Delhi sultanate, principal Muslim sultanate in northIndia from the 13th to the 16th century. Its creation owed much to the campaigns ofMuʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sām (Muḥammad of Ghūr; brother ofSultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn of Ghūr) and his lieutenantQuṭb al-Dīn Aibak between 1175 and 1206 and particularly to victories at the battles ofTaraōrī in 1192 and Chandawar in 1194.

TheGhūrid soldiers of fortune in India did notsever their political connection with Ghūr (now Ghowr, in present Afghanistan) until SultanIltutmish (reigned 1211–36) had made his permanent capital atDelhi, had repulsed rival attempts to take over the Ghūrid conquests in India, and had withdrawn his forces from contact with theMongol armies, which by the 1220s had conqueredAfghanistan. Iltutmish also gained firm control of the main urban strategic centres of theNorth Indian Plain, from which he could keep in check the refractoryRajput chiefs. After Iltutmish’s death, a decade of factional struggle was followed by nearly 40 years of stability under Ghiyāth al-Dīn Balban, sultan in 1266–87. During this period Delhi remained on the defensive against the Mongols and undertook only precautionary measures against the Rajputs.

Under the sultans of theKhaljīdynasty (1290–1320), the Delhi sultanate became an imperial power.ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn (reigned 1296–1316) conqueredGujarat (c. 1297) and the principal fortified places inRajasthan (1301–12) and reduced to vassalage the principal Hindu kingdoms of southern India (1307–12). His forces also defeated serious Mongol onslaughts by the Chagatais ofTransoxania (1297–1306).

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Muḥammad ibn Tughluq (reigned 1325–51) attempted to set up a Muslim military, administrative, and cultural elite in theDeccan, with a second capital at Daulatabad, but the Deccan Muslimaristocracy threw off the overlordship of Delhi and set up (1347) theBahmanī sultanate. Muḥammad’s successor, Fīrūz Shah Tughluq (reigned 1351–88), made no attempt to reconquer the Deccan.

The power of the Delhi sultanate in north India was shattered by the invasion (1398–99) of Turkic conquerorTimur (Tamerlane), who sacked Delhi itself. Under theSayyid dynasty (c. 1414–51) the sultanate was reduced to a country power continually contending on an equal footing with other petty Muslim and Hindu principalities. Under theLodī (Afghan) dynasty (1451–1526), however, with large-scale immigration from Afghanistan, the Delhi sultanate partly recovered itshegemony, until the Mughal leaderBābur destroyed it at the FirstBattle of Panipat on April 21, 1526. After 15 years of Mughal rule, the AfghanShēr Shah of Sūr reestablished the sultanate in Delhi, which fell again in 1555 to Bābur’s son and successor,Humāyūn, who died in January 1556. At the Second Battle of Panipat (November 5, 1556), Humāyūn’s sonAkbar definitively defeated the Hindu general Hemu, and the sultanate became submerged in theMughal Empire.

The Delhi sultanate made no break with the political traditions of the later Hindu period—namely, that rulers sought paramountcy rather thansovereignty. It never reduced Hindu chiefs to unarmed impotence or established anexclusive claim toallegiance. The sultan was served by aheterogeneous elite of Turks, Afghans, Khaljīs, and Hindu converts; he readily accepted Hindu officials and Hindu vassals. Threatened for long periods with Mongol invasion from the northwest and hampered by indifferent communications, the Delhi sultans perforce left a large discretion to their local governors and officials.