Muhammad bin Tughluq

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) was Sultan of Delhi from 1325, eldest son of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, founder of the Tughlaq dynasty. Sent to the Deccan, he took the Kakatiya capital Warangal in 1323, ending that dynasty.

As sultan he moved the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in 1327 to rule from a safer central place; many of those ordered south died on the road, and after a revolt and plague he moved it back to Delhi in 1335. In 1330 he issued brass and copper tokens valued as silver, but forgers flooded the markets and the scheme collapsed, while a 1333 campaign into Kumaon lost nearly all its 100,000 men.

A learned scholar and calligrapher, he was later nicknamed the Wisest Fool. Under him the sultanate fell apart as Vijayanagara and the Bahmani Sultanate broke away in the south. He died in 1351 on campaign in Sindh.