Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290-1351) was a medieval Indian ruler whose reign saw the beginning of the disintegration of the empire of Delhi.

The son and successor of the Turk Ghiyas-ud-din (reigned 1321-1325), the founder of the Tughluq dynasty that replaced Khilji rule in Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq displayed an extraordinary capacity for classical learning and military leadership. He was formally crowned in 1325, when his father met an accidental death in which Muhammad was implicated.

In spite of a wealth of information on Muhammad's reign from contemporaries--such as Zia-ud-din Barani, the well-known chronicler of medieval India, and the Moorish traveler Ibn Battuta, who was in India during 1333-1346--there is a great deal of confusion about the sequence of events in his reign and their precise nature. Muhammad's regime of 26 years seems to have largely been occupied with fighting rebellions (some 22 are listed), planning ambitious projects of conquest of...