Person · Delhi Sultan · India
Muhammad bin Tughlaq
Also known as Muhammad bin Tughlaq, Muhammad ibn Tughluq, Jauna Khan
Tughlaq Sultan of Delhi 1325 to 1351, remembered for the most ambitious administrative experiments of the Delhi Sultanate — all of which failed. He moved the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in Maharashtra in 1327 to be closer to the Deccan, forcing the entire population of Delhi to march 1,100 kilometres south; the move was reversed within three years. He issued copper and brass token coinage at the value of silver, which collapsed within months as forged coins flooded the market. He raised taxes in the Doab during a famine and provoked a seven-year revolt. Ibn Battuta, who served as qadi of Delhi under him for seven years, left the fullest contemporary portrait of his court.
- Date
- 1290–1351
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Tughlaq
- Tradition
- Standard reference and biographical literature; contemporary chronicles.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
Ziauddin Barani, who served as his courtier, said he had read Aristotle, Plato and Avicenna, could argue philosophy with the ulama, and was more cruel than any sultan before him — the combination defines his historical reputation. Ibn Battuta described him as the man who liked more than anything in the world to give gifts and to shed blood. He died chasing a Sindhi rebel at Thatta in 1351.
About the place
Placed at Delhi and Daulatabad (his twin capitals).
Connections (3)
- Ruled fromDaulatabad
Muhammad bin Tughlaq moved the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad (Devagiri) in 1327 to be closer to the Deccan, forcing the entire population of Delhi to march 1,100 kilometres south — the move was reversed within three years when the city proved indefensible from Delhi's bureaucracy. The failed experiment left Daulatabad fortified at Mughal scale and Delhi half-emptied for a decade.
- Built bySīrī & Jahānpanāh
Muhammad bin Tughlaq built Jahanpanah in the 1320s as a wall thrown round the space between Alauddin Khilji's Siri and the older Qila Rai Pithora to enclose both into one city — his unified fourth Delhi before the Daulatabad experiment. The Begumpuri mosque in the middle of Jahanpanah still stands as his reign's main surviving monument at Delhi; most of the walls were quarried by Sher Shah to build his own city.
- SucceededTughlaqabad
Muhammad bin Tughlaq succeeded his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq at Tughlaqabad in 1325 — Delhi's third city, which Ghiyasuddin had built in four years from 1321 as a massive sloped-wall fortified capital on the Mehrauli-Nizamuddin ridge. Ghiyasuddin died in a pavilion collapse at Tughlaqabad under circumstances that implicate his son; Muhammad was the only member of the royal family present when the roof fell. His reign began at the fort his father had built, which Muhammad abandoned when he moved the capital to Daulatabad in 1327.