Babur, who won at Panipat in 1526.

Difference Between Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire began where the Sultanate ended, at Panipat in 1526, and it built on much that the Sultans had made. The two states differed in their rulers, their nobility and how they paid their officers:

The sharpest contrast lies in the revenue assignment. A Mughal noble, the mansabdar, held a rank fixed by a number called zat and was paid through a jagir, an assignment somewhat like an iqta. But unlike the muqti, who lived in his iqta and governed it, most mansabdars did not live in or administer their jagirs; they only drew its revenue, which their servants collected.

Sources

• NCERT: Our Pasts II (Class VII), The Delhi Sultans and The Mughal Empire
• NCERT: Medieval India (Satish Chandra), The Delhi Sultanat and its government
• NCERT: Themes in Indian History II (Class XII), An Imperial Capital: Vijayanagara
• Archaeological Survey of India: Qutb Minar and its Monuments
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Qutb Minar and its Monuments, Delhi
• Incredible India (Ministry of Tourism): Qutub Minar
• Wikipedia: Delhi Sultanate
• Wikipedia: Mamluk dynasty (Delhi)
• Wikipedia: Khalji dynasty
• Wikipedia: Tughlaq dynasty
• Wikipedia: Sayyid dynasty
• Wikipedia: Lodi dynasty
• Wikipedia: Qutb ud-Din Aibak
• Wikipedia: Iltutmish
• Wikipedia: Ghiyas ud din Balban
• Wikipedia: Muhammad bin Tughluq
• Wikipedia: Firuz Shah Tughlaq
• Wikipedia: Sack of Delhi (1398)
• Wikipedia: First Battle of Panipat
• Wikipedia: Iqta'
• Wikipedia: Tanka (coin)
• Wikipedia: Jital
• Wikipedia: Alai Darwaza
• Wikipedia: Tughlaqabad Fort
• Wikipedia: Feroz Shah Kotla
• Wikipedia: Lodi Gardens
• Wikipedia: Tomb of Sikandar Lodi
• Wikipedia: Fatehpur Sikri
• Wikipedia: Mughal Empire
• Wikipedia: Amir Khusrau
• Wikipedia: Ibn Battuta
• Wikipedia: Vijayanagara Empire
• Wikipedia: Vasco da Gama
• UPSC: Civil Services Examination question papers