Ahmad Shah I Wali.
Bidar was made capital of the sultanate in 1429. Ahmad Shah's reign was marked with relentless military campaigns and expansionism. He imposed destruction and slaughter on Vijayanagar and finally captured Warangal.
Alauddin Ahmad II succeeded his father to the throne in 1436. He ordered the construction of the
Chand Minar
The Chand Minar or the Tower of the Moon is a medieval tower in Daulatabad, Maharashtra, Daulatabad, India. The tower is located in the state of Maharashtra near the Daulatabad-Deogiri fort complex. It was erected in 1445 C.E by King Bahmani Sul ...
. For the first half century after the establishment of the Bahmanids, the original 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 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. This resulted in factional strife that first became acute in the reign of Alauddin Ahmad II. In 1446, the powerful Dakhani nobles persuaded the Sultan that the Persians were responsible for the failure of the
Konkan
The Konkan ( kok, कोंकण) or Kokan () is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, running from Damaon in the north to Karwar in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau in the east. The hinterland ...
invasion. The Sultan condoned a terrible massacre of Persian Shi'a
Sayyids
''Sayyid'' (, ; ar, سيد ; ; meaning 'sir', 'Lord', 'Master'; Arabic plural: ; feminine: ; ) is a surname of people descending from the Prophets in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali ...
by the Sunni Dakhani nobles and their Sunni
Abyssinian slaves. A few survivors escaped the massacre dressed in women's clothing and convinced the Sultan of their innocence. 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.
The eldest sons of Humayun Shah,
Nizam-Ud-Din Ahmad III
Nizam-Ud-Din Ahmad III or Nizam Ahmed Shah or Nizam Shah Bahmani was the sultan of the Bahmani Sultanate from 1461 to 1463. During his reign, the administration of the sultanate was mainly handled by the Persian prime minister Mahmud Gawan.
Re ...
and
Muhammad Shah III Lashkari
Muhammad Shah III Lashkari or Shamsuddin Muhammad Shah III was the sultan of the Bahmani Sultanate from 1463 to 1482.
Ascension
Muhammad Shah III was 8 or 9 years old when he ascended the throne on 30 July 1463 on the death of his brother, Niza ...
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
The Madrasa of Mahmud Gawan is an ancient madrasa or Islamic college in Bidar, Karnataka, India. It was built in the 1460s and is an example of the regional style of Indo-Islamic architecture under the Bahmani Sultanate. This heritage structure ...
, a center of religious as well as secular education. Gawan was considered a great statesman, and a poet of repute. Mahmud Gawan was caught in a struggle between a rivalry between two groups of nobles, the Dakhanis and the Afaqis. The
Dakhanis made the ruling indigenous Muslim elite of the Bahmanid dynasty, being descendants of
Sunni
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...
immigrants from Northern India, while the Afaqis were foreign newcomers from the west such as Gawan, who were mostly
Shi'is
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most ...
. The Dakhanis believed that the privileges, patronage and positions of power in the Sultanate should have been reserved solely for them, based on their ethnic origin and their sense of pride of having launched the Bahmanid empire. The divisions included sectarian religious dvisions where the Afaqis were looked upon heretics by the Sunnis as the former were Shi'as, while Eaton cites a linguistic divide where the Dakhanis spoke Dakhni while the Afaqis favored the Persian language. Although Mahmud Gawan was a foreigner, he attempted to reconcile the factions and strengthen the Sultanate by allotting offices to the Dakhanis. Nonetheless, Mahmud Gawan found it difficult to win their confidence; the party strife could not be stopped and his opponents eventually managed to poison the ears of the Sultan. Mahmud Gawan was executed by Muhammad Shah III, an act that the latter regretted until he died in 1482. Upon his death, Nizam-ul-Mulk Bahri, the father of the founder of the
Nizam Shahi dynasty
The Deccan sultanates were five Islamic late-medieval Indian kingdoms—on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range—that were ruled by Muslim dynasties: namely Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, and Golconda. The ...
became the regent of the king.
Later rulers and decline
Muhammad Shah II was succeeded by his son
Mahmood Shah Bahmani II
Mahmood Shah or Shihab-Ud-Din Mahmud was the sultan of the Bahmani Sultanate from 1482 until his death in 1518. His long rule is noted for the disintegration of the sultanate and the creation of the independent Deccan sultanates.
Reign
Mah ...
, the last Bahmani ruler to have real power. In 1501, Mahmud Shah Bahmani united his amirs and wazirs in an agreement to wage annual
Jihad
Jihad (; ar, جهاد, jihād ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with Go ...
against Vijayanagar. The expeditions were financially ruinuous.
The last Bahmani Sultans were puppet monarchs under their
Barid Shahi Prime Ministers, who were de facto rulers. After 1518 the sultanate broke up into five states:
Nizamshahi
The Ahmadnagar Sultanate was a late medieval Indian Muslim kingdom located in the northwestern Deccan, between the sultanates of Gujarat and Bijapur. Malik Ahmed, the Bahmani governor of Junnar after defeating the Bahmani army led by general J ...
of
Ahmednagar
Ahmednagar (), is a city located in the Ahmednagar district in the state of Maharashtra, India, about 120 km northeast of Pune and 114 km from Aurangabad. Ahmednagar takes its name from Ahmad Nizam Shah I, who founded the town in 1494 ...
,
Qutb Shahi
The Qutb Shahi dynasty also called as Golconda Sultanate (Persian: ''Qutb Shāhiyān'' or ''Sultanat-e Golkonde'') was a Persianate Shia Islam dynasty of Turkoman origin that ruled the sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. After the coll ...
of
Golconda
Fort (Telugu: గోల్కొండ, romanized: ''Gōlkōnḍa'') is a historic fortress and ruined city located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It was originally called Mankal. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparu ...
(Hyderabad),
Barid Shahi of
Bidar,
Imad Shahi of
Berar,
Adil Shahi
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 ...
of
Bijapur
Bijapur, officially known as Vijayapura, is the district headquarters of Bijapur district of the Karnataka state of India. It is also the headquarters for Bijapur Taluk. Bijapur city is well known for its historical monuments of architectural ...
. They are collectively known as the "
Deccan Sultanates
The Deccan sultanates were five Islamic late-medieval Indian kingdoms—on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range—that were ruled by Muslim dynasties: namely Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, and Golconda. Th ...
".
The south Indian Emperor
Krishnadevaraya
Krishnadevaraya (17 January 1471 – 17 October 1529) was an emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire, also known as the Karnata Empire, reigning from 1509 to 1529. He was the third monarch of the Tuluva dynasty, and is considered to be one of the g ...
of the
Vijayanagara Empire
The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hinduism, Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana an ...
defeated the last remnant of Bahmani Sultanate power after which the Bahmani Sultanate collapsed.
Historiography
Modern scholars like
Sherwani
Sherwani is a long-sleeved outer coat worn by men in South Asia. Like the Western frock coat it is fitted, with some waist suppression; it falls to below the knees and is buttoned down the front. It can be collarless, have a shirt-style collar, ...
,
Eaton have based their accounts of the Bahmani dynasty mainly upon the medieval chronicles of
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 ...
, and Syed Ali Tabatabai. Other contemporary works were Sivatatva Chintamani and Guru Charitra.
Athanasius Nikitin Afanasy Nikitin (russian: Афана́сий Ники́тин; died 1472) was a Russian merchant from Tver and one of the first Europeans (after Niccolò de' Conti) to travel to and document his visit to India. He described his trip in a narrative ...
traveled this kingdom. He contrasts the huge "wealth of the nobility with the wretchedness of the peasantry and the frugality of the Hindus".
Culture
Rulers of the dynasty believed that they descended from
Bahman, the mythological figure of
Greater Iran
Greater Iran ( fa, ایران بزرگ, translit=Irān-e Bozorg) refers to a region covering parts of Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Xinjiang, and the Caucasus, where both Culture of Iran, Iranian culture and Iranian langua ...
ian legend and lore. The Bahmani Sultans were patrons of the
Persian language
Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and ...
,
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
and
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
, and some members of the dynasty became well-versed in that language and composed its literature in that language.
The first sultan,
Alauddin Bahman Shah is noted to have captured 1,000 singing and dancing girls from Hindu temples after he battled the northern
Carnatic chieftains. The later Bahmanis also enslaved civilian women and children in wars; many of them were converted to Islam in captivity. The craftspersons of Bidar were so famed for their inlay work on copper and silver that it came to be known as
Bidri
Bidriware is a metal handicraft from the city of Bidar in southern India. It was developed in the 14th century C.E. during the rule of the Bahmani Sultans. The term "bidriware" originates from the township of Bidar, which is still the chief cent ...
.
Firuz Shah, having a passion for languages, married a large number of Indians, Iranians and Arabs, in order to practise speaking their own languages with them. In addition he was known for speaking several Indian languages.
Architecture
The Persianate Indo-Islamic style of architecture developed during this period was later adopted by the Deccan Sultanates as well.
The
Gulbarga Fort
The Gulbarga Fort is located in Kalaburagi in the Kalaburagi district of North Karnataka. It was subsequently significantly enlarged in 1347 by Al-ud-din Hasan Bahmani of the Bahmani Dynasty after he cut off his ties with the Delhi Sultanate; I ...
,
Haft Gumbaz, and
Jama Masjid in Gulbarga,
Bidar Fort and
Madrasa Mahmud Gawan in Bidar, are the major architectural contributions.
The later rulers are buried in an elaborate tomb complex, known as the
Bahmani Tombs. The exterior of one of the tombs is decorated with coloured tiles. Arabic, Persian and Urdu inscriptions are inscribed inside the tombs.
[https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/media/pdf/books/978-88-6969-086-0/978-88-6969-086-0-ch-16.pdf ]
The Bahmani rulers made some beautiful tombs and mosques in Bidar and Gulbarga. They also built many forts at
Daulatabad,
Golconda
Fort (Telugu: గోల్కొండ, romanized: ''Gōlkōnḍa'') is a historic fortress and ruined city located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It was originally called Mankal. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparu ...
and
Raichur. The architecture was highly influenced by Persian architecture. They invited architects from Persia, Turkey and Arabia. Some of the magnificent structures built by the Bahmanis were the Jami Masjid at Gulbarga, Chandand Minar and the Mahmud Gawan Madrasa at Bidar.
List of Bahmani Shahs
File:Farman Of Feroz Shah Bahmani - 14 -05 -1406 A.D.jpg, Taj ud-Din Firuz Shah
Taj may refer to:
Buildings
*Taj Mahal, a medieval mausoleum in the Indian city of Agra
*Taj Palace, an Abbasid palace in medieval Baghdad
*Taj-ul-Masajid, mosque in Bhopal
* Taj building, Nowshera, Pakistan
*Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, inte ...
of the Bahmani Sultanate's Firman
A firman ( fa, , translit=farmân; ), at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state. During various periods they were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The word firman com ...
.
File:Ahmed Shah Al Wali Bahamani.jpg, Ahmad Shah I Wali.
File:Tomb of Sultan Ahmed Shah Al Wali.jpg, Tomb of Ahmad Shah I Wali.
See also
*
Javji Bamble
Javjirao Hirajirao Bamble also known as Jivaji Bamble was the mansabdar of Rajur in the Maratha Empire, was the deshmukh of 60 villages and chief of the Kolis of Bamble clan. His family had been vassals since the time of the Bahmani Sultanate. A ...
*
Vijayanagara military
The Vijayanagara military supported the Vijayanagara Empire in particular with regard to the empire's long-lasting rivalry with the Bahmani Sultanate. Besides a large standing army, the Vijayanagara rulers also maintained a powerful navy. This ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Library of Congress – A Country Study: India
{{Authority control
1527 disestablishments in India
States and territories established in 1347
States and territories disestablished in 1527
1347 establishments in Asia
14th-century establishments in India
Former sultanates