Muhammad bin Tughluq
18th Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate and 2nd from the Tughluq dynasty
Fakhr-ud-Din Muhammad Shah (Persian: فخر الدین محمد شاہ), better known as Muhammad bin Tughluq (Persian: محمد بن تغلق; Persian pronunciation: [mu.ham.ˈmad bin tuɣ.ˈlaq]; 1290 – 20 March 1351), or Muhammad III, also known by his epithets, The Eccentric Prince, and The Mad Sultan, was the eighteenth Sultan of Delhi. He reigned from February 1325 until his death in March 1351. Muhammad was the eldest son of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, founder of the Tughlaq dynasty. In 1321, the young Muhammad was sent by his father to the Deccan Plateau to fight a military campaign against the Kakatiya dynasty. In 1323, the future sultan successfully laid siege upon the Kakatiya capital in Warangal. This victory over King Prataparudra ended the Kakatiya dynasty.
Named Jauna Khan as Crown Prince, Muhammad ascended the throne of Delhi upon his father's death in 1325. Muhammad bin Tughluq had an interest in medicine. He was also skilled in several languages: Persian, Hindavi, Arabic, Sanskrit and Turkic. Ibn Battuta, the famous traveler and jurist from Morocco, wrote in his book about his time at the Sultan's court.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Muhammad bin Tughluq” is 18th Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate and 2nd from the Tughluq dynasty. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Muhammad, Tughluq and 18th, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “18th Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate and 2nd from the Tughluq dynasty” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q381830. VIAF identifies the subject as 31094695. The Library of Congress control number is n88184152. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1290, 1351, 1325 and 1321.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Muhammad bin Tughluq”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Muhammad bin Tughluq primary sources, Muhammad bin Tughluq archive and Muhammad research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Muhammad bin Tughluq”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Muhammad bin Tughluq” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.