From 1526, the Moguls invaded the Indian Subcontinent, from their initial base in Kabul, and they eventually ruled most of Hindustan (South Asia) by the late 17th and the early 18th centuries until the mid-19th century. The emperors were descendants of the Timurids who had embraced Persian culture, converted to Islam and resided in Turkestan, and they were the ones responsible for the spread of Persian and Islamic culture to Central Asia. At the height of their power around 1700, they controlled most of the Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan and spread Persian culture throughout, just as their predecessors the Turkic Ghaznavids and the Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate had done.