Wars of the Delhi Sultanate
The Wars of the Delhi Sultanate refer to a series of military conflicts and territorial expansions that characterized the rule of various sultans in northern India from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Emerging after the fall of the Ghorid sultanate, the Delhi Sultanate was established by Qutbuddin Aibak, who faced fierce competition from local provincial commanders. The sultans, many of whom were former Turkish military slaves, sought to consolidate power while contending with internal rebellions and external threats, notably from the Mongols.
During the thirteenth century, the Sultanate expanded its territory, bringing it into conflict with the Hindu Rājput states. The militarily disciplined Mamlūks proved adept at resisting Rājput advances but faced challenges from Mongol invasions that required significant military focus. In the fourteenth century, sultans like ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Khaljī and Muḥammad ibn Tughluq pushed further south, extending their campaigns into the Deccan region, yet their vast armies would eventually falter against the later incursions of figures like Tamerlane in the late 1390s.
The decline of the Delhi Sultanate in the fifteenth century led to the rise of independent sultanates and the resurgence of Rājput power, setting the stage for future political dynamics in the region. Ultimately, the Sultanate laid the groundwork for Muslim governance in India, influencing the emergence of later dynasties, particularly the Mughal Empire.
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Wars of the Delhi Sultanate
At issue: Hegemony in India
Date: 1206–1526
Location: India
Combatants: Delhi sultans vs. rebels, Rājputs, Mongols
Principal commanders:Delhi, Shams al-Dīn Iltutmish (r. 1211–1236), Ghiyā al-Dīn Balban (r. 1266–1287), ʾAlāʾ al-Dīn Muhammad Khaljī (r. 1296–1316), Muḥ ammad ibn Tughluq (r. 1325–1351)
Principal battles: Lahore, Gujerat, Malwa, Devagiri, Warangal, Mysore, Madura, Delhi, Pānīpat
Result: Muslim dominion established
Background
The Delhi sultanate emerged from the collapse of the Ghorid sultanate (c. 1000–1215), with its heartland in the mountainous regions of central Afghanistan. Following the demise of the last Ghorid sultans, their provincial commanders proclaimed their independence in Ghazni, Punjab, Sind, and Bengal in fierce competition with each other. In Delhi, Qutbuddin Aibak (d. 1210) overcame most of his competitors and inaugurated an independent north Indian sultanate.
Action
During the thirteenth century, the Delhi sultanate extended from Sind to Bengal, with its southern frontier stretching from the middle reaches of the Chambal to the mouth of the Ganges. Its sultans were known as Mamlūks, or slave-kings, because several were originally Turkish military slaves.
A predatory state formed by conquest, the thirteenth century Delhi sultanate faced ubiquitous foes in the Hindu Rājput states, which sought to throw off their conqueror’s yoke. The Rājputs were stalwart fighters, but with their chivalric warriors’ code of individual heroism in battle, they were no match for their Muslim opponents, Central Asian Turkish Mamlūks who were highly trained and disciplined mounted archers. The Muslim field commanders, however, were a restless and turbulent elite who forced the sultanate to expend much energy in putting down frequent internal rebellions. For example, no fewer than five of the successors of Shams al-Dīn Iltutmish (r. 1211–1236), the real architect of the sultanate, perished in such disturbances.
A recurring danger to the sultanate began in 1221, when the Mongol forces of Genghis Khan approached the Indus. Thereafter, almost annually, Mongol raiders crossed the river into Panjab, even capturing Lahore in 1241. The armies of Iltutmish and Ghiyās al-Dī n Balban (r. 1266–1287), in particular, beat them back, and in so doing saved both the newly established north Indian Muslim state and Hindu civilization itself from Mongol devastation. Delhi provided sanctuary for streams of central Asian refugees fleeing the Mongols, among them fugitive soldiers who boosted the numbers of the sultan’s free-born troops vis-á-vis his unruly Mamlūks.
During the fourteenth century, the emphasis changed. The Mongol threat petered out, and sultans such as ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muhammad Khaljī (r. 1296–1316) and Muḥammad ibn Tughluq (r. 1325–1351) campaigned strenuously in the Deccan and the far south. After conquering Gujerat (1297) and Malwa (1305), ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn overthrew in quick succession the Deccani kingdoms of Devagiri (1306–1307) and Warangal (1308), the Hoysalas of Mysore (1310), and the Pāṇḍyas of Madura (1311). His victorious armies returned to Delhi with inestimable plunder. Hardly less energetic was Muḥammad ibn Tughluq, although contemporary accounts confuse the chronology and even the locations of some of his campaigns.
The Khaljī and Tughluq armies were far larger than those of the Mamlūk sultans and were differently constituted. The supply of Turkish slave-boys from Central Asia who in the past had been trained for Mamlūk service and made up the bulk of the army, was drying up because of the incorporation of all Central Asia into Genghis Khan’s empire and also because of the steady conversion to Islam of the Central Asian population. (Islamic Law forbade the enslavement of Muslims.) The first Khaljī sultan had experimented with hiring Mongol deserters, who were nominally Muslims, but these proved too unruly and ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ordered a general massacre of them—supposedly, 20,000-30,000 in a single day. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn himself recruited foreign Muslims, native-born converts, and even Hindus, for all of whom he promulgated elaborate regulations concerning pay, weapons, and cavalry mounts. Muḥammad ibn Tughluq once again recruited Mongol fugitives as well as various tribal groups from the Afghan highlands. This enormous military establishment was to prove utterly ineffective in the face of Tamerlane’s forces, which invaded northern India and sacked Delhi in 1398–1399.
During the fifteenth century, the Delhi sultanate dwindled in size and power, as more regions rebelled and independent sultanates emerged. The rulers of Delhi faced aggressive neighboring sultanates in Malwa and Jaunpur, as well as the resurgence of Rājput military power, the consequence of the disintegration of the former unitary Muslim state. Between 1414 and 1451, the rulers of Delhi did not even presume to take the title of sultan.
A further development was the infiltration into northern India of Afghan tribesmen who settled in Punjab and around Delhi, as well as in Malwa and Bengal, where they eventually established their own ruling dynasties. The Afghans were fine fighters but were accustomed to regarding their leaders as simply the first among equals in their jirgas, or tribal assemblies, and resented the centralizing absolutism characteristic of Indo-Muslim rulers. Even the powerful Afghan sultan, Sikandar Lodī (r. 1489–1517), found them hard to control, and they resisted the autocratic pretensions of his son, Ibrāhīm (r. 1517–1526), thus contributing to the latter’s defeat by the Mogul Bābur at Panipat (1526), where Mogul artillery may have also contributed to the outcome.
Aftermath
The Delhi sultanate laid the foundations for the Muslim domination of India, which culminated during the reigns of the first six Mogul rulers (1526–1707). It thus contributed to the shaping of later Indo-Islamic civilization and of modern-day Muslim communities in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Bibliography
Digby, S. War-horse and Elephant in the Delhi Sultanate. Oxford: Orient Monographs, 1971.
Jackson, P. The Delhi Sultanate. Cambridge, London: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Kolff, D. H. A. Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy. Cambridge, London: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Wink, A. Al-Hind. Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1997.