Ma'bar

The Ma'bar dynasty ruled the Madurai Sultanate from the city of Madurai in Tamil country. Its founder Jalaluddin Ahsan Khan, a Muslim noble of northern origin, governed Ma'bar for the Delhi Sultanate until the crises of Muhammad bin Tughluq's reign allowed him to declare independence around 1335.

Eight sultans followed one another in forty-three years amid frequent coups and assassinations. Ghiyasuddin Damghani captured and killed the Hoysala king Veera Ballala III in 1343, and the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, who married a daughter of Jalaluddin, left an account of the court's cruelty toward its Hindu subjects.

War with the Hoysalas and the rising Vijayanagara Empire wore the sultanate down, and in 1378 Kumara Kampana's Vijayanagara army stormed Madurai and killed the last sultan, Alauddin Sikandar Shah, ending the dynasty and bringing the far south under Vijayanagara rule.