The Delhi Sultanate
Explore the Delhi Sultanate — the Islamic state that ruled much of India for 320 years, blending Turkic, Persian, and Indian cultures.
The Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526 CE) was a succession of five Turkic and Afghan dynasties that ruled much of the Indian subcontinent from their capital in Delhi. It represents one of the most significant cultural encounters in world history: the meeting of Islamic and Hindu civilizations on a massive scale.
The sultanate was established when the Turkic military commander Qutb ud-Din Aibak broke away from the Ghurid Empire to found an independent state in northern India. Over the following centuries, successive dynasties — the Mamluk, Khalji, Tughlaq, Sayyid, and Lodi — expanded and contracted the sultanate's borders, at times controlling nearly the entire subcontinent. The Qutb Minar in Delhi, begun by Aibak, stands as the sultanate's most iconic monument.
The cultural impact was profound and lasting. Persian became the language of administration and high culture, leaving permanent marks on Indian languages, literature, and cuisine. Indo-Islamic architecture — blending Islamic geometric patterns with Indian sculptural traditions — produced some of the subcontinent's most beautiful buildings. But the encounter was also violent and traumatic. Hindu temples were destroyed, populations displaced, and the caste system's relationship with the new ruling elite was complex and often oppressive. The sultanate's legacy remains one of the most debated subjects in South Asian history.