Sultan Ibrahim Lodi was the son of Sikandar Lodi. Ibrahim Lodi was the last Emperor of the Lodi Dynasty. He succeeded the throne from his father Sikandar Lodi in 1517. He was a lot of disputes that were going on as his father invited many of the Afghans into their kingdom, so Ibrahim Lodi had to face a lot of problems between the royal family and the noble Afghans. Ibrahim Lodi was the nefarious tyrannical ruler. He ruled India for 9 years.
Early Life
Ibrahim belonged to an ethnic Pashtun family and culture from his father’s side. He was born around 1480. Proper education was imparted to him. Lodi also got Military education. He was courageous, brave, and intelligent. He had the reputation of piety and orthodoxy.
Ibrahim Lodi had a deep interest in music. Lodi had to face a lot of resistance when he took over the throne. This happened because he became the ruler without asking the noble Afghans . He not welcomed and blessed with the same ruling capacity.
Accession and reign
Ibrahim Lodi had a lot of vanities, and he demanded more obedience than it was customary to have. The way Ibrahim Lodi wanted to be treated was another level of indiscreetness. He brought dual Monarchy into the system. When Ibrahim Lodi was facing rebellions from the Afghan nobles, they demanded a partition of the kingdom and throned Jalal Khan who was the younger brother of Ibrahim Lodi, to Jaunpur. He sent some secret instructions to his chief nobles to not recognize Jalal Khan’s authority as a ruler due to Jalal’s misconduct. However, Lodi killed Jalal Khan and then Lodi claimed the whole empire.
As stated earlier, he had poor connections with the nobles, and he imprisoned them and ill-treated them. This started many rebellions to erupt in various corners of the kingdom. Ibrahim Lodi poisoned many of his noblemen and killed some of his subjects cruelly.
The Mewar Raja Rana Sanga extended his state to Uttar Pradesh and was vulnerable to attack Agra. Ibrahim overcame Mewar and its ruler Rana Sanga who was a great warrior. He got support from his affluence in Gwalior.
When the disputes among Ibrahim Lodi and the nobles were out of the hands, one of Lodi’s men, Daulat khan who was the Governor of Punjab, called the Mughal King of Kabul, Babur to advance towards Delhi and defeated Ibrahim at the battle of Panipat.
The Lodi Dynasty soon became weaker and weaker as all the trade routes cut off to provide supplies where the Lodi Dynasty resided. The Deccan was the main coastal trade route. The supply lines in the Deccan area collapsed in the 1500s and so the trade declined.
Battle of Panipat
In 1526, the Mughal Emperor Babur reached Ambala and organized his army in a defensive manner. He had a great numerical advantage over Babur, but Babur used a strategy and waited 8 days for Ibrahim and used Turko-Mongol bows which Ibrahim Lodi had no idea of the advanced weapons. This was in fact one of the first battles to use gun powder firearms and field artillery.
Babur dug a trench covered with trees to secure his left sides and placed 700 carts tied together and ensured that there was enough space for his soldiers to fire the guns. When Lodi arrived, he found the way to be too narrow for his troops to cross. While Ibrahim was redeploying his army, Babur took advantage and attacked.
Ibrahim Lodi fought bravely and led his army from the front and died in the war and Afghans lost the battle. The first battle of Panipat then witnessed the first establishment of the Mughal Kingdom in the subcontinent. Babur then captured Agra and Delhi and laid the foundations of the Mughal Empire.
Death
In 1526, when Ibrahim Lodi came to fight with Mughal Emperor Babur, he was defeated although he had more than 100,000 men with at least 300 war elephants whereas Babur only had 18,000 to 30,000 men. The tomb of Ibrahim Lodi is actually situated in the tehsil office in Panipat. His grave and tomb is a rectangular structure and have an inscription highlighting Ibrahim Lodi’s death in the battle of Panipat.
