Islam in Delhi

**Delhi** has the second largest Muslim population (about 12.86%) in India.

The beginning can be marked from the time when Muhammad Ghori invaded India in 1175 A.D. After the conquest of Multan and Punjab, he advanced towards Delhi. The Rajput chiefs of northern India headed by Prithviraj Chauhan defeated Ghori in the First Battle of Terrain in 1191 A.D. After about a year, Ghori came again to avenge his defeat. A furious battle was fought again in Terrain in 1192 A.D. in which Prithviraj Chauhan was defeated, captured and put to death. The Second Battle of Terrain, however, proved to be the decisive battle that laid the foundations of Muslim rule in Northern India. Ghori built many mosques and libraries after laying Muslim rule in India. The period between 1206 A.D. and 1526 A.D. in India's history is known as the Delhi Sultanate period.

During this period of over three hundred years, five dynasties ruled in Delhi. These were: the **Mamluk dynasty** (1206-90), **Khilji dynasty** (1290-1320), **Tughlaq dynasty** (1320-1413), **Sayyid dynasty** (1414-51), and **Lodhi dynasty** (1451-1526). The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526). Five dynasties ruled over the Delhi Sultanate sequentially: the Mamluk/Slave dynasty (1206–1290), the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320), the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414), the Sayyid dynasty (1414–1451), and the Lodi dynasty (1451–1526). It covered large swathes of territory in modern-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh as well as some parts of southern Nepal.

As a successor to the Ghurid dynasty, the Delhi Sultanate was originally one among a number of principalities ruled by the Turkic slave-generals of Muhammad Ghori (who had conquered large parts of Northern India), including Yildiz, Aibek and Qubacha, that had inherited and divided the Ghurid territories amongst themselves. After a long period of infighting, the Mamluks were overthrown in the Khalji revolution which marked the transfer of power from the Turks to a heterogeneous Indo-Muslim nobility. Both of the resulting Khalji and Tughlaq dynasties respectively saw a new wave of rapid Muslim conquests deep into South India. The sultanate finally reached the peak of its geographical reach during the Tughlaq dynasty, occupying most of the Indian subcontinent. This was followed by decline due to Hindu reconquests, Hindu kingdoms such as the Vijayanagara Empire and Mewar asserting independence, and new Muslim sultanates such as the Bengal Sultanate breaking off. In 1526, the Sultanate was conquered and succeeded by the Mughal Empire.

The sultanate is noted for its integration of the Indian subcontinent into a global cosmopolitan culture (as seen concretely in the development of the Hindustani language and Indo-Islamic architecture), being one of the few powers to repel attacks by the Mongols (from the Chagatai Khanate) and for enthroning one of the few female rulers in Islamic history, Razia Sultana, who reigned from 1236 to 1240. Bakhtiyar Khalji's annexations were responsible for the large-scale desecration of Hindu and Buddhist temples (leading to the decline of Buddhism in East India and Bengal), and the destruction of universities and libraries. Mongolian raids on West and Central Asia set the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, intelligentsia, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from those regions into the subcontinent, thereby establishing Islamic culture in India and the rest of the region.