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Entry 125 of 240War

The Delhi Sultanate

1206–1526 CE/South Asia/Delhi Sultanate
Today Northern India (Delhi)Span Delhi Sultanate · 1206–1526 CE

Turkic and Afghan Muslim warriors sweeping down from Central Asia established the Delhi Sultanate, the first enduring Muslim empire in India and the start of centuries of Islamic rule in the subcontinent. It fused Persian and Indian culture into something new in language, architecture, and administration — and its cavalry notably helped shield India from the Mongol devastation to the north. It marks the beginning of a long, complicated braiding of Hindu and Muslim India whose tensions still echo in South Asian politics.

◆ Worth knowingThe Delhi Sultanate was one of the few powers to repeatedly throw back the all-conquering Mongols — and one of its founding rulers was a former slave, beginning what is remembered as India's 'Slave Dynasty.'
◆ The mechanismState formation & institutional founding

A durable new order — a state, an institution, a system of rule — is deliberately built and consolidated, outlasting the people who founded it.

Also: Ideological movement · Military-technological disruption

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