Malwa Sultanate

The Malwa Sultanate was a late medieval kingdom in the Malwa region, covering the present-day Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and south-eastern Rajasthan from 1401 to 1562 — the central Indian sultanate shown on the map. It was founded by the Afghan Dilawar Khan, who, following Timur's invasion and the disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate, made Malwa an independent realm in 1401. Initially Dhar was the capital of the new kingdom, but soon it was shifted to Mandu, renamed Shadiabad — the city of joy — whose fortress-palaces on their hilltop became the sultanate's renown. Dilawar Khan's son Alp Khan assumed the title of Hoshang Shah, and the dynasty weathered invasion: the Muzaffarids under Zafar Khan Muzaffar Shah I accused Hoshang of parricide and invaded Malwa. Through the fifteenth century the sultanate stood among the powers of the northern Deccan and Malwa, contending with Gujarat and the Delhi successor states, until 1562, when it was absorbed into the Mughal Empire under Akbar, ending its separate record.