The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.540

v3.c20.540

We are indebted to Tīmūr for an interesting description of Delhi as he found it. ‘Alā-ud-dīn’s palace-fortress of Sīrī, some traces of which are still to be found to the east of the road from modern Delhi to the Qutb Mīnār, was enclosed by a wall, and to the south-west of this, and also surrounded by a wall, stood the larger city of Old Delhi, that is to say the town and fortress of Prithvī Rāj, which had been the residential capital of the Muslim kings until Kaiqubād built and Fīrūz Khaljī occupied Kīlokhrī. The walls of these two towns were connected by parallel walls, begun by Muhammad Tughluq and finished by his successor, the space between which was known as Jahānpanāh, ‘the Refuge of the World,’ and the three towns had, in all, thirty gates towards the open country. Fīrūzābād, the new city on the Jumna built by Fīrūz Tughluq, lay some five miles to the north of Jahānpanāh.