Sulṭān Muḥammad ibn Tughluq

The ruler of the Delhi Sultanate during Ibn Battuta's extended stay in India, infamous for combining extraordinary generosity with equally extraordinary cruelty in ways that made his court the most dangerous environment Ibn Battuta ever inhabited. Ibn Battuta received enormous gifts from him — houses, money, horses, servants — and lived in constant terror of the sudden reversal that could follow any perceived slight or policy disagreement. The Sultan's failed experiments, including the disastrous forced relocation of Delhi's entire population to a new capital, illustrated the tragedy of absolute power exercised without the check of sound counsel or stable institutions. Ibn Battuta's portrait of him remains the most detailed medieval account of this complex and destructive ruler.

As understood in the classical tradition of Ibn Battuta and the scholars of his school.