Delhi Sultanate

The Delhi Sultanate (1206 to 1526) was the run of five Muslim dynasties that ruled much of northern India from Delhi. Punjab was its north-western frontier. Lahore was the first capital, under Qutb ud-Din Aibak (1206 to 1210), and the frontier took the weight of repeated Mongol raids.

The five dynasties:

• Mamluk (1206 to 1290): founded by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, a former slave of Muhammad of Ghor. Balban ruled 1266 to 1287.
• Khalji (1290 to 1320): founded by Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji. His nephew Ala ud-Din Khalji expanded the Sultanate and faced repeated Mongol raids.
• Tughlaq (1320 to about 1413): founded by Ghiyath al-Din Tughlaq. It reached its greatest extent under Muhammad bin Tughlaq. Timur plundered Delhi in 1398 and the Sultanate fell into anarchy, with provinces breaking away.
• Sayyid (about 1414 to 1451): founded by Khizr Khan, who began as a vassal of the Timurid Empire. A minor power.
• Lodi (1451 to 1526): founded by Bahlul Khan Lodi. Sikandar Lodi (1489 to 1517) moved the capital to Agra, and Ibrahim Lodi succeeded in 1517.

The world Guru Nanak was born into: Guru Nanak was born on 15 April 1469 at Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, in the Lahore province of the Sultanate. As a young man he kept the granaries and stores of Daulat Khan Lodhi, who governed the Jalandhar Doab from Sultanpur. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism records that when rivals said Nanak was wasting the stores, two inspections found them full and the accounts correct, and that when complaints of heresy reached the governor he dismissed them.

The end: Daulat Khan later became governor of the whole of Punjab with Lahore as his seat. The Encyclopaedia says he fell out with Sultan Ibrahim Lodi and, with the Sultan's uncle Alam Khan, invited Babur, the ruler of Afghanistan, to invade India. Babur came as a conqueror, not an ally, and Daulat Khan turned against him and was defeated. Dawn describes Babur's entry into Lahore in 1524, with four days of looting and killing, and reads Guru Nanak's Babarvani as the witness of ordinary people to it. On 21 April 1526 Babur defeated and killed Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat. That ended the Delhi Sultanate and began the Mughal Empire.