The Tughlaq dynasty (also known as Tughluq or Tughluk dynasty; ) was a Muslim dynasty which ruled over the Delhi sultanate in medieval India. Its reign started in 1320 in Delhi when Ghazi Malik assumed the throne under the title of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. The dynasty ended in 1413. The dynasty expanded its territorial reach through a military campaign led by Muhammad ibn Tughluq, and reached its zenith between 1330 and 1335. It ruled most of the Indian subcontinent. Origin The etymology of the word Tughlaq is not certain. The 16th-century writer Firishta claims that it is a corruption of the Turkic term Qutlugh, but this is doubtful. Literary, numismatic and epigraphic evidence makes it clear that Tughlaq was not an ancestral designation, but the personal name of the dynasty's founder Ghazi Malik. Historians use the designation Tughlaq to describe the entire dynasty as a matter of convenience, but to call it the Tughlaq dynasty is inaccurate, as none of the dynasty's kings not used Tughlaq as a surname: only Ghiyath al-Din's son Muhammad bin Tughluq called himself the son of Tughlaq Shah ("bin Tughlaq"). The ancestry of the dynasty is debated among modern historians because the earlier sources provide different information regarding it. Tughlaq's court poet Badr-i Chach attempted to find a royal Sassanian genealogy for the dynasty from the line of Bahram Gur, which seems to be the official position of the genealogy of the Sultan, although this can be dismissed as flattery. Peter Jackson suggested that Tughlaq was of Mongol stock and a follower of the Mongol chief Alaghu. The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta states that the Punjabi Sufi saint Rukn-e-Alam claimed that Tughluq belonged to the "Qarauna" [Neguderi] tribe of Turks, who lived in the hilly region between Turkestan and Sindh, who are mentioned by the Rauzatus Safa and Wassat as a Mongol tribe. Tughlaq expresses hatred and a drive to cleanse the countryside of the Mongols ("I love my Dipalpur, for me, my sword and the heads of the Mongols"). In additon to the fact that Barani was not corroborated by contemporary sources, Tughlaq's attitude towards the Mongols make it highly doubtful that he had any ethnic relation to the Qaraunas. It is doubtful that Shaikh Rukn-ud-Din knew anything about the obscure origins of Tughlaq, and as he was not an eye-witness, his statement cannot be regarded as authentic. According to Bhandari, Tughlaq was born