On the death of Mohammed Adil Shah, Sultan of Bijapur on 4 November 1656, Ali Adil Shah II, a youth of eighteen, succeeded to the throne of Bijapur through the efforts of the Prime Minister Khan Muhammad and the Queen, Badi Sahiba, sister of Qutb Shah of Golkonda. His accession signaled disasters to the Kingdom and his reign marked the decline of the Bijapur Kingdom.

Reign

Shah Jahan, anxious to annex Bijapur to his empire, found a pretext in the legitimacy of Alis parents. On Aurangzeb’s plea, Shah Jahan sanctioned the invasion of Bijapur and gave him a free hand to deal with the situation. This sanction of such a war was wholly unrighteous. Bijapur was not a vassal state of the

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

; but an independent and equal ally of the Mughal Emperor, and the latter had no lawful right to confirm or question the succession to the

Bijapur Sultanate The Adil Shahi or Adilshahi, was a Shia,Salma Ahmed Farooqui, ''A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century'', (Dorling Kindersley Pvt Ltd., 2011), 174. and later Sunni Muslim,Muhammad Qasim Firishta's T ...

. However, Aurangzeb, had to raise the siege and rush to the north for the war of succession to the Mughal throne. With Muhammad’s death and Ali’s accession disorder had begun in the

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

. The Nayaks tried to recover their former lands. (

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

the capital of

was Bijapur’s administrative headquarters for controlling these feudatories by Kempegouda). On the other hand,

Shivaji Shivaji Bhonsale I (; 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680), also referred to as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan. Shivaji carved out his own independent kingdom from the declining Adil ...

increased the momentum of acquiring more and more Bijapur territory and carved an independent

Maratha The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as ...

state, while his diplomacy prevented any Mughal- Bijapur coalition against him. At the court things were even worse. With the coming of a young and weak ruler, the party factions and struggle for supremacy was at its zenith. To aggravate the, Aurangzeb intrigued with Bijapur nobles and succeeded in winning over most of them. Throughout his reign of 16 years, Ali struggled desperately both against the

and the

s. He thrice repulsed Mughal invasions. But when he died in 1672 the Bijapur kingdom was deprived of most of its important territorial possessions. With the expansion of

’s kingdom there was a corresponding shrinkage in the Bijapur territory.

Death

Ali’s reign is marked by developments in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and Deccani literature and fine arts, and some good works of history were also produced under his patronage. He was buried in Ali Ka Rouza the world-famous

Bara Kaman Bara Kaman is the unfinished building, unfinished mausoleum of Ali Adil Shah II in Bijapur, Karnataka, Bijapur, Karnataka in India. Ali Adil Shah of the Adil Shahi dynasty wanted to build a mausoleum of unmatched architectural quality. It was ...

in Bijapur.

References

* Dehlavi, Basheeruddin: ''Wāqīyāt-i mamlakat-i Bījāpūr'', Bangalore (Karnatak Urdu Academy) 2003. *

Firishta Firishta or Ferešte ( fa, ), full name Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Astarabadi ( fa, مُحَمَّد قاسِم هِندو شاہ), was a Persian historian, who later settled in India and served the Deccan Sultans as their court historian. He was ...

, Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū-Shāh Astarābādī: ''History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, till the Year 1612'', translated by John Briggs, Calcutta (Editions Indian) 1829, rep. 1966. * Nayeem, Muhammad: ''External Relations of the Bijapur Kingdom'', Hyderabad A.P. (Bright Publishers) 1974. * Verma, Dinesh Chandra: ''Social, economic, and cultural history of Bijapur'', Delhi (Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli) 1990. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ali Adil Shah 02 1672 deaths 17th-century Indian Muslims 17th-century Indian monarchs Sultans of Bijapur Adil Shahi dynasty 1656 in India 1672 in India Year of birth unknown