Muhammad ibn Tughluq

Muhammad ibn Tughluq (1290?-1351), sultan of Delhi from 1325 to 1351 and second ruler of the Tughluq dynasty, which ruled large parts of India for much of the 14th century. Muhammad ibn Tughluq began his career in the service of Qutubbidin Mubarak, the last sultan of the Khalji dynasty (1290-1320). In 1320 Muhammad and his father, Ghiyasuddin Tughluq, overthrew the Khaljis. When Ghiyasuddin died five years later, Muhammad rose to the throne and set up a sophisticated bureaucracy that included compiling land revenue records and establishing homes for the poor. In 1327 he transferred his capital from Delhi to the more centrally located Daulatabad, in the present Indian state of Mahārāshtra. However, the long journey (about 800 km/500 mi) took the lives of many of his subjects, and Daulatabad proved an inhospitable place to live.

Through successive military campaigns, Muhammad established the rule of the Muslim Tughluqs over most of the Hindu areas of central and southern India by 1330. He created a single currency for his empire, but widespread counterfeiting drained the imperial treasury. Between 1335 and 1342 famine swept the territory, prompting open rebellion against his rule. He spent the rest of his time trying to suppress, with diminishing success, rebellions throughout his empire. Many of Muhammad ibn Tughluq’s conquests slipped away, and the Delhi sultanate was once more confined to northern India. He died of fever in the middle of a military campaign; however, his brief rule and once-expansive empire permanently influenced southern India by encouraging Muslim settlement there.