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." 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. 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. 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.
Rise 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. 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. With the support of the influential Indian
Chishti Sufi Shaikhs, he was crowned "Alauddin Bahman Shah Sultan – Founder of the Bahmani Dynasty". They bestowed upon him a robe allegedly worn by the prophet
Muhammad. The extension of the Sufi's notion of spiritual sovereignty lent legitimacy to the planting of the sultanate's political authority, where the land, people, and produce of the Deccan were merited state protection, no longer available for plunder with impunity. These Sufis legitimized the transplantation of Indo-Muslim rulership from one region in South Asia to another, converting the land of the Bahmanids into being recognized as
Dar ul-Islam, while it was previously considered
Dar ul-Harb.
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.
Succeeding rulers (1358–1422) Alauddin was succeeded by his son
Mohammed Shah I. His conflicts with the Vijayanagar empire were singularly savage wars, as according to the historian
Ferishta, "the population of the Carnatic was so reduced that it did not recover for several ages." The Bahmanids' aggressive confrontation with the two main Hindu kingdoms of the southern Deccan,
Warangal and Vijayanagara in the
First Bahmani–Vijayanagar War, made them renowned among Muslims as warriors of the faith. 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, as military conflicts were almost a regular feature and lasted as long as these kingdoms continued. 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. Mohammad Shah II's reign was noted for its peace and lack of foreign wars. 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, 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. 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. Taj ud-Din Firuz Shah became the sultan in November 1397. 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 1417. 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. In his reign, Sufis such as
Gesudaraz, a Chishti saint who had immigrated from Dehli to Daulatabad, were prominent in court and daily life. He was the first author to write in the
Dakhni dialect of
Urdu. 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.
Later rulers (1422–1482) Firuz Shah was succeeded by his younger brother
Ahmad Shah I Wali. Following the establishment of
Bidar as capital of the sultanate in 1429, Ahmad Shah I converted to
Shi'ism. complex
Alauddin Ahmad II succeeded his father to the throne in 1436. The
Chand Minar, a
minaret in
Daulatabad, was constructed under his reign, and was commemorated in his honour for his
victory against
Deva Raya II of Vijayanagara in 1443, the last major conflict between the two powers. 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. This resulted in factional strife that first became acute in the reign of his son Alauddin Ahmad Shah II. In 1446, the powerful Dakhani nobles persuaded the Sultan that the Persians were responsible for the failure of the earlier invasion of the
Konkan. The Sultan, drunk, condoned a large-scale massacre of Persian Shi'a
Sayyids 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 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. , built by
Mahmud Gawan to be the centre of religious as well as secular education 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, as well as achieving the sultanate's greatest extent during his rule. The Dakhanis believed that the privileges, patronage and positions of power in the sultanate should have been reserved solely for them. The divisions included sectarian religious divisions where the Afaqis were looked upon as heretics by the Sunnis as the former were Shi'as.
Eaton cites a linguistic divide where the Dakhanis spoke Dakhni while the Afaqis favored the Persian language. 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. Mahmud Gawan was ordered executed by Muhammad Shah III, an act that the latter regretted until his death in 1482. 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.
Decline Muhammad Shah III Lashkari was succeeded by his son
Mahmood Shah Bahmani II, the last Bahmani ruler to have real power. The
tarafdars of
Ahmednagar,
Bijapur, and
Berar,
Malik Ahmad Nizam Shah I,
Yusuf Adil Shah, and
Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk agreed to assert their independence in 1490, and established their own sultanates but maintained loyalty to the Bahmani Sultan. The sultanates of
Golconda and
Bidar would become in practice independent as well. In 1501, Mahmood Shah Bahmani united his amirs and wazirs in an agreement to wage annual
Jihad against Vijayanagara. The expeditions were financially ruinous. The last Bahmani Sultans were puppet monarchs under their
Barid Shahi prime ministers, who were the
de facto rulers. After 1518 the sultanate formally broke up into the five states of Ahmednagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, and Golconda. They are collectively known as the
Deccan Sultanates. == Historiography ==