Timur Sacks Delhi

In December 1398, the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, known in the West as Tamerlane, defeated the army of the Delhi Sultanate and plundered its capital over several days. The sack was among the most devastating urban catastrophes of medieval South Asia. It shattered what remained of the Tughluq dynasty's authority and left Delhi diminished for generations.

By the late fourteenth century the Delhi Sultanate was in decline. Under Muhammad bin Tughluq and his successors, provinces had broken away, including Bengal, Gujarat, Malwa, and the Deccan, where the Bahmani Sultanate arose. Court factions fought over the throne after Firuz Shah Tughluq died in 1388, and the sultan Nasir-ud-din Mahmud Shah held little real power. Timur, who had built a vast empire from his base in Samarkand, had already campaigned across Persia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. He reportedly justified his invasion of India by criticizing the sultanate's rulers for being too tolerant of their Hindu subjects, though plunder and the region's weakness were probably the stronger motives.

Timur crossed the Indus in 1398 and advanced through the Punjab, taking cities such as Multan and Dipalpur along the way. Contemporary and later chroniclers say he ordered the execution of a large number of prisoners before reaching Delhi, but the figures given vary widely and should be treated with caution. Near the city, the forces of Sultan Mahmud Shah and his minister Mallu Iqbal were defeated, and both fled. Delhi then surrendered, but accounts differ on how the violence began. Most sources describe disputes over the collection of ransom and clashes between Timur's soldiers and residents, after which massacre, looting, and enslavement spread through the city. Skilled artisans were taken away, and many of them were put to work building monuments in Samarkand.

Timur stayed in Delhi for only a couple of weeks before withdrawing with enormous quantities of treasure, captives, and, by some accounts, elephants. He left behind a province in chaos, with famine and disease reported in the aftermath. He appointed Khizr Khan as his governor in the Punjab region, and Khizr later seized Delhi in 1414, founding the Sayyid dynasty.

The Tughluq state never recovered, and the sultanate survived as a much smaller regional power under the Sayyids and then the Lodis. Historians often say Delhi took about a century to regain its former stature, though the city's recovery was gradual and uneven. The invasion also opened the way for later Central Asian conquerors. Babur, a descendant of Timur, defeated the last Lodi sultan at Panipat in 1526 and founded the Mughal Empire, which would dominate India for centuries.