Delhi Sultanate, refers to the various Muslim dynasties that ruled in India (1210–1526). It was founded after Muhammad of Ghor Muhammad of Ghor, d. 1206, Afghan conqueror of N India. A brother of the sultan of Ghor, he was made governor of Ghazni in 1173 and from there launched a series of invasions of India. By 1186 he had conquered the Muslim principalities in the Punjab.
..... Click the link for more information. defeated Prithvi Raj Prithvi Raj (prĭt`vē räj), d. 1192, ruler of the Chauan dynasty of N India.
..... Click the link for more information. and captured Delhi in 1192. In 1206, Qutb ud-Din, one of his generals, proclaimed himself sultan of Delhi and founded a line of rulers called the Slave dynasty, because he and several of the sultans who claimed succession from him were originally military slaves. Iltutmish (1210–35) and Balban (1266–87) were among the dynasty's most illustrious rulers. Constantly faced with revolts by conquered territories and rival families, the Slave dynasty came to an end in 1290. Under the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320), the conquests of Ala ud-Din Khalji brought Muslim dominion in India to its greatest height until the Mughul empire. Early in the reign of Muhammad Tughluq, founder of the Tughluq dynasty (1325–98), the power of Delhi was acknowledged even in the extreme S of India. His eccentric rule and ferocious temperament provoked a series of revolts, notably that of the Hindu Vijayanagar kingdom in the south, and a steady loss of territory; by his death (1351) the Hindu south had recovered its independence and the Deccan had become a separate Muslim state, the Bahmani kingdom. Under Tughluq's successors the sultanate of Delhi began to disintegrate into several small states. With the sack of Delhi by Timur in 1398, the once great sultanate fell, although local rulers lingered on at Delhi until the invasion of Babur and the Mughal Mughal (m
..... Click the link for more information. conquest.

Bibliography

See V. D. Mahajan, The Sultanate of Delhi (2d ed. 1963); I. Quereshi, Administration of the Sultanate of Delhi (5th ed. 1971); N. K. Hamida, Agriculture, Industrial and Urban Dynamism under the Sultans of Delhi, 1206–1555 (1986).

Delhi sultanate

Principal Muslim sultanate in northern India during the 13th to the 16th centuries. Its creation owed much to the campaigns of Muhammad of Ghur and his lieutenant Qutb al-Din Aybak between 1175 and 1206. During the reign of Sultan Iltutmish (1211–36), a permanent capital was established at Delhi and political ties with Ghur were severed. From 1290 to 1320, under the Khalji dynasty, the sultanate was an imperial power. Its power was shattered by Timur's invasion (1398–99), but it somewhat recovered under the Lodi (Afghan) dynasty (1451–1526). It fell again to Babur (1526), was reestablished briefly, then finally was subsumed into Akbar's Mughal Empire in 1556.