Babur Wins at Panipat and Founds the Mughal Empire

In April 1526, the Timurid prince Babur confronted Ibrahim Khan Lodi, the Sultan of Delhi, on an open plain at Panipat in northern India. Babur had spent over two decades campaigning in Central Asia and around his power base of Kabul and Ghazni, which he had seized in 1504. Faced with stubborn opposition to the northwest from Muhammad Shaybani, Babur turned his territorial ambitions southeast toward the fertile lands of Punjab. By 1519, his forces had reached the Chenab River, probing the peripheral frontiers of a vast but politically unstable Delhi Sultanate.

Internal fractures within the Lodi dynasty offered Babur an opportunity to press deeper into northern India. Ibrahim Lodi was embroiled in bitter rivalries with his nobility, leading Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of Punjab, to seek an alliance with Babur. In 1524 Babur defeated an army of Ibrahim Lodi near Lahore and claimed the city for himself, a move that ended his alliance with Daulat Khan, before forming a new alliance with Ibrahim's uncle Alam Khan and briefly returning to Kabul.