Bahmani Kingdom Pdf

[Hedvig Horning]

TheSultanate would begin its decline under the reign of Mahmood Shah. Through a combination of factional strife and the revolt of five provincial governors (tarafdars), the Bahmani Sultanate would split up into five states, known as the Deccan Sultanates. The initial revolts of Yusuf Adil Shah, Malik Ahmad Nizam Shah I, and Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk in 1490 and Qasim Barid I in 1492 would see the end of any real Bahmani power, and the last independent Sultanate, that of Golkonda in 1518, would end the Bahmani's 180 year rule over the Deccan. The last four Bahmani rulers would be puppet monarchs under Amir Barid I of the Bidar Sultanate, and the kingdom formally dissolved in 1527.[9][10]

The Bahmani Sultanate was founded by Zafar Khan, who was of either Afghan or Turk origin.[11][12][13][14] Encyclopedia Iranica states him to be a Khorasani adventurer, who claimed descent from Bahrām Gōr.[15] According to the medieval historian Ferishta, his obscurity makes it difficult to track his origin, but he is nonetheless stated as of Afghan birth.[16] Ferishta further writes, Zafar Khan had earlier been a servant of a Brahmin astrologer at Delhi named Gangu, giving him the name Hasan Gangu,[17][18] and says that he was from North India.[19] Historians have not found any corroboration for the legend,[20][21] but Barani, who was the court chronicler of Sultan Firuz Shah, as well as some other scholars have also called him Hasan Gangu.[22] Another theory of origin for Zafar Khan is that he was of Brahmin origin,[23] and that Bahman (his given name following the establishment of the Sultanate) is a corrupted personalized form of Brahman,[24] with Hasan Gangu being a Hindu Brahman who became Muslim.[25][23] However this view has been discredited by S.A.Q. Husaini, who considers the idea of a Brahmin origin or Zafar Khan originally being a Hindu convert to Islam from Punjab untenable.[26]

Ziauddin Barani, the court chronicler of Sultan Firuz Shah, states that Hasan Gangu, the Bahmani Sultanate's founder, was "born in very humble circumstances" and that "For the first thirty years of his life he was nothing more than a field laborer."[27] He was made a commander of a hundred horsemen by the Delhi Sultan, Muhammad bin Tughluq, who was pleased with his honesty. This sudden rise in the military and socio-economic ladder was common in this era of Muslim India.[28] Zafar Khan or Hasan Gangu was among the inhabitants of Delhi who were forced to migrate to the Deccan, to build a large Muslim settlement in the region of Daulatabad.[29] Zafar Khan was a man of ambition and looked forward to the adventure. He had long hoped to employ his body of horsemen in the Deccan as the region was seen as the place of bounty in Muslim imagination at the time. He was rewarded with an Iqta for taking part in the conquest of Kampili.[30]

Before the establishment of his kingdom, Hasan Gangu (Zafar Khan) was Governor of Deccan and a commander on behalf of the Tughlaqs. On 3 August 1347, during the rebellion by the Amirs of the Deccan, Ismail Mukh, the leader of the rebellion (whom the rebel amirs of the Deccan placed on the throne of Daulatabad in 1345), abdicated in favor of Zafar Khan, resulting in the establishment of the Bahmani Kingdom. The Sultan of Delhi had besieged the rebels at the citadel of Daulatabad. As another rebellion had begun in Gujarat, the Sultan left and installed Shaikh Burhan-ud-din Bilgrami and Malik Jauhar and other nobles in charge of the siege. Meanwhile, as these nobles were unable to stop the Deccani amirs from pursuing the imperial army, Hasan Gangu, a native of Delhi, then being pursued by Governor of Berar Imad-ul-Mulk, the leader to whom the Deccani Amirs had re-assembled against, attacked and slew the latter and marched on towards Daulatabad. Here Hasan Gangu and the Deccani amirs put to flight the imperial forces which had been left to besiege. The rebels at Daulatabad had the sense to see Hasan Gangu as the man of the hour, and the proposal to crown Hasan Gangu, entitled Zafar Khan, was accepted without a dissentient voice on 3 August 1347.[32][33][34][35][36] His revolt was successful, and he established an independent state on the Deccan within the Delhi Sultanate's southern provinces with its headquarters at Hasanabad (Gulbarga), where all his coins were minted.[32][37]

Turkish or Indo-Turkish troops, explorers, saints, and scholars moved from Delhi and North India to the Deccan with the establishment of the Bahmanid sultanate. How many of these were Shi'ites is unclear. Nonetheless, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that a number of nobility at the Bahmani court identified as Shi'ites or had significant Shi'ite inclinations.[a][4]

The Vijayanagara empire and the Bahmanids fought over the control of the Godavari-basin, Tungabadhra Doab, and the Marathwada country, although they seldom required a pretext for declaring war,[44] as military conflicts were almost a regular feature and lasted as long as these kingdoms continued.[45] Military slavery involved captured slaves from Vijayanagara whom were then converted to Islam and integrated into the host society, so they could begin military careers within the Bahmanid empire.[46][47]

Ghiyasuddin succeeded his father Muhammad II at the age of seventeen in April 1397, but was blinded and imprisoned by a Turkic slave called Taghalchin,[48][49] who had held a grudge on the Sultan for the latter's refusal to appoint him as a governor. He had lured the Sultan into putting himself in the former's power, using the beauty of his daughter, who was accomplished in music and arts, and had introduced her to the Sultan at a feast.[50][51] He was succeeded by Shamsuddin, who was a puppet king under Taghalchin. Firuz and Ahmed, the sons of the fourth sultan Daud, marched to Gulbarga to avenge Ghiyasuddin. Firuz declared himself the sultan, and defeated Taghalchin's forces. Taghalchin was killed and Shamsuddin was blinded.[52]

Taj ud-Din Firuz Shah became the sultan in November 1397.[53] Firuz Shah fought against the Vijayanagara Empire on many occasions and the rivalry between the two dynasties continued unabated throughout his reign, with victories in 1398 and in 1406, but a defeat in 1419. One of his victories resulted in his marriage to the daughter of Deva Raya, the Vijayanagara Emperor.

Firuz Shah expanded the nobility by enabling Hindus and granting them high office.[54] In his reign, Sufis such as Gesudaraz, a Chishti saint who had immigrated from Dehli to Daulatabad, were prominent in court and daily life.[55] He was the first author to write in the Dakhni dialect of Urdu.[56] The Dakhni language became widespread, practised by various milieus from the court to the Sufis. It was established as a lingua franca of the Muslims of the Deccan, as not only the aspect of a dominant urban elite, but an expression of the regional religious identity.[57]

Firuz Shah was succeeded by his younger brother Ahmad Shah I Wali. Following the establishment of Bidar as capital of the Sultanate in 1429,[58] Ahmad Shah I converted to Shi'ism.[4] Ahmad Shah's reign was marked by relentless military campaigns and expansionism. He imposed destruction and slaughter on Vijayanagara and finally captured the remnants of Warangal.[59]

Alauddin Ahmad II succeeded his father to the throne in 1436.[60] He ordered the construction of the Chand Minar, a minaret in Daulatabad. For the first half-century after the establishment of the Bahmanids, the original North Indian colonists and their sons had administered the empire quite independent of either the non-Muslim Hindus, or the Muslim foreign immigrants.

However, the later Bahmani Sultans, mainly starting from his father Ahmad Shah Wali I, began to recruit foreigners from overseas, whether because of depletion among the ranks of the original settlers, or the feelings of dependency upon the Persian courtly model, or both.[61] This resulted in factional strife that first became acute in the reign of his son Alauddin Ahmad Shah II.[62] In 1446, the powerful Dakhani nobles persuaded the Sultan that the Persians were responsible for the failure of the earlier invasion of the Konkan.[63]

The Sultan, drunk, condoned a large-scale massacre of Persian Shi'a Sayyids by the Sunni Dakhani nobles and their Sunni Abyssinian slaves.[64] A few survivors escaped the massacre dressed in women's clothing and convinced the Sultan of their innocence.[65] Ashamed of his own folly, the Sultan punished the Dakhani leaders who were responsible for the massacre, putting them to death or throwing them in prison, and reduced their families to beggary.[66] The accounts of the violent events likely included exaggerations as it came from the pen of the chroniclers who were themselves mainly foreigners and products of Safavid Persia.[67]

The eldest sons of Humayun Shah, Nizam-Ud-Din Ahmad III and Muhammad Shah III Lashkari ascended the throne successively, while they were young boys. The vizier Mahmud Gawan ruled as regent during this period, until Muhammad Shah reached age. Mahmud Gawan is known for setting up the Mahmud Gawan Madrasa, a center of religious as well as secular education,[68] as well as achieving the Sultanate's greatest extent during the his rule.[2] He also increased the administrative divisions of the Sultanate from four to eight to ease the administrative burden from previous expansion of the state. Gawan was considered a great statesman, and a poet of repute.[69]

Mahmud Gawan was caught in a struggle between a rivalry between two groups of nobles, the Dakhanis and the Afaqis. The Dakhanis made up the indigenous Muslim elite of the Bahmanid dynasty, being descendants of Sunni immigrants from Northern India, while the Afaqis were foreign newcomers from the West such as Gawan, who were mostly Shi'is.[70][71] The Dakhanis believed that the privileges, patronage and positions of power in the Sultanate should have been reserved solely for them.[72]

The divisions included sectarian religious divisions where the Afaqis were looked upon as heretics by the Sunnis as the former were Shi'as.[73] Eaton cites a linguistic divide where the Dakhanis spoke Dakhni while the Afaqis favored the Persian language.[74] Mahmud Gawan had tried to reconcile with the two factions over his fifteen-year Prime ministership, but had found it difficult to win their confidence; the party strife could not be stopped.[2] His Afaqis opponents, led by Nizam-ul-Mulk Bahri and motivated by anger over Mahmud's reforms which had curtailed the nobility's power, fabricated a treasonous letter to Purushottama Deva of Orissa which they purported to be from him.[75][76] Mahmud Gawan was ordered executed by Muhammad Shah III, an act that the latter regretted until his death in 1482.[69] Upon his death, Nizam-ul-Mulk Bahri, the father of the founder of the Nizam Shahi dynasty became the regent of the Sultan as Prime minister.[77][78]

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