Anantam IASPost · 20 April 2026

Tughlaq Dynasty: Muhammad bin Tughlaq, Firoz Shah and Timur Invasion (1320-1414)

Study Notes · Art and Culture · General Studies · GS I

The Tughlaq Dynasty (1320-1414) was the longest-ruling Delhi Sultanate dynasty. UPSC notes on Ghiyas-ud-din, Muhammad bin Tughlaq's transfer of capital and token currency, Firoz Shah's canals and jagir restoration, and the Timur invasion of 1398.

The Tughlaq Dynasty ruled the Delhi Sultanate from 1320 to 1414. It is the longest-ruling and territorially largest of the five Delhi Sultanate dynasties. The Tughlaqs took power after the brief Khusraw Khan interlude that ended the Khilji line. At its height under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the empire covered almost the entire subcontinent from Multan to Madurai and from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. By the end of the dynasty in 1414, the empire had contracted to barely the area around Delhi.

The Tughlaq Dynasty is studied for three figures and one disaster. The three figures are Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq, the founder; Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the most controversial and intellectually ambitious sultan in medieval Indian history; and Firoz Shah Tughlaq, the orthodox reformer who restored the jagir-style assignment system and built canals. The disaster is the invasion of Timur in 1398, which devastated northern India and effectively broke the Tughlaq state.

This article walks through the rulers, examines the experiments of Muhammad bin Tughlaq — the transfer of capital to Devagiri, the token bronze currency, and the increase of taxation in the doab — and ends with the Timur invasion and the dynasty’s slow collapse.

Quick Facts

Rise of the Tughlaq Dynasty

The Tughlaq line began with Ghazi Malik, a frontier commander of mixed Turkish-Indian (Jat) descent. He had served the late Khilji sultans on the north-west frontier against the Mongols and was respected by both the army and the orthodox ulema. When Khusraw Khan, the Hindu convert who had killed Mubarak Shah Khilji, took the throne in 1320, the senior nobility refused to accept him. Ghazi Malik marched on Delhi from the frontier, defeated and killed Khusraw Khan within five months, and took the throne as Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq.

The Tughlaqs were not Turkish in the strict Slave Dynasty sense, but they were sufficiently Persianised and orthodox to satisfy the Delhi establishment. For the predecessor dynasty see our notes on the Khilji Dynasty.

Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq (1320-1325)

Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq was a soldier-administrator by background. His five-year reign was spent restoring the Khilji administrative system that Mubarak Shah had dismantled. He kept the iqta system in workable form, simplified taxation, and re-imposed direct revenue collection in the doab without the extreme intensification of Alauddin Khilji.

He campaigned in Warangal and re-imposed tribute on the Kakatiya kingdom. On returning from a campaign in 1325, he died at Tughlaqabad when a victory pavilion built by his son Jauna Khan collapsed on him. Whether the collapse was accidental or arranged is disputed by chroniclers. Jauna Khan took the throne as Muhammad bin Tughlaq.

Ghiyas-ud-din also built the fortified city of Tughlaqabad in 1321, the third historical city of Delhi, the ruins of which are still visible.

Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-1351)

Muhammad bin Tughlaq is the most discussed sultan in medieval Indian history. He was learned in Persian, Arabic, mathematics and astronomy. He corresponded with the philosopher Ibn Taimiyya. He hosted the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta as Qazi of Delhi for several years. The Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi of Ziauddin Barani is the main source for his reign. Barani is also the most hostile of the chroniclers.

Transfer of capital to Daulatabad

In 1327, Muhammad bin Tughlaq decided to move the capital from Delhi to Devagiri, which he renamed Daulatabad. The reasons were strategic. Devagiri sits in the centre of the Deccan, almost equidistant from Delhi in the north and Madurai in the south. From Daulatabad the sultan could supervise the southern provinces in a way that was impossible from Delhi.

The implementation was the problem. Barani says the entire population of Delhi was forced to march to Daulatabad, including the ulema, the bureaucracy, the nobility, the artisans and the city poor. The route was about 1,100 kilometres. Many died on the march. Delhi was reportedly emptied. Within a few years it became clear that controlling the north from Daulatabad was no easier than controlling the south from Delhi. In about 1335 Muhammad bin Tughlaq abandoned the experiment and ordered the population back to Delhi. The reverse march was as costly as the first.

Modern scholarship treats Barani’s account as exaggerated. The capital was indeed moved, the senior court was relocated, the population shift was significant but probably not total. Even so, the experiment cost prestige, treasury and lives.

Token currency

In 1330 Muhammad bin Tughlaq introduced a token bronze coinage with the same legal value as the silver tanka. The idea was Persian-Chinese in origin. The state was short of silver after the Mongol disruption of trans-Asian trade and the closure of southern silver flows during the Deccan campaigns. The Mongol Ilkhans had used paper money. The Yuan Chinese were using paper. The sultan tried a metallic token system.

The system failed within a few years for one technical reason. The bronze coins were not made by a single state mint with a non-reproducible mark. Any village brass-smith could counterfeit them. Forged tokens flooded the market. The state continued to accept the tokens in payment of taxes, which produced an enormous loss to the treasury. Around 1333, Muhammad bin Tughlaq withdrew the token currency and reportedly redeemed forgeries along with genuine coins, deepening the loss.

Taxation in the Doab

The Doab — the fertile region between the Ganga and the Yamuna — was the agricultural heartland of the sultanate. Muhammad bin Tughlaq increased the land revenue rate sharply in the Doab in around 1333-1335, possibly to between half and three-quarters of the produce. The increase coincided with a regional drought. Peasants abandoned cultivation. Some fled to the forests. Some revolted.

The sultan tried to reverse the policy by establishing the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi — a department of agricultural development that gave loans (taccavi) to peasants, supervised crop rotation and dug wells. The department was disbanded after only a few years because it produced little measurable improvement and was undermined by corruption.

Revolts and the southern collapse

The combination of failed experiments and natural disasters produced waves of rebellion. The Vijayanagara kingdom was founded in 1336 by Harihara and Bukka in the southern provinces. The Bahmani Sultanate was founded in 1347 by Hasan Gangu at Daulatabad itself. Bengal broke away. Multan and Sindh became autonomous. Muhammad bin Tughlaq spent his last years suppressing revolts. He died in 1351 chasing a rebel in Sindh.

The Vijayanagara and Bahmani breakaways are the great unintended consequence of Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s policies. For the southern story see our notes on Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara.

Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351-1388)

Firoz Shah Tughlaq was Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s cousin. He took the throne in 1351 in the army camp at Thatta in Sindh after the senior nobles refused to allow the throne to pass through chaos. Firoz Shah’s thirty-seven year reign is the longest of the Tughlaq Dynasty and is generally characterised as a period of consolidation and orthodox correction of his cousin’s experiments.

Jagir restoration

Muhammad bin Tughlaq had moved towards salaried cash payment of senior officers, supported by the central treasury and the iqta system. Firoz Shah reversed this. He revived hereditary jagirs — assignments of revenue rights to nobles, often hereditary or quasi-hereditary, in exchange for service. This made the nobility happy and bought political stability. It also weakened the central revenue grip in the long run because hereditary assignments tend to become independent estates.

Canals and public works

Firoz Shah is the great hydraulic engineer of the Delhi Sultanate. He built four major canals — the Rajab-wah from the Yamuna, the Ulugh-Khani from the Sutlej, the canal from the Ghaggar, and a canal from the Yamuna to Hissar. These canals irrigated vast stretches of present-day Haryana and Punjab and made cultivation possible in semi-arid zones. The Hissar Firoza was a new town founded around the canal.

He also founded the cities of Firozabad (the fifth historical city of Delhi), Hissar, Fatehabad, Firozpur and Jaunpur. He repaired the Qutb Minar after a lightning strike. He moved two Ashokan pillars — one from Topra and one from Meerut — to Delhi and re-erected them at Firoz Shah Kotla and on the Delhi ridge. He could not read the Brahmi script of the inscriptions but preserved the pillars out of antiquarian interest.

Taxation reform

Firoz Shah reduced taxation to the four canonical taxes of the sharia — kharaj (land tax), zakat (alms), jizya (poll tax on non-Muslims) and khams (one-fifth of war booty). He abolished about twenty cesses that had accumulated under earlier sultans. He continued the jizya without exemption to Brahmins, which earlier sultans had often waived in practice.

Slaves and orthodoxy

Firoz Shah is also known for two negative features. He maintained an enormous slave establishment, reportedly 180,000 slaves, who were trained for skilled crafts and the royal workshops. The maintenance cost was high and the slaves became a destabilising bloc after his death. He also patronised the orthodox ulema heavily, persecuted Shias and certain Sufi orders, and proudly recorded his demolition of a few Hindu temples in his memoir Futuhat-i-Firoz Shahi.

He died in 1388 at the age of eighty.

Decline after Firoz Shah and Timur’s Invasion

The Tughlaq Dynasty collapsed within ten years of Firoz Shah’s death. His successors — Muhammad Shah Tughlaq, Sikandar Shah and Nasir-ud-din Mahmud — were weak. The provincial governors of Jaunpur, Gujarat, Malwa and Bengal became effectively independent. The standing army shrank.

Timur’s invasion (1398)

In 1398 the Central Asian conqueror Timur, also called Tamerlane in Europe, invaded India. He crossed the Indus in September 1398 and reached Delhi by December. The sultan, Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, fled. Timur defeated the residual Delhi army at Loni and entered the city on 17 December 1398. The sack of Delhi lasted fifteen days. Tens of thousands of inhabitants were killed and skilled artisans were carried off to Samarkand to work on Timurid monuments. Timur left Delhi in early 1399 and recrossed the Indus.

The Tughlaq state never recovered. Khizr Khan, Timur’s appointed governor of Multan, slowly extended his authority over the rest of north India and finally deposed the last Tughlaq, Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, in 1414. Khizr Khan founded the Sayyid Dynasty, which lasted until 1451 when the Lodi Dynasty replaced it.

Administration of the Tughlaq Period

The Tughlaqs inherited the Khilji administrative apparatus but loosened it under Firoz Shah. The iqta system continued. The muqaddam and patwari at village level, the amil at pargana level, the muqti at iqta level — this hierarchy stabilised during the Tughlaq period and was inherited by the Lodi, the Surs and the early Mughals. The diwan structure at the centre — wazarat, arz, insha, rasalat — also continued.

Architecture

The Tughlaq architectural style is austere and military. The Tughlaqs preferred sloping (battered) walls, undecorated grey stone and rubble masonry. The Tughlaqabad fort, the tomb of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq, Firoz Shah Kotla, the Khirki Masjid and the Begumpuri Mosque are characteristic. The style is in marked contrast to the decorative work of the Khilji Alai Darwaza.

Prelims Pointers

Mains Questions

  1. “Muhammad bin Tughlaq was a man ahead of his time whose projects failed because the time was not ready for them.” Critically examine. (GS Paper I, 15 marks)
  2. Compare the administrative policies of Muhammad bin Tughlaq and Firoz Shah Tughlaq. (GS Paper I, 15 marks)
  3. Examine the long-term consequences of Timur’s invasion of 1398 on the Delhi Sultanate. (GS Paper I, 10 marks)

Legacy and Way Forward

The Tughlaq Dynasty is the longest of the Delhi Sultanate dynasties and its administrative inheritance is the most lasting. The pargana-level revenue hierarchy, the canal infrastructure of Haryana-Punjab, and the Persianised orthodox sultanate model all crystallise under the Tughlaqs. The dynasty also witnessed the birth of the two great fifteenth-century southern kingdoms — Vijayanagara and Bahmani — as breakaways from Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s overstretched empire.

Reading the Tughlaq Dynasty alongside the Slave Dynasty, the Khilji Dynasty and the Lodi Dynasty gives the full Delhi Sultanate arc that ends at the Battles of Panipat in 1526.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who founded the Tughlaq Dynasty?

Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq, originally a frontier commander called Ghazi Malik, founded the Tughlaq Dynasty in 1320 after defeating and killing the usurper Khusraw Khan. He had been the senior commander on the north-west frontier under the late Khilji sultans.

Why did Muhammad bin Tughlaq transfer the capital to Daulatabad?

Muhammad bin Tughlaq moved the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad (Devagiri) in 1327 to centralise control over the southern provinces, which were too distant to be governed from Delhi. The experiment failed because the north could not be governed from Daulatabad either, and the human cost of moving the population was high. The capital was returned to Delhi around 1335.

What was the token currency of Muhammad bin Tughlaq?

In 1330 Muhammad bin Tughlaq introduced a bronze token coinage with the same legal value as the silver tanka. The idea was inspired by Mongol-Chinese paper-money experiments. It failed because the tokens could be counterfeited by ordinary brass-smiths. The state withdrew the currency around 1333 at a heavy loss to the treasury.

What was the doab taxation problem?

Muhammad bin Tughlaq sharply raised the land revenue rate in the Doab in the early 1330s, possibly to between half and three-quarters of the produce, at the same time as a regional drought. Peasants abandoned cultivation and revolted. The sultan tried to reverse the policy through the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi agricultural department, with limited success.

What were Firoz Shah Tughlaq’s main reforms?

Firoz Shah Tughlaq restored hereditary jagirs to the nobility, reduced taxation to the four canonical sharia taxes, built four major irrigation canals, founded cities like Hissar and Firozabad, repaired the Qutb Minar and moved two Ashokan pillars to Delhi.

Why is Timur’s invasion of 1398 important?

Timur invaded India in 1398, defeated the residual Tughlaq army and sacked Delhi from 17 December 1398 to early January 1399. Tens of thousands of inhabitants were killed and skilled artisans were carried off to Samarkand. The Tughlaq Dynasty never recovered and was formally ended in 1414.

How did the Tughlaq Dynasty end?

The Tughlaq Dynasty ended in 1414 when Khizr Khan, Timur’s appointed governor of Multan, deposed the last Tughlaq sultan Nasir-ud-din Mahmud and founded the Sayyid Dynasty.

Why is the Tughlaq Dynasty important for UPSC?

The Tughlaq Dynasty is heavily examined for the controversial experiments of Muhammad bin Tughlaq (capital transfer, token currency, Doab taxation), the administrative reforms of Firoz Shah Tughlaq (canals, jagir restoration, taxation reduction) and the Timur invasion of 1398 that effectively ended the dynasty.