Empire1206 CE – 1526 CESouth Asia

Delhi Sultanate

Five successive Islamic dynasties ruled northern India from Delhi for 320 years, building monuments like the Qutb Minar, introducing Persian court culture, and — crucially — repelling multiple Mongol invasions that devastated Central Asia and the Middle East.

Key Figures
Qutb ud-Din AibakIltutmishRazia SultanaAlauddin KhaljiMuhammad bin TughluqIbrahim Lodi

Preceding Causes

Muhammad of Ghor's conquests in northern India following the decisive Second Battle of Tarain (1192), where he defeated the Rajput confederacy under Prithviraj III, allowed his general Qutb ud-Din Aibak to found the Sultanate.

Empire320 CE

Gupta Empire

India's classical Golden Age, during which art, literature, mathematics, and science flourished. Aryabhata approximated pi to four decimal places (3.1416) and proposed that the Earth rotates on its axis; the decimal place-value number system was developed; Kalidasa wrote Shakuntala.

Historical Consequences

Resisted Mongol invasions that would have devastated South Asia. Introduced Indo-Islamic architecture (Qutb Minar, Alai Darwaza). Persian became the language of administration and high culture, contributing to the later emergence of Urdu. Its political fragmentation under the later Lodi dynasty invited Babur's Mughal invasion.

War1526 CE

First Battle of Panipat

On April 21, 1526, Babur's disciplined Timurid army of roughly 12,000 — equipped with field artillery and matchlock firearms — decisively defeated Ibrahim Lodi's much larger force (traditionally estimated at 100,000, likely exaggerated), ending the Delhi Sultanate and founding the Mughal Empire.

Cause-Effect Graph

Loading graph…