Principal Muslim sultanate in northern India during the 13th to the 16th centuries.
Its creation owed much to the campaigns of Muḥammad of Ghūr and his lieutenant Quṭb al-Dīn Aybak between 1175 and 1206. During the reign of Sultan Iltutmish (1211–36), a permanent capital was established at Delhi and political ties with Ghūr were severed. From 1290 to 1320, under the Khaljī dynasty, the sultanate was an imperial power. Its power was shattered by Timur 's invasion (1398–99), but it somewhat recovered under the Lodī (Afghan) dynasty (1451–1526). It fell again to Bābur (1526), was reestablished briefly, then finally was subsumed into Akbar 's Mughal Empire in 1556.