Everything on Delhi Sultanate 1206–1526

A Turkic slave-general of Muhammad Ghuri who received the insignia of royalty from Ghuri's successor and founded Delhi's Mamluk (Slave) dynasty; he died in a fall from his horse during a game of chogan.

Son of Qutb-ud-din Aibak who succeeded his father but was judged unfit to govern; defeated in battle before Delhi by Shams-ud-din Iltutmish after a reign of scarcely one year.

Son-in-law and former slave of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, invited by discontented nobles and then took Delhi by defeating Aram Shah in battle.

Son of Iltutmish who succeeded him without opposition at Delhi, but was deposed within seven months after his mother's cruelties provoked a confederacy of chiefs who raised his sister Razia instead.

Daughter of Iltutmish, raised to the throne at Delhi by seven chiefs who deserted her brother Rukn-ud-din Firuz, whom she then defeated and deposed.

Son of Iltutmish, raised to the throne by the Toorky officers while his sister Razia was held captive at Bituhnda; besieged in Delhi and put to death after a reign of just over two years.

Son of Rukn-ud-din Firuz, raised to the throne by the nobility on the same day a rival usurper was deposed; later deposed himself and imprisoned for the rest of his life.

Youngest son of Iltutmish, summoned from Byraich by the nobles after Alauddin Masud's deposition and seated on his father's throne; died of illness after a reign of twenty years and upwards.

A purchased Turkic slave who rose to vizier and, as Nasir-ud-din Mahmud's brother-in-law, ascended the throne on his death with the general consent of the nobility and people.

Grandson of Balban, seated on the throne in his eighteenth year by the Delhi kotwal Fukhr-ud-din, overriding Balban's chosen heir; later assassinated while paralysed and sick.

Infant son of Kaiqubad, seized from the harem at three years old by a Mongol-officer faction to be set up as king; kept alive some months as a figurehead by Jalal-ud-din Khilji before being put to death, ending the Mamluk (Shamsi) line.

Founded the Khalji dynasty by having the reigning sultan Kaiqubad assassinated and proclaiming himself king in Delhi at the age of seventy; murdered in 1296 at Kurra by men of his own nephew Alauddin.

Seized the throne in 1296 after his men murdered his uncle Jalaluddin at Kurra and a boy-king briefly installed by the dowager queen fled to Multan; died in 1316 amid suspicion of poisoning by his regent Malik Kafur.

Placed on the throne at about six years old in 1316 under a forged will naming him heir and Malik Kafur regent; deposed the same year by his elder brother Mubarak, who had him blinded and imprisoned for life.

Deposed his younger brother Umar and blinded him to take the throne in 1317, after ruling two months as his regent; murdered in his palace in 1321 by his own favourite, Khusrau Khan.

A commander raised from low origin by Mubarak Shah, he murdered his king in a palace conspiracy in 1321 and had himself proclaimed sultan; overthrown and killed the same year by Ghazi Malik, founder of the Tughluq dynasty.

Founder of the Tughluq dynasty at Delhi, who defeated and killed the usurper Khusrau Khan and was raised to the throne by the populace and nobles of the city; died when a temporary pavilion collapsed on him, an event Ferishta himself leaves unresolved between accident and design.

Eldest son and heir-apparent of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq, he ascended the throne three days after his father's funeral and reigned 27 years until his death of a fever brought on, Ferishta says, by a surfeit of fish.

A cousin of Muhammad bin Tughluq (son of Salar Rajub and a sister of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq) whom the dying king recommended as his successor, and whom the army then proclaimed king in camp; abdicated in old age in favour of his grandson and died soon after at 90.

Grandson of Firuz Shah Tughluq through his eldest son Futteh Khan, placed on the throne by the household troops at the ageing Firuz Shah's own instance; assassinated by conspirators under Mullik Rookn-ood-Deen after a reign of five months.

Grandson of Firuz Shah Tughluq through his son Zuffur Khan, raised to the throne by the conspirators who had just killed Tughluq Shah II; driven out after a contested year-long struggle by his rival Nasir-ud-din Muhammad and sent prisoner to Meerut, where he died some years later.

Son of Firuz Shah Tughluq, who first took the throne in his father's lifetime, was expelled twice by his rival Abu Bakr, and only secured Delhi for good on a third attempt in 1390; died of a relapsed fever after roughly six and a half years.

Son of Nasir-ud-din Muhammad Tughluq II, born Humayun, who took the name Sikundur on succeeding his father but was cut off by sudden illness after only 45 days on the throne; Briggs gives no 'Alauddin' title for him.

A youth, son of Nasir-ud-din Muhammad Tughluq II, whom the nobles placed on the throne after his brother Sikandar's sudden death; his 20-year reign saw civil war with the rival Nusrat Shah, the loss of the provinces, and Timur's invasion, and ended when he died of a fever while hunting.

Son of Futteh Khan and grandson of Firuz Shah Tughluq, set up by the minister Sadut Khan as a rival king to his cousin Mahmud Tughluq in the same capital; briefly held Delhi again after Timur's sack in 1398 before retiring to Meerut when pressed by Mulloo Yekbal Khan.

An Afghan noble and former private secretary elevated by Mahmud Tughluq, elected by the nobles in his stead; besieged three times by Khizr Khan and forced to surrender in 1414, then confined at Hissar Feroza, where he died — the last ruler before the Sayyid dynasty.

Founded the Sayyid dynasty of Delhi by taking the capital from Dowlut Khan Lody after a four-month siege in 1414, ruling in the name of Timur's line without assuming the royal title, and died of illness in 1421.

Succeeded his father Khizr Khan in 1421 on a nomination the dying king had made, confirmed by an assembly of nobles, and was murdered in a mosque in 1435 by conspirators acting for his own vizier, Sarwar-ul-Mulk.

Placed on the throne the same day Mubarak Shah was assassinated, installed by the vizier who had engineered the killing, and died a natural death in 1445.

Succeeded his father Muhammad Shah in 1445, lost Delhi to Bahlul Lodi in 1450 and formally abdicated in his favour, retiring to Budaun until his death in 1478.

Invited into Delhi by the Sayyid vizier Humeed Khan while governor of Sirhind, Bahlul took possession of the capital and was proclaimed king in 1450, founding the Lodi dynasty; he reigned until his death in 1488, after which his son Sikandar succeeded him.

Born Nizam Khan to Bahlul Lodi and Zeina, he was declared heir by his father and, on Bahlul's death, was carried by his partisans to Jalali and enthroned there in 1488; he reigned until his death at Agra in 1517, when his son Ibrahim succeeded him.

The son of Sikandar Lodi, he succeeded on his father's death at Agra in 1517 and was defeated and slain by Babur, ending the Lodi dynasty and the Delhi Sultanate.

Bosworth's table gives Aybak's accession, in 602/1206, as 'Malik of Hindūstān in Lahore for the Ghūrids' — sovereignty from a Ghurid governorship, and from Lahore rather than Delhi; Iltutmish (607/1211) is the first of the line who is titled 'sultan in Delhi' in the same table.

From Firuz Shah II Khalji's accession, 689/1290, to Khusraw Khan Barwari's usurpation, 720/1320, per Bosworth's table.

From Tughluq Shah I's accession, 720/1320, to the Sayyid succession.

From Khidr Khan's accession, 817/1414, to Alam Shah's withdrawal to Badaon, where the table shows him ruling 855–83/1451–78 as a rump — the archive convention (extinguished by the settlement that ends it) reads 855/1451 as the Delhi succession's actual end, when Bahlul Lodi takes the throne.

From Bahlul Lodi's accession, 855/1451, to the 'Mughal victory' over Ibrahim II, 932/1526.

Father named as Nasir-ood-Deen, Kurra Khan (governor of Bengal, son of Ghiyas-ud-din Balban); he was never himself a Delhi ruler in this house, so has no people/succession entry of his own.

Alauddin was Jalaluddin's nephew (brother's son), not his own child; his father Shahab-ud-din Mas'ud never reigned.

Firuz's mother was Ghiyas-ud-din I's sister (making Firuz his nephew, per p.444: 'his cousin Feroze, nephew of Gheias-ood-Deen Toghluk'); the plate facing p.401 names his father as Salar Rajub ('Feroze Bin Salar Rajub').

Futteh Khan (never reigned) is Firuz Shah's eldest son; father of rulers Tughluq Shah II and Nusrat Shah.

Zuffur Khan (never reigned), third son of Firuz Shah; father of Abu Bakr.

Mullik Sooliman is named only as Khizr Khan's father, an adopted son of Mullik Murdan Dowlut, governor of Mooltan under Feroze Toghluk; he was never a Sayyid ruler of Delhi and is not in the people list.

Zeina, a goldsmith's daughter raised to Bahlul's bed, is named as Sikandar's mother; she is not otherwise recorded and holds no ruler entry of her own.

Daughter and designated heir of Sultan Shams-ud-Din Iltutmish of Delhi; the only woman to rule the Delhi Sultanate in her own right. Minhaj-us-Siraj, writing within a generation of her death and translated by H. G. Raverty, records that Iltutmish passed over his adult sons to name her heir-apparent by written decree, that she reigned as 'Sultan Raziyyat-ud-Dunya wa ud-Din' for three years, six months and six days, and that she was seized by rebel Turk Amirs, imprisoned, married her captor, and was killed in 638 H. (1240 CE) after a final defeat.