Excerpt from The Cambridge History of India, Vol. 3 of 6: Turks and Afghans
Muhammadan rule from the time of the earliest invasions of the Muslims to the overthrow of the Lodi dynasty on the field of Panipat and the establishment of Babur the Timurid on the throne of Delhi, and covers the period unfortunately described by that usually careful scholar, the late Mr Edward Thomas, as that of the Pathan Kings of Delhi. Of the five dynasties which occupied the throne of Delhi during this period, from about 1200 to 1526, three were Turkish, or of Turkish descent one claimed to be of Arab blood, and one was Afghan, but probably not Pathan.
Mr Thomas's misnomer, after clinging obstinately, for many years, to this period of Indian history, has been generally discarded, and the period is now known as that of the Sultanate, or Kingdom, of Delhi, as distinguished from the Empire of the Timurids founded by Babur. This distinction is not entirely accurate, or satisfactory, for it suggests that the earlier Muslim rulers were content with a comparatively small kingdom in the neighbourhood of their capital, whereas for nearly half a century they ruled virtually the whole sub-continent of India, two at least of them being emperors of India in a truer sense than any of the first four Timurids, and the ruin of their empire covered the greater part of India with a number of independent Muslim states. Nevertheless the term will serve, for imperial rule was not characteristic of the sovereigns of Delhi during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. During the first century of their rule they were consolidating and extending their authority; then followed half a century of empire, and then the disintegration of that empire.
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