The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.531

v3.c20.531

This was the state of affairs at Delhi when, in October, 1398, news was received that Tīmūr the Lame, ‘Lord of the Fortunate Conjunction,’ Amīr of Samarqand and conqueror of Persia, Afghānistān, and Mesopotamia, had crossed the Indus, the Chenāb, and the Rāvī, taken Talamba, and occupied Multān, already held by his grandson. Tīmūr seldom required either a pretext or a stimulus for his depredations, but India supplied him with both. The pretext was the toleration of idolatry by the Muslim rulers of Delhi and the stimulus was the disintegration of the kingdom, unparalleled since its earliest days. The invader’s object was plunder, for if he ever had any idea of the permanent conquest of India he certainly abandoned it before he reached Delhi.