In 1394, Zafar Khan, the new governor appointed by the Delhi sultan to the province of Gujarat, launched an attack on the hill fort of Idar. Idar was located on the periphery of the province, northeast of Anhilvada-Patan or Naharwala, the headquarters of the Tughluq sultans of Delhi in Gujarat. Ranmal, the ruler of the fort and its surrounding area, had challenged the new governor's claims to authority, and refused to pay the customary tribute owed to the representative from Delhi. Only a few years before this attack, in 1391, Sultan Nasir al-Din Muhammad Shah III of Delhi (r. 1390-1393) had appointed Zafar Khan, the son of Wajih al-mulk, a respected nobleman of the court, to quell a rebellion that was brewing in the capital at Anhilvada-Patan. Farhat al-mulk Rasti Khan (c. 1376-1392) was the governor of the province at that time, and had been appointed by Muhammad's predecessor, Sultan Firuz Tughluq. Rasti Khan governed the province successfully, and his hold over it increased due to the control he had over the local chieftains. Some sultanate sources go so far as to suggest that he gained the loyalty and support of these men, who held small but successful power bases all over the region.

After the death of his overlord, Firuz Shah, Rasti Khan gradually began to assert his independence over the province with support from the local chieftains. Seventeenth-century historian of Gujarat, Sikandar Manjhu, notes that Rasti Khan became rebellious; he also describes how the Delhi sultanate nobles stationed in the province complained of the tyranny of his administration. Following Manjhu, Muhammad Qasim Firishta goes further in saying that the governor had joined forces with the ‘infidel’ chieftains and even promoted idol worship. While this may have been a later attempt to tarnish his reputation, both these sources imply that the governor was displaying signs of dissent and was emboldened by local support outside of the imperial administration. His rise in the region thus posed a threat to the authority of Delhi as well as to the local Muslim nobles. Consequently, the next reigning sultan, Nasir al-Din Mahmud Shah (r. 1394-1413), decided to send another powerful man from the centre, Zafar Khan, to put an end to Rasti Khan's insubordination and revive Delhi's fortunes in Gujarat.