Delhi Sultanate

The Delhi Sultanate was a late medieval empire on the Indian subcontinent that lasted from 1206 to 1526, established in former Ghurid territories after the death of Muhammad of Ghor, with Qutb ud-Din Aibak, a former slave of Ghori, as its first ruler. Its capital moved between Lahore, Badayun, Delhi, Daulatabad and Agra across its history, and five major dynasties ruled it in succession: the Mamluk, Khalji, Tughlaq, Sayyid and Lodi dynasties. At its peak under the Tughlaq dynasty the sultanate covered most of the Indian subcontinent, spanning present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Nepal, with a population estimated at 101 million by 1500, and it repelled repeated Mongol invasions while developing the Hindustani language and Indo-Islamic architecture; one of its rulers, Razia Sultana, was among the few women to rule an Islamic state. The sultanate ended in 1526 when Babur defeated and killed the last Lodi sultan, Ibrahim Lodi, at the Battle of Panipat, and the Mughal Empire succeeded it.