Mohammed Adil Shah (reigned 12 September 1627 – 4 November 1656) was the seventh sultan of

Bijapur Bijapur (officially 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 importa ...

, ascending the throne in 1627. During his reign, he assisted the Mughals with their campaigns against the

Ahmednagar Sultanate The Ahmadnagar Sultanate was a medieval Marathi Muslim kingdom located in the northwestern Deccan, between the sultanates of Gujarat and Bijapur, ruled by the Nizam Shahi dynasty. It was established when Malik Ahmed, the Bahmani governor o ...

and signed a peace treaty with them in 1636. He died in 1656 and was buried in the

Gol Gumbaz Gol Gumbaz (), also written Gol Gumbad, is a 17th-century mausoleum located in Bijapur, a city in Karnataka, India. It houses the remains of Mohammad Adil Shah, seventh sultan of the Adil Shahi dynasty, and some of his relatives. Begun in the ...

Rule

Although Darvesh Padshah was Ibrahim's eldest son, Mohammed Adil Shah was raised to the throne in 1627 on his father's death, at the age of fifteen. Mohammed Adil Shah of Bijapur partnered with the

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of pre ...

in their conquest of

Ahmednagar Ahmednagar, officially Ahilyanagar, is a city in, and the headquarters of, the Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India. Ahmednagar has several dozen buildings and sites from the Nizam Shahi period. Ahmednagar Fort, once considered almost impre ...

. Mohammed maintained friendly relations with

Shah Jahan Shah Jahan I, (Shahab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram; 5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), also called Shah Jahan the Magnificent, was the Emperor of Hindustan from 1628 until his deposition in 1658. As the fifth Mughal emperor, his reign marked the ...

and made a peace treaty of 1636, after the extinction of

. By a

firman A firman (; ), at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state. During various periods such firmans were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The English word ''firman'' co ...

, he got assurances for the end of Mughal aggression against

and due to his good relations with the Mughals,

formally recognized Muhammad's sovereignty and bestowed upon him the title of

Shah Shāh (; ) is a royal title meaning "king" in the Persian language.Yarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII, no. 1 (1989) Though chiefly associated with the monarchs of Iran, it was also used to refer to the leaders of numerous Per ...

in 1648, the only ruler of Bijapur to receive such recognition from the Mughals. The Treaty of 1636 with the

sealed the expansion of Bijapur in the north. So, Mohammed Adil Shah extended his dominations westwards into

Konkan The Konkan is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, bound by the river Daman Ganga at Damaon in the north, to Anjediva Island next to Karwar town in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau to the eas ...

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

, Dhabul (present

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

), southwards into

Mysore Mysore ( ), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of Mysore district and Mysore division. As the traditional seat of the Wadiyar dynasty, the city functioned as the capital of the ...

, and eastwards into

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

, present south

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

and

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. During his reign, the kingdom attained its greatest extent, power and magnificence, and his dominions stretched from the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

to the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

. Besides territorial expansions, Bijapur also attained peace and prosperity during Mohammed's reign. His kingdom yielded an annual revenue of seven crore eighty four lakh rupees, besides the five and half crores of tributes that were from vassal rulers and

zamindar A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous feudal lord of a ''zamindari'' (feudal estate). The term itself came into use during the Mughal Empire, when Persian was the official language; ''zamindar'' is the ...

s. Cultural activities like poetry, painting and architecture also received a great impetus. Mohammed Adil Shah did his best to emulate the glorious traditions left to him by his versatile

father A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. A biological fat ...

. Diffusion of general education and religious teachings were one of his chief concerns, and he did his utmost to improve the socio-economic and educational standards of the people. Mohammed continued his father's patronage of the arts, though on a lesser scale. He introduced

fresco painting Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes ...

s and portraits, the examples of which are the walls of

Asar Mahal Asar may refer to: * Asr prayer, one of the five daily prayers in Islam * Asar, Iran, a village in Iran * Asar, Düzce * Asar, Ortaköy, a village in Turkey * Asar, Yığılca * Asar Party, a former Kazakhstani political party * Advanced Synth ...

, pavilion at Kumatgi and

Sat Manzil The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times. For much of its history, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and had two ...

The Marathas' insurgency

Mohammed Adil Shah along with Golconda sultan was responsible for dissolution of already decaying Vijayanagar empire. This made him the most powerful ruler of Deccan region for a while. But as fate would always have its turn, Marathas inspired by Vijayanagar's history of valour launched a series of battles and started capturing Bijapur terroritories during very same Muhamad's reign. Mohammad's reign witnessed the revolt of the

Maratha The Marathi people (; Marathi: , ''Marāṭhī lōk'') or Marathis (Marathi: मराठी, ''Marāṭhī'') are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are native to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-A ...

general

Shahaji Bhosale Shahaji Bhonsale (; 18 March 1594 – 23 January 1664) was a 17th century Indian military leader who served the Ahmadnagar Sultanate, the Bijapur Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire at various points in his career. As a member of the Bhonsle dynas ...

and then, the rise of his son,

Shivaji Shivaji I (Shivaji Shahaji Bhonsale, ; 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680) was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle dynasty. Shivaji carved out his own independent kingdom from the Sultanate of Bijapur that formed the genesis of the ...

to eminence and his founding of an independent

Maratha kingdom The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent Maratha states under the nominal leadership of the former. ...

, which was initially carved out of the

Bijapur Sultanate The Sultanate of Bijapur was an early modern kingdom in the western Deccan and South India, ruled by the Muslim Adil Shahi (or Adilshahi) dynasty. Bijapur had been a '' taraf'' (province) of the Bahmani Kingdom prior to its independence in 14 ...

. Muhammed failed to check the rise of

Marathas The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern India, early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent List of Maratha dynasties and states, Ma ...

to independence and finally large part of Deccan region came under Maratha influence with defeat of Bijapur Sultanate.

Death

After an extended illness, Mohammad died and was succeeded by his son

Ali Adil Shah II Ali Adil Shah II (; reigned 4 November 1656 – 24 November 1672) was the 8th Sultan of Bijapur. He 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 ...

Tomb

He was buried in the

, near the tomb of his spiritual teacher Hashimpeer Dastageer. Hashimpeer arrived in Bijapur at the rule of

Ibrahim Adil Shah II Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1570 – 12 September 1627) was Sultan of the Sultanate of Bijapur and a member of the Adil Shahi dynasty. Under his reign the sultanate had its greatest period as he extended its frontier as far south as Mysore. He ...

. Hashimpeer influenced the rulers of Bijapur to give up their un-Islamic and heretic practices. Gol Gumbaz, located near the shrine of Hashimpeer, owes its completion to the 10 years of life that Hashimpeer granted to his disciple Adil Shah. The dome of the Gol Gumbaz is the second largest in the world, 44 m (124 ft) in diameter.''Utilizing Ready Mix Concrete and Mortar: Proceedings of the International Conference'', ed.Ravindra K. Dhir and Mukesh C. Limbachiya, (Thomas Telford Publishing, 1999), 212. The

complex includes a mosque, a Naqqar Khana (a hall for the trumpeters, now it is used as museum) and the ruins of guest houses.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohammed Adil Shah 1656 deaths 17th-century Indian Muslims Sultans of Bijapur 17th-century Indian monarchs

Rule

The Marathas' insurgency

Death

Tomb

See also

References