Delhi sultanate

Lodi Tombs in Delhi, India. The Lodi Gardens contain the tombs of several 15th-16th century Lodi rulers of the Delhi sultanate.

Period 1206-1526 of early Muslim rule in northern and central India. It saw Delhi become the political capital of northern India, the building of a chain of garrison towns, and the establishment of an immigrant Muslim nobility. The final ruler, Ibrahim Lodi (reigned 1517-26), attempted to centralize authority, provoking the governor of Punjab to invite Babur, the Mogul chief of Kabul, to invade India. He defeated the sultanate's forces at Panipat 1526.

The sultanate was established after Muhammad Ghuri defeated the Rajput forces of Prithviraja Chauhan. It comprised the Mameluke sultans (1206-90) and then four dynasties: the Khalji Turks (1290-1320), the Tughluqs (1320-1414), the Sayyids (1414-51), and the Afghan Lodis (1451-1526). There was periodic persecution of the Hindu majority and conversion to Islam, but local Indian rulers were accommodated. Muslim influence was extended temporarily into southern India during the reign 1296-1316 of the Khalji Ala ud-Din, and that of Muhammad ibn Tughluq 1325-51, who forcibly transferred the capital to Daulatabad in the Deccan 1327-30. However, the sultanate was faced constantly with the danger of internal rebellion and the breakaway of both its Hindu tributaries and Muslim provincial nobility, which eventually led to its demise.