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Delhi before the Moghal Conquest


MUBARAK SHAH, who succeeded, had a stormy reign, and was not often at Delhi, but towards the end of his reign, in 1433, he ordered the building of a new city on the bank of the river,to be called Mubarikabad. It was, however, never destined to be finished, for a plot was made against the king, and he was assassinated in the mosque which he had built within the lines of his city; his mausoleum also is there.

The last of the Sayyad dynasty was MAHOMED SHAH, son of Farid Khan, and grandson of Khizr Khan, the founder of the dynasty. His reign also was a troubled one, and sieges of the different cities of Delhi were common. In 1435 he was shut up in Siri, and was nearly murdered, only escaping by admitting the besiegers by the Baghdad Gate. In 1440 the King of Malwa invested Delhi, but was defeated by the valourous Bahlol Lodi, and retired. In 1441, however, Bahlol turned his powerful army against his master, and besieged him in Old Delhi for some months, but then had to abandon the enterprise. Mahomed died in 1445,and his tomb is one of the finest of the period; it has been noticed near the village of Khairpur.

The son of Mahomed, ALAM SHAH, can hardly be termed a king, for Delhi was almost his only possession, and that city he resigned for Badaon,205