Who was the ruler of Delhi sultanate when Ibn Batuta came in India?

The correct answer is Muhammad Bin Tughlaq.

• Muhammad Bin Tughlaq was the ruler of the Delhi sultanate when Ibn Batuta came to India.

Key Points

• Ibn Battuta was a traveller from Morocco.
  • He came to India during the reign of Muhammad bin-Tughlaq (1333-1347).
  • Muhammad bin-Tughlaq was impressed by his scholarship and appointed Ibn Battuta the qazi or judge of Delhi.
  • He was ordered in 1342 to proceed to China as the Sultan’s envoy to the Mongol ruler.
  • His account is often compared with that of Marco Polo, who visited China (and also India) from his home base in Venice in the late thirteenth century.
  • Ibn Battuta’s book of travels called Rihla, written in Arabic provides extremely rich and interesting details about the social and cultural life in the subcontinent in the fourteenth century.

Additional Information

• Alauddin Khilji
  • He was the second sultan of the Khilji dynasty and was the most powerful king of this dynasty. He ruled for about twenty years from 1296 to 1316.
  • He became the sultan of Delhi after killing his uncle and father-in-law Jalaluddin Khilji, the founder of the Khilji dynasty.
  • Alauddin was a very ambitious person and a warmonger.
  • He liked to call himself ‘The Second Alexander’.
  • During his regime, he expanded his kingdom to a large area.
  • He conquered Gujarat, Ranathambor, Mewar, Malwa, Jalore, Warangal, and Madurai.
• Ibrahim Lodhi
  • He was the last king of the Lodhi dynasty and the last sultan of Delhi.
  • He was the son of Sikandar Lodhi. Daulat Khan Lodhi, the Governor of Punjab, invited Bahur to overthrow Ibrahim.
  • He captured Gwalior and was defeated by Rana Sanga of Mewar.
  • He was defeated and killed at the hands of Babur in the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 AD.
• Feroz Shah Tughlaq
  • He was born in 1309 and became sultan of Delhi after the demise of his cousin Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq.
  • He was the third ruler of the Tughlaq dynasty that ruled over Delhi from 1320 to 1412 AD.
  • He was in power from 1351 to 1388 AD.
  • He used to pay his army in-kind i.e Land and not in real money.
  • The British called him the ‘father of the irrigation department’ because of the many gardens and canals that he built like - The canal connecting the Yamuna to the city of Hissar.