The Tughlaq dynasty[9] also referred to as Tughluq or Tughluk dynasty, was a Muslim dynasty of Turko-Indian origin[10] which ruled over the Delhi sultanate in medieval India.[11] Its reign started in 1320 in Delhi when Ghazi Malik assumed the throne under the title of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. The dynasty ended in 1413.[1][12]
The dynasty expanded its territorial reach through a military campaign led by Muhammad bin Tughluq, and reached its zenith between 1330 and 1335.[2] Its rule was marked with torture, cruelty and rebellions, resulting in the rapid disintegration of the dynasty's territorial reach after 1335 AD
Origin
The etymology of the word "Tughluq" is not certain. The 16th century writer Firishta claims that it is a corruption of the Turkic term "Qutlugh", but this is doubtful.[14] Literary, numismatic and epigraphic evidence makes it clear that Tughluq was the personal name of the dynasty's founder Ghiyath al-Din, and not an ancestral designation. Historians use the designation "Tughluq" to describe the entire dynasty as a matter of convenience, but the dynasty's kings did not use "Tughluq" as a surname: only Ghiyath al-Din's son Muhammad bin Tughluq called himself the son of Tughluq Shah ("bin Tughluq").[14]
The ancestry of dynasty is debated among modern historians, because the earlier sources provide different information regarding it. Tughluq's court poet Badr-i Chach attempted to find a royal genealogy for the dynasty, but this can be dismissed as flattery. Another court poet Amir Khusrau, in his Tughluq Nama, states that Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq described himself as an unimportant man ("awara mard") in his early career.[15] The contemporary Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta states that Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq belonged to the "Qarauna tribe of the Turks", who lived in the hilly region between Turkestan and Sindh. Ibn Battuta's source for this claim was the Sufi saint Rukn-ud-Din Abul Fateh, but the claim is not corroborated by any other contemporary source.[14] Firishta, bsaed on the inquiries made at Lahore, wrote that Tughluq was a Turkic slave of the earlier emperor Balban, and that his mother came from a Jat family of India. No contemporary sources corroborate this claim.
Rise to power
The Khalji dynasty ruled the Delhi Sultanate before 1320.[16] Its last ruler, Khusro Khan, was a Hindu who had converted to Islam and then served Delhi Sultanate as the general of its army.[17] Khusro Khan, along with Malik Kafur, had led numerous military campaigns on behalf of Alauddin Khalji, to expand the Sultanate and plunder non-Muslim kingdoms in India.[18][19]
After Alauddin Khalji's death from illness in 1316, a series of palace arrests and assassinations followed,[20] with Khusro Khan coming to power in June 1320 after killing licentious son of Alauddin Khalji, Mubarak Khalji.[16] However, he lacked the support of the nobels and aristocrats of the Khalji dynasty in Delhi. Delhi's aristocracy invited Ghazi Malik, then the governor in Punjab under the Khaljis, to lead a coup in Delhi and remove Khusro Khan. In 1320, Ghazi Malik launched an attack and killed Khusro Khan to assume power