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The Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526) was a series of Muslim-ruled states based at Delhi that controlled much of northern India and, at times, reached far into the south. It was founded by Turkic military commanders after the conquests of Muhammad of Ghor and was ruled in turn by five dynasties. The sultans held off repeated Mongol invasions, brought Persian as the language of government, and built mosques and towers such as the Qutb Minar. A Muslim ruling elite governed a mostly Hindu population, and this meeting of traditions produced new forms of art, language and religious life before the Mughals replaced the sultanate in 1526.
Build a timeline of the five dynasties and mark key events: the founding in 1206, the Mongol attacks, Timur's sack of Delhi in 1398 and the Battle of Panipat in 1526. Use Ibn Battuta's account of the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq as a primary source. Compare the sultanate with other states of Dar al-Islam to see how Islamic rulers adapted to local societies.
In the 1100s, northern India was divided among many Hindu kingdoms. From Afghanistan, the ruler Muhammad of Ghor led raids and then conquests. In 1192 his army defeated a coalition led by Prithviraj Chauhan at the Second Battle of Tarain. When Muhammad died in 1206, one of his generals, Qutb al-Din Aibak, took power at Delhi. Aibak had begun his career as an enslaved soldier, so his line is often called the Mamluk or Slave dynasty. This was the start of the Delhi Sultanate.
Five dynasties followed one another: the Mamluks, the Khaljis, the Tughluqs, the Sayyids and the Lodis. Iltutmish strengthened the state, and his daughter Razia ruled as sultan from 1236 to 1240, a rare case of a woman on a Muslim throne. Alauddin Khalji drove back several Mongol invasions from the Chagatai Khanate around 1300, when Mongol khanates ruled much of Asia. He also pushed into southern India. Muhammad bin Tughluq ruled the largest area of any sultan but is remembered for failed experiments, such as moving the capital south to Daulatabad. In 1398 the Central Asian conqueror Timur sacked Delhi, and the sultanate never fully recovered its power.
The sultans ruled with a Persian-speaking Muslim elite of Turkic, Afghan and Indian origin. Persian became the language of government and high culture. Most of the population remained Hindu. Non-Muslims generally paid a special tax, the jizya, though rulers applied it unevenly. Many sultans relied on Hindu landholders and officials to collect revenue. Sufi orders such as the Chishtis drew followers through devotion, music and charity, and in some regions conversion grew around them.
The meeting of cultures left lasting results. Builders combined Persian arches and domes with Indian stone carving, as in the Qutb Minar complex near Delhi. A spoken language mixing Persian and Indian vocabulary, later called Hindustani, spread in the north. In the south, the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire, founded in 1336, became a rival power. In 1526 Babur, a ruler from Central Asia, defeated the last Lodi sultan at Panipat and founded the Mughal Empire.
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