The Five Sultanates of the Deccan
Five separate Sultanates arose in the Deccan, one after another, on the break-up of the Bahmani kingdom. These were known, after the titles of their founders, as the Imad Shahi dynasty of Berar, the Nizam Shahi dynasty of Ahmadnagar, the ‘Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur, the Qutub Shahi dynasty of Golkunda and the Barid Shahi dynasty of Bidar. The first to secede was Berar, where Fathullah Imad Shah, a Hindu convert, declared his independence in A.D. 1484 and founded the lmad Shahi dynasty. Berar was absorbed by Ahmadnagar in A.D. 1574.
Yusuf ‘Adil Khan, Governor of Bijapur, asserted his independence in A.D. 1489-1490. He was known during his early days as a Georgian slave, who was purchased by Mahmud Gawan, and rose to prominence by dint of his merit and ability. Ferishta, however, relying on some private information, writes that he was the son of Sultan Murad II of Turkey, who died in A.D. 1451, that he fled from his country, first to Persia, and then to India at the age of seventeen, to save himself from assassination, ordered by his elder brother, Muhammad II, who had succeeded his father on the throne, and that he sold himself as a slave to the minister of the Bahmani Sultan. Yusuf ‘Adil Shah was not a bigot. Religion was no bar to securing offices in his government, and he had a preference for the Shiah creed, probably due to his sojourn in Persia. Free from vices in his private life, he was mindful of his duties as a ruler. Ferishta tells us that although Yusuf ‘Adil Shah “mingled pleasure with business, yet he never allowed the former to interfere with the latter. He always warned his ministers to act with justice and integrity, and in his own person showed them an example of attention to those virtues. He invited to his court many learned men and valiant officers from Persia, Turkestan, and Rum, and also several eminent artists, who lived happy under the shadow of his bounty. In his reign the citadel of Bijapur was made of stone”. The reigns of Yusuf ‘Adil Shah’s four immediate successors, Ismail Adil Shah, son of Yusuf (1510-1534), Mallu, son of Isma’il (1534), lbrahim ‘Adil Shah I, brother of Mallu (1534-1557), and ‘Ali’ ‘Adil Shah, son of Ibrahim (1557-1579), were full of intrigues and wars. But the dynasty produced another remarkable ruler in Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II, nephew and successor of ‘Ali ‘Adil Shah, who governed the kingdom with universal toleration and wisdom till he died in A.D. 1626. In the opinion of Meadows Taylor, who wrote with some experience of Bijapur and its local traditions, “he was the greatest of all the ‘Adil Shah dynasty, and in most respects, except its founder, the most able and popular”. The Bijapur kingdom survived till its annexation by Aurangzeb in A.D, 1686.
The founder of the Ahmadnagar kingdom was Malik Ahmad, son of Nizam-ul-mulk Bahri, who sprang from the hereditary Hindu revenue officials of Pathri, north of the Godavari, took a leading part in the conspiracy against Mahmud Gawan, and became prime minister after his death. Malik Ahmad was appointed governor of Junnar, but in 1490 he declared himself independent. Some time later he transferred the seat of his government to a place of better strategic position and thus founded the city of Ahmadnagar. After several years’ attempts, he captured Daulatabad in A.D. 1499, which helped him to consolidate his dominion. He died in A.D. 1508 and was succeeded by his son, Burhan Nizam Shah, who, during his reign of forty-five years, waged wars with the neighbouring States and about A.D. 1550 allied himself with the Raya of Vijayanagar against Bijapur. His successor, Husain Nizam Shah, joined the Muslim confederacy against Vijayanagar in 1565. After his death in that year, he was succeeded by his son, Murtaza Nizam Shah 1, a pleasure-loving youth, unfit to compete successfully with his adversaries. There is nothing of importance and interest in the subsequent history of Ahmadnagar except, the heroic resistance offered by Chand Bibi to Akbar’s son, Prince Murad, in 1595, and the military as well as administrative skill of Malik ‘Ambar. The kingdom was overrun by the Mughuls in 1600, but it was not finally annexed to their Empire until 1633 in the reign of Shah Jahan.
The Muslim kingdom of Golkunda grew up on the ruins of the old Hindu kingdom of Warangal, which was conquered by the Bahmanis in A.D. 1424. The founder of the Qutub Shahi dynasty was Quli Shah, a Turki officer of the Bahmani kingdom during the reign of Mahmud Shah Bahmani.
When the distant provinces of the Bahmani kingdom declared their independence, the remnant of it survived only in name under the ascendancy of the Barids. In 1526 or 1527 Amir ‘Ali Barid formally dispensed with the rule of the puppet Bahmani Sultans and founded the Barid Shahi dynasty of Bidar, which Iasted till its territory was absorbed by Bijapur in A.D. 1618-1619.
The five offshoots of the Bahmani kingdom had some good rulers, notably in Bijapur and Golkunda. The history of these Sultanates is largely a record of almost continuous quarrel with one another and with Vijayanagar. Each aspired to the supremacy of the Deccan, which was consequently turned into a scene of internal warfare, similar to what went on between the Chalukyas and the Pallavas in earlier days, or between Mysore, the Marathas and the Nizam in the eighteenth century. The disruption of the Bahmani kingdom, and the dissensions among the five Sultanates that rose on its ruins, seriously hampered the progress of Islam, political as well as religious, in the south, where the spirit of Hindu revival, that had manifested itself since the days of the Tughluqs, culminated in the rise and growth of the Vijayanagar Empire
