Twilight of the Sultanate c8.s4.33

c8.s4.33

Ibrāhīm's son and successor Mahmūd fought against the king of Malwa, suppressed a rebellion in Chunār and marched against the kings of Bengal and Orissa and, of course, the Sultans of Delhi. In 1452 he advanced against Delhi in response to an invitation by some disgruntled nobles to oust Bahlūl Lodi from the throne. This attack touched off a long-drawn struggle of a quarter of a century between the Lodīs of Delhi and the Sharqīs of Jaunpur. The last Jaunpur king, Sultan Husain, possessed the biggest army in India, and he invaded Delhi a number of times, but ultimately lost against Bahlūl Lodī in 1479 when his kingdom was annexed to the Sultanate. As we shall study about these wars in some detail in the following pages, there is no need to repeat them here. Suffice it to say that ever since its inception in 1399 up to its end in 1479, for full eighty years, Jaunpur posed the biggest problem to the Sultanate of Delhi.