Delhi Sultanate

Not to be confused with Sultanate of Deli.

Sultanate of Delhi
سلطنت دهلی (Persian)
Salṭanat-i-Dihlī
1206–1526
Flag of Delhi Sultanate
Flag of the Delhi Sultanate according to the contemporary Catalan Atlas (c. 1375).[1][2][3]
StatusSultanate
Capital
Official languages
Religion
State religion
Sunni Islam
Others
Hinduism (majority), Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism
GovernmentMonarchy
Sultan 
• 1206–1210
Qutb ud-Din Aibak (first)
• 1517–1526
Ibrahim Lodi (last)
LegislatureCorps of Forty (1211–1266)
Historical eraMedieval India
25 June 1206
1 February–13 June 1290
17–20 December 1398
21 April 1526
Area
• 1312
3,200,000 km2 (1,200,000 sq mi)[12]
Population
• 1500 estimate
101,000,000[13]
CurrencyTaka
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Ghurid Empire
Mughal Empire
Bengal Sultanate
Bahmani Sultanate
Gujarat Sultanate
Malwa Sultanate
Khandesh Sultanate
Jaunpur Sultanate
Multan Sultanate
Madurai Sultanate
Today part of

The Delhi Sultanate or the Sultanate of Delhi also known as the Empire of Hindustan was a late medieval empire primarily based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent, for more than three centuries.[14][15][16] The sultanate was established around c. 1206–1211 in the former Ghurid territories in India. The sultanate's 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.[17]

The foundation of the Sultanate was established 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.[18] 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, including Taj al-Din Yildiz, Qutb ud-Din Aibak, Bahauddin Tughril and Nasir ad-Din Qabacha, that had inherited and divided the Ghurid territories amongst themselves.[19] Khalji and Tughlaq rule ushered a new wave of rapid and continual Muslim conquests deep into South India.[20][21][22] The sultanate finally reached the peak of its geographical reach during the Tughlaq dynasty, occupying most of the Indian subcontinent under Muhammad bin Tughluq. A major political transformation occurred across North India, triggered by the Central Asian king Timur's devastating raid on Delhi in 1398, followed soon afterwards by the re-emergence of rival Hindu powers such as Vijayanagara and Mewar asserting independence, and new Muslim sultanates such as the Bengal and Bahmani Sultanates breaking off.[23][24] 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,[25] as seen concretely in the development of the Hindustani language[26] and Indo-Islamic architecture.[27][28] It was also one of the few powers to repel attacks by the Mongols (from the Chagatai Khanate)[29] and saw the enthronement of one of the few female rulers in Islamic history, Razia Sultana, who reigned from 1236 to 1240.[30] Their treatment of Hindus, Buddhists, and other dharmic faiths are generally perceived to be unfavourable, as mass forcible conversions were popular during the sultanate's rule and large-scale desecrations of Hindu and Buddhist temples, including universities and libraries took place.[31][32][33][34][35] 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.[36][37]

  1. ^ Grey flag with black vertical stripe according to the Catalan Atlas (c. 1375): in the depiction of the Delhi Sultanate in the Catalan Atlas
  2. ^ Kadoi, Yuka (2010). "On the Timurid flag". Beiträge zur islamischen Kunst und Archäologie. 2: 148. doi:10.29091/9783954909537/009. S2CID 263250872. ...helps identify another curious flag found in northern India – a brown or originally silver flag with a vertical black line – as the flag of the Delhi Sultanate (602–962/1206–1555).
  3. ^ Note: other sources describe the use of two flags: the black Abbasid flag, and the red Ghurid flag, as well as various banners with figures of the new moon, a dragon or a lion.Qurashi, Ishtiyaq Hussian (1942). The Administration of the Sultanate of Delhi. Kashmiri Bazar Lahore: SH. MUHAMMAD ASHRAF. p. 143. Large banners were carried with the army. In the beginning, the sultans had only two colours : on the right were black flags, of Abbasid colour; and on the left, they carried their colour, red, which was derived from Ghor. Qutb-ud-din Aibak's standards bore the figures of the new moon, a dragon or a lion; Firuz Shah's flags also displayed a dragon.Jha, Sadan (8 January 2016). Reverence, Resistance and Politics of Seeing the Indian National Flag. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-107-11887-4., also "On the right of the Sultan was carried the black standard of the Abbasids and on the left the red standard of Ghor." in Thapliyal, Uma Prasad (1938). The Dhvaja, Standards and Flags of India: A Study. B.R. Publishing Corporation. p. 94. ISBN 978-81-7018-092-0.
  4. ^ a b c Schwartzberg 1978, p. 147, map XIV.3 (h).
  5. ^ Jackson 2003.
  6. ^ Schwartzberg 1978, pp. 39, 148.
  7. ^ For a map of their territory see: Schwartzberg 1978, p. 147, map XIV.4 (d)
  8. ^ Eaton, Richard Maxwell (2015). The Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India. Princeton University Press. pp. 41–42. ISBN 978-1-4008-6815-5.
  9. ^ Alam, Muzaffar (1998). "The pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics". Modern Asian Studies. 32 (2). Cambridge University Press: 317–349. doi:10.1017/s0026749x98002947. S2CID 146630389. Hindavi was recognized as a semi-official language by the Sor Sultans (1540–1555) and their chancellery rescripts bore transcriptions in the Devanagari script of the Persian contents. The practice is said to have been introduced by the Lodis (1451–1526).
  10. ^ "Arabic and Persian Epigraphical Studies - Archaeological Survey of India". Asi.nic.in. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  11. ^ Jackson 2003, p. 28.
  12. ^ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D. (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires Archived 17 May 2016 at the Portuguese Web Archive" (PDF). Journal of World-Systems Research. 12 (2): 222–223. ISSN 1076-156X. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 July 2020. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference ggdc.net was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Shally-Jensen, Michael; Vivian, Anthony (2022). A Cultural Encyclopedia of Lost Cities and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO. p. 171. ISBN 978-1-4408-7311-9.
  15. ^ Delhi Sultanate, Encyclopædia Britannica
  16. ^ A. Schimmel, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent, Leiden, 1980
  17. ^ Chapman, Graham (2016) [1990]. "Religious vs. regional determinism: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as inheritors of empire". In Chisholm, Michael; Smith, David M. (eds.). Shared Space: Divided Space: Essays on Conflict and Territorial Organization. Routledge. pp. 106–134. ISBN 978-1-317-35837-4.
  18. ^ Sugata Bose; Ayesha Jalal (2004). Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. Psychology Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-415-30786-4. It was a similar combination of political and economic imperatives which led Muhammad Ghuri, a Turk, to invade India a century and half later in 1192. His defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan, a Rajput chieftain, in the strategic battle of Tarain in northern India paved the way for the establishment of the first Muslim sultante
  19. ^ K. A. Nizami (1992). A Comprehensive History of India: The Delhi Sultanat (A.D. 1206–1526). Vol. 5 (2nd ed.). The Indian History Congress / People's Publishing House. p. 198.
  20. ^ Mahajan (2007). History of Medieval India. Chand. p. 121. ISBN 9788121903646.
  21. ^ Sugata Bose, Ayesha Jalal (1998). Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. Psychology Press. p. 28. ISBN 9780415169523.
  22. ^ M.S. Ahluwalia (1999). "Rajput Muslim Relations (1200–1526 A.D.)". In Shyam Singh Ratnawat; Krishna Gopal Sharma (eds.). History and Culture of Rajasthan (From Earliest Times upto 1956 A.D.). Centre for Rajasthan Studies, University of Rajasthan. p. 135. OCLC 264960720. The Khaiji rule proved much stronger for the Rajput principalities ... A new wave of invasions and conquests began, which ended only when practically the whole of India had been bought under the sway of the Delhi kingdom.
  23. ^ Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India, 3rd ed., Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-15482-0, pp. 187–190.
  24. ^ Smith 1920, Ch. 2, p. 218.
  25. ^ Asher & Talbot 2008, pp. 50–52.
  26. ^ Cite error: The named reference brown2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  27. ^ A. Welch, "Architectural Patronage and the Past: The Tughluq Sultans of India", Muqarnas 10, 1993, Brill Publishers, pp. 311–322.
  28. ^ J. A. Page, Guide to the Qutb, Delhi, Calcutta, 1927, pp. 2–7.
  29. ^ Pradeep Barua The State at War in South Asia, ISBN 978-0803213449, pp. 29–30.
  30. ^ Bowering et al., The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, ISBN 978-0691134840, Princeton University Press
  31. ^ Gul and Khan (2008)"Growth and Development of Oriental Libraries in India", Library Philosophy and Practice, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
  32. ^ "Delhi sultanate | History, Significance, Map, & Rulers | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 17 November 2023. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
  33. ^ Richard Eaton, Temple Desecration and Muslim States in Medieval India at Google Books, (2004)
  34. ^ Richard Eaton (September 2000). "Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States". Journal of Islamic Studies. 11 (3): 283–319. doi:10.1093/jis/11.3.283.
  35. ^ Jackson, Peter (2000). The Delhi Sultanate: a political and military history. Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization (Reprint ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-54329-3.
  36. ^ Ludden 2002, p. 67.
  37. ^ Asher & Talbot 2008, pp. 50–51.