Late Middle Ages · South Asia · War

1398

Timur sacks Delhi

December 1398

The Tamerlane crossed the Indus with ninety thousand cavalry, defeated Sultan Mahmud Tughluq at the gates of Delhi, and let his men loot the city for fifteen days. A hundred thousand Hindu prisoners were massacred outside the walls beforehand. Delhi did not recover for a century. The Sultanate's heartland was a corpse.