Gujarat Sultanate

The Gujarat Sultanate was a late medieval Muslim state in western India, centred on the present-day state of Gujarat. Its founder was Zafar Khan, a governor of Gujarat under the Tughlaq dynasty of Delhi, who declared independence in 1394 as Muzaffar Shah I amid the collapse of Delhi's authority after Timur's invasion. His grandson Ahmad Shah I moved the capital to Ahmedabad in 1411 and built the city's great mosque, the Jama Masjid, and the sultanate expanded under Muhammad Shah II, who subdued most Rajput chieftains. Prosperity reached its height under Mahmud Begada, who took the forts of Champaner and Junagadh, built a navy off Diu, and patronised architecture and learning. The Portuguese defeated a Gujarati-Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Diu in 1509 and gained control of the sea route to the Red Sea, while Bahadur Shah reached the greatest territorial extent but was killed by the Portuguese in 1537. Humayun briefly occupied Gujarat in 1535, and the sultanate ended in 1573 when Akbar annexed it to the Mughal Empire. Its last ruler, Muzaffar Shah III, briefly regained the throne in 1583 before being defeated.