Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent is conventionally said to have started in 712, after the conquest of Sindh and Multan by the Umayyad Caliphate under the military command of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim. It began in the Indian subcontinent in the course of a gradual conquest. The perfunctory rule by the Ghaznavids in Punjab was followed by Ghurids, and Sultan Muhammad of Ghor is generally credited with laying the foundation of Muslim rule in Northern India.
The Delhi Sultanate or the Sultanate of Delhi was a late medieval empire primarily based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent, for 320 years (1206–1526). Following the invasion of South Asia by the Ghurid dynasty, five dynasties ruled over the Delhi Sultanate sequentially: the Mamluk dynasty (1206–1290), the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320), the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414), the Sayyid dynasty (1414–1451), and the Lodi dynasty (1451–1526). It covered large swaths of territory in modern-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as well as some parts of southern Nepal.
The Deccan Sultanates were five late-medieval Indian kingdoms—on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range—that were ruled by Muslim dynasties: namely Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, and Golconda. The sultanates had become independent during the break-up of the Bahmani Sultanate. The five sultanates owed their existence to the declaration of independence of Ahmadnagar in 1490, followed by Bijapur and Berar in the same year. Golconda became independent in 1518, and Bidar in 1528.
The Bahmani Sultanate was a late medieval Muslim empire that ruled the Deccan Plateau in South India. The Bahmani Sultanate came to power in 1347 during the Rebellion of Ismail Mukh against the Tughlaq dynasty of Delhi after Ismail Mukh abdicated in favour of Zafar Khan, who would establish the Bahmani Sultanate. The Bahmani Sultanate was in perpetual war with its neighbors, including its rival to the south, the Vijayanagara Empire.
The Qutb Shahi dynasty was a Persianate Shia Islamic dynasty of Turkoman origin that ruled the Sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. After the collapse of the Bahmani Sultanate, the Qutb Shahi dynasty was established in 1512 AD by Sultan-Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk, better known though less correctly referred to in English as "Quli Qutb Shah".
Indo-Persian culture refers to a cultural synthesis present on the Indian subcontinent. It is characterised by the absorption or integration of Persian aspects into the various cultures of modern-day republics of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. The earliest introduction of Persian influence and culture to the subcontinent was by various Muslim Turko-Persian rulers, such as the 11th-century Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, rapidly pushed for the heavy Persianization of conquered territories in northwestern Indian subcontinent, where Islamic influence was also firmly established. This socio-cultural synthesis arose steadily through the Delhi Sultanate from the 13th to 16th centuries, and the Mughal Empire from then onwards until the 19th century. Various Muslim dynasties of Turkic, local Indian and Afghan origin patronized the Persian language and contributed to the development of a Persian culture in India. The Delhi Sultanate developed their own cultural and political identity which built upon Persian and Indic languages, literature and arts, which formed the basis of an Indo-Muslim civilization.
The Mamluk dynasty, also known as Slave dynasty, was a dynasty which ruled Delhi Sultanate from 1206 to 1290. It was the first of five largely unrelated dynasties to rule the Delhi Sultanate until 1526. Before the establishment of the Mamluk dynasty, Qutb al-Din Aibak's tenure as a Ghurid dynasty administrator lasted from 1192 to 1206, a period during which he led forays into the Gangetic plain and established control over some of the new areas.
Muhammad bin Tughluq, also named Jauna Khan as Crown Prince, also known by his epithets, The Eccentric Prince, or The Mad Sultan, or The Wisest Fool was the eighteenth Sultan of Delhi. He reigned from February 1325 until his death in 1351. The sultan was the eldest son of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, founder of the Tughlaq dynasty. In 1321, the young Muhammad was sent by his father to the Deccan Plateau to fight a military campaign against the Kakatiya dynasty. In 1323, the future sultan successfully laid siege upon the Kakatiya capital in Warangal. This victory over King Prataparudra ended the Kakatiya dynasty.
The Tughlaq dynasty was the third dynasty to rule over the Delhi sultanate in medieval India. Its reign started in 1320 in Delhi when Ghazi Malik assumed the throne under the title of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. The dynasty ended in 1413.
Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk, more often though less correctly referred to in English as Quli Qutb Shah (1485–1543), was the founder of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, which ruled the Sultanate of Golconda in southern India from 1518 to 1687. Of Turkoman origin and born in Persia, he originally served the Bahmani sultan, and was awarded the title Qutb-ul-Mulk as military chief; he eventually took control of Golconda.
The Khalji or Khilji dynasty was the second dynasty which ruled the Delhi sultanate, covering large parts of the Indian subcontinent for nearly three decades between 1290 and 1320. It was founded by Jalal ud din Firuz Khalji.
Indo-Islamic architecture is the architecture of the Indian subcontinent produced by and for Islamic patrons and purposes. Despite an initial Arab presence in Sindh, the development of Indo-Islamic architecture began in earnest with the establishment of Delhi as the capital of the Ghurid dynasty in 1193. Succeeding the Ghurids was the Delhi Sultanate, a series of Central Asian dynasties that consolidated much of North India, and later the Mughal Empire by the 15th century. Both of these dynasties introduced Islamic architecture and art styles from West Asia into the Indian subcontinent.
The Shah Mir dynasty was a dynasty that ruled the Kashmir Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent. The dynasty is named after its founder, Shah Mir.
The composite Turko-Persian, Turco-Persian, or Turco-Iranian is the distinctive culture that arose in the 9th and 10th centuries AD in Khorasan and Transoxiana. According to the modern historian Robert L. Canfield, the Turco-Persian tradition "was "Persianate" in that it was centered on a lettered tradition of Iranian origin; it was Turkish in so far as it was for many generations patronized by rulers of Turkic ancestry; and it was "Islamicate" in that Islamic notions of virtue, permance, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslims, who were the presiding elite."
Ala-ud-Din Hasan Bahman Shah whose original name was Zafar Khan or Hasan Gangu, was the founder of the Bahmani Sultanate.
The Khalaj are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly reside in Iran. In Iran they still speak the Khalaj language, although most of them are Persianized.
Sufism has a history in India evolving for over 1,000 years. The presence of Sufism has been a leading entity increasing the reaches of Islam throughout South Asia. Following the entrance of Islam in the early 8th century, Sufi mystic traditions became more visible during the 10th and 11th centuries of the Delhi Sultanate and after it to the rest of India. A conglomeration of four chronologically separate dynasties, the early Delhi Sultanate consisted of rulers from Turkic and Afghan lands. This Persian influence flooded South Asia with Islam, Sufi thought, syncretic values, literature, education, and entertainment that has created an enduring impact on the presence of Islam in India today. Sufi preachers, merchants and missionaries also settled in coastal Gujarat through maritime voyages and trade.
The Deccanis or Deccani people are an ethnoreligious community of Urdu-speaking Muslims who inhabit or are from the Deccan region of Central and Southern India, and speak the Deccani dialect of Urdu. The community traces its origins to the shifting of the Delhi Sultanate's capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in 1327 during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Further ancestry can also be traced from immigrant Muslims referred to as Afaqis, also known as Pardesis who came from Central Asia, Iraq and Iran and had settled in the Deccan region during the Bahmani Sultanate (1347). The migration of Muslim Hindavi-speaking people to the Deccan and intermarriage with the local Hindus whom converted to Islam, led to the creation of a new community of Urdu-speaking Muslims, known as the Deccani, who would come to play an important role in the politics of the Deccan. Their language, Deccani Urdu, emerged as a language of linguistic prestige and culture during the Bahmani Sultanate, further evolving in the Deccan Sultanates.
The Khalji dynasty was the first Muslim dynasty to rule Bengal. The dynasty, which hailed from the Garmsir region of present-day Afghanistan, was founded in 1204 by Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, a Muslim Turko-Afghan general of the Ghurid Empire. The Khaljis initially pledged allegiance to Sultan Muhammad of Ghor until his death in 1206, though their rule in Bengal was mostly independent. Under the rule of Iwaz Khalji, Bengal experienced major developments such as its first naval force, flood defence systems and linkage with the Grand Trunk Road. The dynasty was based in the city of Lakhnauti in northern Bengal, later expanding eastwards and southwards. Nasiruddin Mahmud, the son of Mamluk sultan Iltutmish of Delhi managed to conquer Bengal in 1227; although the Khaljis briefly reasserted their independence, they surrendered to the Mamluks in 1231, who replaced them with a series of regional governors.
Turkic peoples have historically been associated as one of the non-indigenous peoples to have ruled areas of India and the Indian subcontinent. Although modern day Turks in India are very small in number, and are likely recent immigrants from Turkey. In the 1961 census, 58 people stated that their mother tongue was Turkish. According to the 2001 census, 126 residents of India stated their place of birth as Turkey. In a state visit during early 2010, Prime Minister Abdullah Gül of Turkey met Turkish expatriates living in India and handed out Hindi-Turkish dictionaries to Turkish students in New Delhi.
