NCERT Class 7 - Our Pasts II • NCERT Class 12 - Themes in Indian History Part II

The Bahmani Kingdom and Mahmud Gawan

The Bahmani kingdom was founded in 1347 when Deccan nobles revolted against Muhammad bin Tughlaq. It lasted nearly two centuries, reached its height under the minister Mahmud Gawan, and then split into five Deccan Sultanates.

Foundation and capitals

• Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah, earlier known as Zafar Khan, founded the kingdom after the Deccan revolted against Delhi.
• The first capital was Gulbarga; it was later shifted to Bidar under Ahmad Shah Wali.
• The kingdom was in constant conflict with Vijayanagara over the Raichur doab, the fertile land between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra, and over the coastal Konkan ports.
• Firoz Shah Bahmani was a learned ruler who recruited from many communities and set up an observatory at Daulatabad.

Mahmud Gawan

• A Persian merchant who rose to be prime minister under Muhammad Shah III, he is the ablest administrator of the Deccan Sultanates.
• He divided the kingdom into eight tarafs or provinces in place of four, so that no governor became too powerful.
• Only one fort in each province stayed under the governor; the rest were placed under officers appointed directly by the Sultan.
• He ordered systematic measurement of land to fix revenue, and reduced the governors' military and financial independence.
• He built a magnificent madrasa at Bidar, with a library, lecture halls and student quarters, on the Persian model.
• He was executed in 1481 on a forged charge of treason, and the kingdom broke up soon after - his fall is the standard example of factional politics destroying an able administrator.

Afaqi and Deccani factions

• The nobility was split between the Afaqis or Gharbians - newcomers from Persia, Turkey and Arabia, mostly Shia - and the Deccanis, older settlers and Indian Muslims, largely Sunni.
• Mahmud Gawan was an Afaqi, and the Deccani faction engineered his execution.
• This factional conflict, more than any external enemy, is what tore the kingdom apart.

The five Deccan Sultanates

• These five combined only once to decisive effect, at Talikota in 1565 against Vijayanagara.
• Their architecture is outstanding - the Gol Gumbaz at Bijapur, the tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah, has one of the largest single-chamber domes in the world and a famous whispering gallery.
• The Charminar at Hyderabad was built by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, who also founded the city.
• Golconda was famous for diamonds, and its rulers patronised Telugu and Dakhani literature alongside Persian.
• All five were finally absorbed by the Mughals, Ahmadnagar and Bijapur and Golconda falling in stages by the end of the seventeenth century.