Twilight of the Sultanate c15.s4.75

c15.s4.75

The Afghan hegemony was broken and the Sultanate of Delhi passed into the hands of the Chaghtaī Turks better known as the Mughals. Without wasting any time Bābur despatched a force under Mahdī Khwājā to occupy Delhi and another under Humayūn to seize Agra. Six days after the battle Bābur's Khutba was read in the congregational mosque at Delhi.¹⁶⁷ When after Panipat he had first arrived in Agra, "there was a strong mutual dislike between my people and the men of the place", writes he. "The peasantry and soldiers of the country avoided and fled from my men."¹⁶⁸ That was but natural. Nay, the contemporaries of Daulat Khan Lodī would have even cursed him for the welcome he had extended to a foreigner to invade India. But we at a distance of more than four hundred years share in the welcome. The twilight of the Sultanate had ended with Ibrāhīm; the night of people's suspicion and fear was not long, and the Mughal rule ushered a new dawn in India which brightened as time advanced.