No More Learning

394 (#440) ############################################

394
( CH.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
in which neighbourhood he waged his last and most unfortunate
war against the 'misbelievers'. Pāngul had been included in
the district of Golconda, ceded by Kānhayya to Muhammad I
but was now in the possession of Vira Vijaya of Vijayanagari by
whom, or by whose father, Devarāya I, it had been occupied Fīrūz
was opposed, on his way thither, by a division of the enemy's army
which fought with great bravery and was not defeated until it had
inflicted heavy losses on his troops. The siege of Pāngul exhibited
the physical, mental and moral deterioration of Fīrūz. Its opera-
tions were protracted for a period of two years, until the insanitary
condition of the standing camp bred disease among men and
beasts, and disease caused panic and wholesale desertion. Vira
Vijaya, seizing this opportunity, made an offensive alliance with
the raja of Telingāna and marched to the relief of the town. Firūz
Shāh's vanity and the recollection of his early successes forbade
him to follow the wise advice of those who counselled a present
retreat and preparations for future vengeance, and he insisted on
giving battle to Vira Vijaya. Mir Fazlullāh Injū was treacherously
slain during the battle by a Canarese Hindu of his own household,
and the Muslims were routed, and would have been annihilated but
for the careful dispositions and patient valour of Ahmad Khān,
which enabled them to retire in some sort of order towards Gul.
barga. The Hindus occupied the southern and eastern districts of
the kingdom and repaid with interest the treatment which they had
received,
Ahmad succeeded in expelling the Hindu troops, but the humilia-
tion and anxiety to which Firūz had been subjected had shattered
a constitution enfeebled by excesses, and the management of affairs
fell entirely into the hands of Hūshyār and Bidār, who desired to
secure the succession of the king's son, the weak and voluptuous
Hasan Khān, and induced the king to order that his brother should
be blinded. Ahmad withdrew, with his eldest son, 'Alā-ud-din
Ahmad, to the hospice of Gisū Darāza, where he spent the night in
making preparations to flee from the capital, and early in the morning
leſt Gulbarga with 400 horse. He was joined by a rich merchant,
Khalaf Hasan of Basrah, who had long been attached to him, and
1 The succession to the throne of Vijayanagar at this period is not free from
obscurity and doubt. According to Mr. Sewell, who is here followed, Bukka II died
in 1408, and was succeeded by his brother, Devarāya I, who died in 1413 and was
succeeded by his son Vira Vijaya, but some authorities identify Devarāya I with
Bukka II.
2 The practice of taking sanctuary at the hospice or shrine of a saint is of great
antiquity, and survives in the east, though not in India, to this day. Few Muslim
ulers would venture to violate the sanctity of such a building.


## p. 395 (#441) ############################################

Xv ]
AHMAD SHAH, ‘VALI'
395
halted in a village near Kaliyāni. The two favourites hastily col-
a
lected a force of three or four thousand horse, with elephants and
pursued Ahmad, whose followers now numbered a thousand. Khalaf
Hasan encouraged Ahmad to assume the royal title and withstand
his brother's troops, and by circulating a report that the provincial
governors had declared for him, and by a stratagem similar to that
of the Gillies' Hill at Bannockburn, enabled his patron to defeat
his enemy and pursue the favourites to Gulbarga. Here they carried
Firūz, now grievously sick, into the field, and ventured another
battle, but the king swooned, and a rumour that he was dead caused
the greater part of the army to transfer its allegiance to Ahmad.
The citadel was surrendered, and Ahmad, in an affecting interview
with his brother, accepted his resignation of the throne and the
charge of his two sons, Hasan Khān and Mubārak Khān.
Ahmad ascended the throne at Gulbarga on September 22, 1422,
and on October 2, Firūz died. He was probably not far from death
when Ahmad usurped the throne, but the event was too opportune
to have been fortuitous, and of the three best authorities for this
period two, citing early historians, say that he was strangled, and
the third says that he was poisoned.
Hasan, who had inherited his father's vices without his virtues,
was content with a life of voluptuous ease at Fīrūzābād, where his
uncle's indulgence permitted him to enjoy such liberty as was com-
patible with the public peace, but Ahmad's son and successor blinded
him as a precautionary measure.
Fīrūz holds a high place among the princes of his house. His
character at the time when he ascended the throne has been de-
scribed, and it was not until he had reigned for some years that the
wise, spirited, and vigorous king became a jaded and feeble volup-
tuary. He was a sincere, but not a rigid Muslim, and though
nominally an orthodox Sunni of the Hanafite school, he drank wine,
while confessing the sinfulness of his indulgence, and availed him.
self of the licence, admitted by theologians of the laxer Maliki
school, and by the Shiahs, of temporary marriage. In his harem were
women of many nations, with each of whom he is said to have been
able to converse fluently and easily in her own language. His
curiosity regarding the marriage law of Islam was enlightened on
one occasion by a woman taken in adultery, who pleaded with irre-
futable logic, that as that law allowed a man four wives her sim-
plicity was to be pardoned for believing that it allowed a woman
four husbands. Her impudent wit saved her.
The new king's first care was to honour the saint to whose


## p. 396 (#442) ############################################

396
[CH.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
patronage and blessing he attributed his success, and his gratitude
took the form of extravagant endowments. The shrine of Gisú Darāz
is yet honoured above that of any saint in the Deccan, and the con-
stancy of the mob has put to shame the fickleness of the king, who
lightly transferred bis favour from the successor of the long-haired
saint to a foreigner, Shāh Ni'matullāh of Māhān, near Kirmān, in
Persia.
Ahmad was eager to punish the insolence of Vira Vijaya, but
the need for setting in order the domestic affairs of the kingdom
postponed the congenial task. The merchant to whose energy and
devotion be owed his throne was appointed lieutenant of the king-
dom, with the title of Malik-ut-Tujjār, or 'Chief of the Merchants,'
and Hūshyār and Bidar were rewarded for their fidelity to the
master to whom they had owed allegiance, the former with the title
and post of Amir-ul-Umarā and the latter with the government of
Daulatābād.
The status and power of the great officers of the kingdom were
more precisely determined by Ahmad than by his predecessors.
Each provincial governor ranked as a commander of 2000 horse,
though his provincial troops were not restricted to this number,
and were supplemented when the king took the field by large con-
tingents from the great fief-holders.
After a demonstration in the direction of his northern frontier,
which expelled a force which had invaded the Deccan from Gujarāt,
Ahmad marched, with 40,000 horse, against Vira Vijaya, who, with
the help of the raja of Telingāna led an army, of which the infantry
and gunners numbered nearly a million, to the southern bank of
the Tungabhadra, where he purposed to oppose the passage of the
Muslims. Ahmad marched to the northern bank, and, having for
forty days attempted in vain to lure the enemy into attempting the
passage, took the offensive. A division of 10,000 men was sent up
stream by night, to cross the river above the enemy's camp and
create a diversion by attacking him on the left flank, or in rear.
The Hindus, expecting a frontal attack in the morning, bivouacked
by the river bank, but Vīra Vijaya himself was pleasantly lodged
in a garden of sugarcane in rear of the position. The division which
had crossed the river in the night reached the garden shortly before
dawn, on their way to attack the Hindus in rear, and the raja's
attendants fled. The Muslims, who had still some time to spare,
spent it in cutting sugarcanes for themselves and their horses, and
Vīra Vijaya, fearing lest he should fall into their hands, crept out
and concealed himself in the standing crop, where he was found
a


## p. 397 (#443) ############################################

Xy ]
AHMAD'S PERIL
397
crouching by the troopers. Taking him for the gardener they gave
him a sheaf of sugarcane to carry, and drove him on before them
with blows of their whips. Meanwhile the main body of the Muslim
army had begun to cross the river, and the Hindus, momentarily
expecting their ouslaught and taken in rear by the force which had
all unknowingly, captured the raja, were seized by the panic which
always strikes an eastern army on the disappearance of its leader,
and dispersed. The Muslims began to plunder the camp, and the
raja, exhausted by the unwonted exercise of running under a heavy
load, and smarting under the humiliation of unaccustomed blows,
seized the opportunity of making his escape. He might even yet
have rallied his army, but his spirit was so broken and his bodily
powers so exhausted that he fled with it to Vijayanagar.
The Hindus now had reason to repent their breach of the humane
treaty between Muhammad I and Bukka I for never, in the course
of a long series of wars, did either army display such ferocity as did
Ahmad's troops in this campaign. His temper, not naturally cruel,
had been goaded by the spectacle of the atrocities committed by
the Hindus after the disastrous campaign of Pāngul, and he glutted
his revenge. Avoiding Vijayanagar, the siege of which had been
discovered to be an unprofitable adventure, he marched through
the kingdom, slaughtering men and enslaving women and children.
An account of the butchery was kept, and whenever the tale of
victims reached 20,000 the invader halted for three days, and cele-
brated the achievement with banquets and beating of the great
drums. Throughout his progress he destroyed temples and slaugh.
tered cows, he sent three great brazen idols to Gulbarga to be
dishonoured, and omitted nothing that could wound the natural
affections, the patriotism, or the religious sentiments of the Hindus.
In March 1423, he halted beside an artificial lake to celebrate the
festival of the Naurūz and his own exploits, and one day, while
hunting followed an antelope with such persistence that he was led
to a distance of twelve miles from his camp, and was observed by
a body of five or six thousand of the enemy's horse. Of his imme-
diate bodyguard of 400 men half were slain in the furious onslaught,
but he contrived to find shelter in a cattle-fold, where his 200
foreign archers for some time kept the Hindus at a distance, but
they had thrown down part of the wall of the enclosure and were
endeavouring to force an entrance when aid unexpectedly arrived.
A faithful officer, ‘Abd-ul-Qadir, whose family had served the king's
for three generations, had grown apprehensive for his master's
safety, and had led two or three thousand of the royal guards in


## p. 398 (#444) ############################################

398
[CH.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
search of him. This force now appeared and fell upon the Hindus,
who stood their ground until they had slain 500 of their assailants,
and then fled, leaving a thousand of their own number dead on the
field.
'Abd-ul-Qadir was rewarded with the title of Khānjahān and
the government of Berar, and his brother 'Abd-ul-Latif, who had
shared the merit of the rescue, with that of Khān A'zam and the
government of Bidar. The defence made by the foreign mounted
archers had so impressed upon Ahmad the importance of this arm
that Malik-ut-Tujjār was ordered to raise a corps of 3000 of them-
a measure which was destined to have a deep and enduring effect
on the history of the Muslims in the Deccan.
Having effected all that arms could accomplish against a de.
fenceless population, Ahmad marched on Vijayanagar, where Vira
Vijaya, appalled by the sufferings of his poeple, sued for peace, and
,
was forced to accept the conqueror's terms. Payment of the arrears
of tribute for several years was the lightest of these, for the
immense sum had to be borne to Ahmad's camp by the choicest
elephants in the royal stables, escorted by the raja's son Devarāya
with every demonstration of joy. The prince was obliged to accom-
pany Ahmad in his retreat as far as the Krishna, and the Muslims
retained the vast number of captives whom they had taken. Among
these were two destined to rise to high rank. One, a Brāhman
youth, received the name of Fathullāh on his reception into the
fold of Islam, was assigned to the new governor of Berar, succeeded
his master in that province, and eventually became, on the dissolu-
tion of the kingdom, the first independent sultan of Berar ; and the
other, Tīma Bhat, son of Bhairav, an hereditary Brāhman revenue
official of Pāthri, who had fled to Vijayanagar to avoid punishment
or persecution, received the Muhammadan name of Hasan, rose, by
a combination of ability and treachery, to be lieutenant of the
kingdom, and left a son, Ahmad, who founded the dynasty of the
Nizām Shāhi kings of Ahmadnagar.
The king returned to Gulbarga shortly before the time when the
fierce heat of the dry months of 1423 should have been tempered
by the advent of the seasonal rains, but the rain failed, and its
failure was followed by a famine. He was in his capital at the same
season of the following year, when the distress of his people was at
its height and the usual signs of the appoach of the rainy season
were still absent. The calamity was attributed to the displeasure
of heaven, and Ahmad imperilled his reputation, if not his person,
by publicly ascending a hill without the city and praying, in the


## p. 399 (#445) ############################################

Xv ]
WAR WITH MALWA
399
a
a
sight of the multitude, for rain. Fortune favoured him, the clouds
gathered, and the rain fell. The drenched and shivering multitude
hailed him as a saint, and he proudly bore the title.
At the end of 1424 Ahmad invaded Telingāna and captured
Warangal, which he made his headquarters while 'Abd-ul-Latif,
governor of Bidar, established his authority throughout the country.
The raja was slain, and Ahmad, having extended his eastern frontier
to the sea, returned to Gulbarga leaving 'Abd-ul-Latif to reduce
the few fortresses which still held out.
The governor of Māhūr was still in rebellion and late in 1425
Ahmad marched against him. Of his operations against the fortress
we have two accounts, according to one of which he was obliged to
retire discomfited after besieging the place for several months, and
returned and captured it in the following year. According to the
other, which is more probable, the raja was induced, by a promise
of pardon for past offences, to surrender and Ahmad violated every
rule of honour and humanity by putting him and five or six thousand
of his followers to death. From Māhūr he marched northwards to
Kalam, which was in the hands of a Gond rebel, captured the place,
which was of no great strength, and led a foray into Gondwāna,
where he is said to have taken a diamond mine, the site of which
cannot be traced. He then marched to Ellichpur and remained
there for a year, engaged in rebuilding the hill forts of Gāwil and
Narnāla, which protected his northern frontier. This task was
undertaken in connection with a project for the conquest of Gujarāt
and Mālwa, suggested by Tīmūr's grant of these two kingdoms
to his brother, and he missed no opportunity of embroiling himself
with the two states, and furnished himself with a pretext for inter-
fering in their affairs by entering into a close alliance with the
small state of Khāndesh, the allegiance of which was claimed by
both.
Hūshang Shāh of Mālwa had already, in 1422, furnished him
with a casus belli by disregarding the position which Narsingh of
Kherla had accepted in 1399, and compelling him to swear alle-
giance to Mālwa. In 1428 Hüshang prepared to invade Kherla, to
enforce payment of tribute, and Ahmad, in response to Narsingh's
appeal, marched to Ellichpur. Hūshang nevertheless opened the
siege of Kherla, and Ahmad marched against him, but was per-
plexed by scruples regarding the lawfulness of attacking a brother
Muslim on behalf of a misbeliever, and contented himself with
sending a message to Hūshang begging him to refrain from molesting
Narsingh. As he immediately retired to his own dominions, Hūshang
>


## p. 400 (#446) ############################################

400
[ cu.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
attributed his conduct to pusillanimity, and marched against him
with an army of 30,000 horse, but Ahmad on reaching the Tāpti,
decided that he had suffered enough for righteousness' sake, and
resolved at least to defend his kingdom. Hūshang came upon his
army unexpectedly, and was taken by surprise, but the troops of
Mālwa fought bravely until their discomfiture was completed by a
force which had lain in ambush, and under the leadership of Ahmad
himself attacked their right flank. They broke and fled, leaving
in the hands of the victors all their baggage and camp equipage,
200 elephants, and the ladies of Hüshang's harem. Narsingh issued
from Kherla, fell upon the fugitives, and pursued them into Mālwa.
Ahmad advanced to Kherla, where he was sumptuously entertained
by Narsingh, and thence sent to Mālwa, under the immediate charge
of his most trusted eunuchs and the protection of 500 of his best
cavalry, the ladies who had fallen into his hands.
His return march to Gulbarga led him to Bidar, a still important
city occupying the site of the ancient Vidarbha, the capital of the
ancient kingdom of the same name.
It had been restored by Raja
Vijaya Sena, one of the Valabhīs of the solar line, who succeeded
the Guptas in A. D. 319, and on the establishment of the Bahmani
kingdom more than a thousand year later became the capital of
one of its provinces. Ahmad halted for some time at this town, and
was so impressed by the beauty of its situation, the salubrity of its
climate, and perhaps by its legendary glories that he resolved to
transfer his capital thither, and an army of surveyors, architects,
builders, and masons was soon engaged in laying out, designing and
erecting a new city under the walls of the ancient fortress, which
received the name of Ahmadābād Bidar.
As soon as he was settled in his new capital, in 1429, Ahmad
sent a mission to Nasir Khān of Khāndesh, to demand the hand of
his daughter, Āghā Zainab, for his eldest son, 'Alā-ud-din Ahmad,
whom he designated as his h eir. The proposal was readily accepted
by Nasir Khān to whom an alliance with the powerful kingdom of
the Deccan was at once an honour and a protection.
In 1430 Ahmad, in pursuance of his short-sighted policy of aggres-
sion against his northern neighbours, wantonly attacked Gujarāt'.
Kānhā raja of Jhālawār, apprehending that Ahmad I of Gujarāt
intended to annex his territory, fled to Khāndesh and conciliated
Nasir Khān by the gift of some elephants. Nasir Khān, who was
1 The account of the origin, progress, and result of this campaign given in Firishta's
history of the Bahmanids is most misleading. The same historian gives the true
version of these events in his history of the kingdom of Gujarāt,
a


## p. 401 (#447) ############################################

Xv ]
WAR WITH GUJARĀT
401
not strong enough to support or protect the refugee, sent him with a
letter of recommendation to Ahmad Bahmani, who supplied him
with a force which enabled him to invade Gujarāt and lay waste the
country about Nandurbār. An army under Muhammad Khān, son
of Ahmad of Gujarat, defeated the aggressors with great slaughter,
and drove them to take refuge in Daulatābād, whence they sent
news of the mishap to Bidar. A fresh army, under the command of
'Alā-ud-din Ahmad, assembled at Daulatābād, where it was joined
by Nasir Khān and by Kānhā, who had fled to Khāndesh, and ad-
vanced to Mānikpunj, where it found the army of Gujarāt awaiting
its approach. The army of the Deccan was again defeated and again
fled to Daulatābād, while Nasir Khān and Kānhā shut themselves
up in the fortress of Laling in Khāndesh, and Muhammad Khān of
Gujarāt withdrew to Nandurbār, where he remained on the alert.
The effect of this second defeat was to arouse rather than to
daunt the spirit of the sultan of the Deccan, and he sent a force
under Malik-ut-Tujjār to seize and occupy the island of Bombay.
For the recovery of this important post Ahmad of Gujarāt sent an
army under his younger son, Zafar Khān, and a fleet from Diu. His
troops occupied Thāna, thus menacing Malik-ut-Tujjār's communi-
cations, and succeeded in enticing him from the shelter of the fort
and in inflicting on him such a defeat that the remnant of his troops
with difficulty regained its protection. They were closely invested
by the fleet and army of Gujarāt. Ahmad Bahmanī sent 10,000 horse
and sixty elephants under the command of 'Alā-ud-din Ahmad and
Khānjahān of Berar to their relief, and thus enabled them to escape
from the fortress, but the army of the Deccan was again defeated
in the field, and Malik-ut. Tujjār fled to Chākan and the prince and
Khānjahān to Daulatābād.
Disappointment and defeat only increased the obstinacy of
Ahmad Bahmani and in the following year he invaded in person
the hilly tract of Baglāna, the Rāhtor raja of which was nominally
a vassal of Gujarāt, and at the same time besieged the fortress of
Bhaul, on the Girna, which was held for Gujarāt by Malik Sa'ādat.
Ahmad of Gujarāt was engaged in an expedition to Chāmpaner, but
raised the siege of that place and marched to his southern frontier.
A series of undignified manoeuvres exhibited the unwillingness of
the two kings to try conclusions. Ahmad Bahmani raised the siege
of Bhaul and retired to Bidar, leaving a force on his frontier to
check the anticipated pursuit, but Ahmad of Gujarāt, greatly re-
lieved by his enemy's flight, returned to his capital. Ahmad
Bahmani then returned to Bhaul, and resumed the siege, disregarding
C. H. I. III.
26


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402
[CH.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
a mild protest addressed to him by Ahmad of Gujarāt, but Malik
Saʻādat repulsed an attempt to carry the place by storm, and in
a sortie inflicted such heavy losses on the besiegers that Ahmad
Bahmanī, learning that Ahmad of Gujarāt was marching to the relief
of the fortress, raised the siege and turned to meet him. The battle
was maintained until nightfall, and is described as indecisive, but
the sultan of the Deccan was so dismayed by his losses that he re-
treated hurriedly towards his capital.
In 1432 the citadel of Bīdar was completed, and Ahmad put to
death his sister's son, Sher Khān, who, having originally counselled
him to seize the sceptre from his brother's feeble grasp was now
suspected of the design of excluding his sons from the succession
and usurping the throne.
The exhaustion of the kingdom after the disastrous war with
Gujarāt encouraged Hüshang Shāh to retrieve his late discomfiture
by capturing Kherla and putting Narsing to death. Ahmad was
unprepared for war, but could not ignore so gross an insult, and
marched northward to exact reparation, but Nasir Khān intervened,
and composed the quarrel on terms disgraceful to Ahmad. Kherla
was acknowledged to be a fief of Mālwa and Hüshang made, in the
treaty, the insolent concession that the rest of Berar should remain
a province of the Deccan.
After this humiliating peace Ahnad marched into Telingāna,
which, though nominally under the government of one of his sons,
was in a condition approaching rebellion. Some of the petty chief-
tains of the province, who had defied the prince's authority, were
seized and put to death, and order was, for the time, restored.
The decline of Ahmad's mental and bodily powers had for some
time been apparent. He had recently allowed the management of
all public business to fall into the hands of Miyān Mahmūd Nizām-
ul-Mulk, a native of the Deccan who had succeeded Malik-ut-
Tujjār as lieutenant of the kingdom on the latter's transfer to the
government of Daulatābād and shortly after this time he died', at
the age of sixty-three or sixty-four.
The character of Ahmad was simpler than that of his versatile
and accomplished brother, Fīrūz, whose learning, with its taint of
scepticism, was replaced in Ahmad by superstition, with a tinge of
fanaticism. The uncouth enthusiasm of the long-haired zealot, Gīsū
1 There is some uncertainty as to the precise date of his death. The dates given
by the best authorities range between February 18 and February 27, 1435. Other
dates given are 1438 and 1444 or 1445, which are certainly wrong. In his tomb at
Bidar the date is given as Zi'l-Hijjah 29, in a year which may be variously read, in
a copy of the inscription supplied to me, as 837 or 839. The former reading gives
the date August 6, 1434, and the latter July 15, 1436,


## p. 403 (#449) ############################################

Xv ]
THE FOREIGNERS
403
Darāz, which had disgusted the cultured and fastidious Fīrūz, de.
lighted the devout and simple mind of his brother. But Ahmad,
though scantily endowed with wit and learning, depised neither,
and his court, if less brilliant than that of Firüz, was not destitute
of culture. Of the men of learning who enjoyed his patronage the
foremost was the poet Āzari of Isfarāyin in Khurāsān, who was
encouraged to undertake the composition of the Bahman-nāma, a
versified history of the dynasty, now unfortunately lost. From ſrag-
ments preserved in quotations it seems to have been an inferior
imitation of the Shāhnāma of Firdausi. Āzarī returned to his own
country before Ahmad's death, but in remote Isfarāyīn continued
the history until his own death in 1462. It was carried on by various
hands until the last days of the dynasty, and some of the poetasters
who disfigured the work with their turgid bombast, impudently
claimed the whole as their own.
Ahmad transferred his devotion from the successor of Gīsū
Darāz to Ni'matullāh, the famous saint of Māhān, but failed to
attract the holy man himself to India, and had to content himself
with his son Khalīlullāh, surnamed Butshikan, 'the Iconoclast,' who
visited Bīdar and whose shrine, a cenotaph, is still to be seen there.
The saint's family were Shiahs, and it is clear, from the inscriptions
in Ahmad's tomb, that they converted him to that faith, but his
religion was a personal matter, and he wisely refrained from inter-
fering with that of his subjects. The first militant Shiah ruler in
India was Yusuf, 'Adil Shāh of Bījāpur.
The employment of foreign troops in the Deccan, already men-
tioned, raised a question which shortly after this time became acute,
and remained a source of strife as long as any independent Muslim
state existed in the south. This was the feud between the Deccanis
and the Foreigners. The climate of India is undoubtedly injurious
to the natives of more temperate climes who adopt the country as
a permanent domicile, and the degeneracy of their descendants is,
as a rule, rather accelerated than retarded by unions with the
natives of the soil. In northern India such degeneracy was retarded
by the influx of successive waves of conquest and immigration from
the north-west, and the country, from the time of its first conquest
by the Muslims, seldom acknowledged for long rulers who could be
regarded as genuine natives of India ; but the Deccan was more
isolated, and though a domiciled race of kings succeeded in main-
taining their power for more than a century and a half they looked
abroad for their ablest and most active servants and their bravest
soldiers. Most of Bahman Shāh's nobles were foreigners. His Afghān
26-2


## p. 404 (#450) ############################################

404
[ CH. XV
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
minister was succeeded by a Persian from Shirāz, and he again by
a native of Basrah. As the descendants of foreigners became iden-
tified with the country they coalesced with the natives, and acquired
their manners, the process being sometimes retarded by the avoid-
ance of intermarriage with them; and their places were taken by
fresh immigrants, who were usually employed, in preference of the
less virile and energetic natives, in difficult and perilous enterprises,
in which they generally acquitted themselves well, and the Deccanis
found themselves outstripped at the council board as well as in the
field, and naturally resented their supersession ; but it was not
until the reign of Ahmad, who was the first to enlist large numbers
of ſoreigners in the rank and file of his army, that the line between
them was clearly drawn. War was openly declared between them
when Malik-ut-Tujjār attributed his defeat by the troops of Gujarāt
to the cowardice of the Deccanis, and the feud thus begun was not
confined to intrigues for place and power, but frequently found ex-
pression in pitched battles and bloody massacres, of which last the
Foreigners were usually the victims, and contributed in no small
measure, first to the disintegration of the kingdom of the Bahmanids,
and ultimately to the downfall of the states which rose on its ruins.
The feud was complicated by religious differences. The native
Deccanis were Sunnis, and though all the Foreigners were not
Shiahs, a sufficient number of them belonged to that sect to asso-
ciate their party with heterodoxy, so that although the lines of
cleavage drawn by interest and religion might not exactly coincide,
they approached one another closely enough to exacerbate political
jealousy by sectarian prejudice.
One class of foreigners, however, the Africans, who were after-
wards largely employed, stood apart from the rest. Their attach-
ment to the Sunni faith, and the contemptuous attitude adopted
towards them by other Foreigners, who refused to regard the un.
lettered and unprepossessing negro as the equal of the fair-skinned,
handsome, and cultured man of the north, threw them into the arms
of the Deccanis. To the negroes were added the Muwallads, a
name applied to the offspring of African fathers and Indian mothers.
Thus in this disastrous strife the Foreign Party consisted of Turks,
Arabs, Mughuls, and Persians, and the Deccani Party of native
Deccanis, negrces, and Muwallads. Instances of temporary or per-
manent apostasy, due to religious differences, to self interest, or
gratitude to a benefactor, were not unknown, but were not frequent
enough to affect the homogeneity of either party. Rarer still were
disinterested endeavours to restore peace for the benefit of the
state, for party spirit was stronger than patriotism.
to


## p. 405 (#451) ############################################

CHAPTER XVI
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE KINGDOM
OF THE DECCAN. A. D. 1436–1490
AHMAD the Saint was succeeded by his eldest son, 'Alā-ud-din
Ahmad, who surrounded himself with Foreigners and provided for
his brother Muhammad by sending him to recover five years' arrears
of tribute due from Devarāya II of Vijayanagar. Muhammad re-
covered the arrears but his head was turned by his success, and
he was led astray by evil counsellors who persuaded him that his
father had intended to give him a share of the kingdom and
demanded that his brother should either admit him to an equal
share in the government, and the honours of royalty, or divide the
kingdom, giving him half. His demands were rejected and his
brother defeated him, but pardoned him and, on the death of their
younger brother, Dāūd, appointed him to the government of the
Rāichūr Doāb, where he remained faithful until his death.
Early in March, 1437, Dilāvar Khān was sent into the Konkan
to establish the king's authority, and reduced the Hindu chieftains
of that region to obedience. The raja of Sangarneshwar, besides
paying tribute, surrendered his beautiful and accomplished daughter
to 'Alā-ud-din, who married her and bestowed on her the name of
Zībā Chihra (“Beautiful Face'). After this expedition Dilāvar Khān
resigned the lieutenancy of the kingdom and was succeeded by the
eunuch Dastūr-ul-Mulk.
The new minister, who had the faults of his unfortunate class,
alienated the nobles by his arrogance, which led to his ruin.
Humāyān, the king's eldest son, a brutal youth who lived to become
the disgrace of his house, desired him to attend to some particular
business and when the eunuch procrastinated took him to task for
his negligence. He insolently replied that he would not tolerate
the prince's interference in affairs of state and Humāyūn employed
one of the king's esquires to assassinate him, and protected the
murderer. 'Alā-ud-din, who in the early days of his reign was averse
from taking life, was content, at his son's intercession, to leave the
assassin to his care.
The king's preference for his Hindu wife aroused the bitter
jealousy of Āghā Zainab, who complained to her father, Nasir Khan
of Khāndesh, of the indignity to which she was subjected, and he
invaded Berar to avenge his daughter's wrongs, and succeeded in


## p. 406 (#452) ############################################

406
[ ch.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
seducing from their allegiance many of the officers serving in that
province, whose fidelity to their master was not proof against their
veneration for the descendant of the Caliph 'Umar.
Khān Jahān, governor of Berar, withdrew into the fortress of
Narnāla, and was there besieged by the troops of Khāndesh ; and
h
the Deccani faction, which had risen to power in the capital after
the assassination of Dastūr-ul-Mulk and, as Sunnis, respected the
descendant of the second Caliph, advised caution in dealing with
the aggressor, lest he should be joined by the kings of Gujarāt and
Mālwa, but Malik-ut-Tujjār, governor of Daulatābād and leader of
the Foreigners, volunteered to take the field, provided that all the
Foreign troops were placed at his disposal and that he was not
hampered by native troops, to whose pusillanimity he attributed
the mishap at Bombay. The Deccanis, resenting these aspersions,
agreed that all the Foreign troops should be sent forward as an
advanced guard, hoping that they would be destroyed, and that the
king should follow with the rest of the army.
Malik-ut-Tujjār left Daulatābād with 7000 Foreign horse, and,
leaving the Deccani troops to guard the frontier, entered Berar.
He was joined at Mehkar by Khān Jahān, who had escaped from
Narnāla and was sent to Ellichpur and Bālāpur to check the in-
cursions of the Korkus, who were in alliance with Nasir Khān,
while Malik-ut-Tujjār marched northward to Rohankhed, where
the hills of southern Berar descend into the valley of the northern
Purna, and there attacked and defeated Nasir Khān, who fled to
Burhānpur and thence to Laling, where he took refuge. Malik-ut.
Tujjār laid waste the rich plain of Khāndesh, destroyed the public
buildings of Burhānpur, and followed Nasir Khān to Laling. He
had now no more than 4000 horse with him, and Nasir Khān, who
had assembled 12,000, attacked him, but was defeated with heavy
loss. Malik-ut-Tujjār returned with the spoils of victory to Bidar,
where his success assured the supremacy of his party and gained
for it the place of honour at court, on the right hand of the throne,
the Deccanis and Africans being relegated to the left.
Devarāya II of Vijayanagar now reorganised his army by re-
cruiting a large number of Muslims, to whom he gave special
privileges, and by discarding the useless and ill-trained troops
which had formerly swelled its numbers. It had consisted of 200,000
inferior cavalry and 800,000 worse infantry, but after its reorgani-
sation it consisted of 10,000 mounted foreign archers, and 60,000
Hindu horse, trained to the use of the bow, and 300,000 tolerably
well-trained infantry, and the pay of all arms was greatly improved.


## p. 407 (#453) ############################################

xvi ]
DEATH OF 'ALĀ-UD-DIN AHMAD
407
With this force Devarāya, in 1443, invaded the Rāichūr Doāb,
captured Mudgal, besieged Rāichūr and Bankāpur, encamped on
the Krishna and laid waste the country as far as Bījāpur and
Sāgar.
On the approach of 'Alā-ud-din he withdrew to Mudgal,
and Malik-ut-Tujjār, having compelled the raja's two sons to raise
the sieges of Rāichữr and Bankāpur, rejoined 'Alā-ud-dīn before
Mudgal, where, within a period of three months, as many battles
were fought, the Hindus being victorious in the first and the
Muslims in the second. In the third Devarāya's elder son was
killed and his troops were driven headlong into the fortress, whither
two Muslim officers, Fakhr-ul-Mulk of Delhi and his brother, fol.
lowed them and were captured and imprisoned, but a message
from their master to the effect that the lives of 200,000 Hindus
would be required as the price of theirs, so alarmed Devarāya that
he sued for peace, which was granted on his promising to make no
default in future remittances of tribute.
'Alā-ud-din, though generally pious and benevolent, gradually
overcame his repugnance to taking life. He used wine himself, but
prohibited its use by his subjects, and gamblers and wine-bibbers
had iron collars riveted on their necks and were compelled to work
as scavengers or set to hard labour on the public works ; and those
who persisted, despite this discipline, in the use of wine, had molten
lead poured down their throats. A grandson of the saint Gisū
Darāz, convicted of brawling with a women of the town, received
the bastinado in the market place, and his companion was expelled
from the city. The king's benevolence was displayed in the estab-
lishment and endowment at Bīdar of a hospital where food, drugs,
and medical treatment were supplied free of charge, and his piety
in his love of long sermons and the destruction of idol-temples,
from the materials of which mosques were built. He prided him-
self also on his love of justice, and added al-ādil ('the Just') to
his titles. At the end of his reign an Arab merchant who had been
unable to obtain payment for some horses sold to officers of the
court, and had also been scandalised by the massacre of the Sayyids
and other Foreigners at Chākan, sprang up on hearing the king
thus described, and cried, 'No, by God! Thou art not just, gene-
rous, clement, or compassionate. O tyrant and liar ! Thou hast
slain the pure seed of the prophet and in the pulpit of the Muslims
takest to thyself such titles as these ! ' The king, weeping bitterly,
replied, 'They will hardly escape from the fire of God's wrath who
give me, in this world and the next, a name as ill, as Yazid's. ' He
then retired to his chamber and left it no more until he was borne
a


## p. 408 (#454) ############################################

408
[ CH
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
3
2
forth to the grave. Against his virtues must be set that gross
sensuality which his religion permitted, and which he carried to
such excess that most of his time was spent among the thousand
women collected in his harem, and he so neglected business as to
hold a public audience no oſtener than once in four or five months.
During this seclusion the Deccanis regained most of the power
which they had lost, and Miyān, Minullāh, in order to compass the
destruction of the Foreigners, organised an expedition for the
subjugation of the northern Konkan. Malik-ut-Tujjār, who was
appointed to the command, fortified Chākan, which he selected as
his base, dispatched expeditions against several minor chieftains,
who were reduced to obedience, and personally led a force against
one Sirka, whose stronghold was in the neighbourhood, and who
was defeated and captured. Malik-ut-Tujjār offered him the choice
between Islam and death, and Sirka professed his readiness to
change his faith but declared that he could not make an open
profession so long as his enemy the raja of Sangameshwar, near
Kondhāna, was in a position to punish him. He promised to act
as guide and to lead the royal troops to Sangameshwar, and in
1446 Malik-ut-Tujjār set forth on the enterprise.
The march through the dense forest and over the precipitous
slopes of the Ghāts was intensely laborious and the climate was
deadly. Malik-ut-Tujjār himself suffered from a severe attack of
dysentery, and the army was entirely demoralised. Sirka trea-
cherously informed the raja of Sangameshwar of its plight, and he,
with 30,000 men well skilled in mountain warfare, fell upon it at
night and slew seven or eight thousand men besides its leader.
The remnant of the army contrived, with infinite difficulty, to
extricate itself from the hills and jungles, and joined those Deccanis
who had refused to accompany the expedition to Sangameshwar.
They advised the fugitives to return to their fiefs and collect fresh
troops for the renewal of the war, but the Foreigners returned to
Chākan. Some of them had incautiously avowed their intention
of informing the king that the disaster had been due to the refusal
of the Deccanis to support Malik-ut-Tujjār, whereupon the Deccanis
at once concocted a dispatch attributing it to Malik-ut-Tujjār's
own rashness and imputing to the survivors the intention of trans-
ferring their allegiance to the enemy. The dispatch was delivered
to the king, when he was drunk, by Mushir-ul-Mulk, the bitterest
of the Foreigners' enemies, who persuaded him to give him the
command of a force wherewith to punish the fugitives in Chākan.
He intercepted all messages which the Foreigners attempted to
1


## p. 409 (#455) ############################################

XVI)
DECCANIS AND FOREIGNERS
409
transmit to the court, lured them from Chākan by means of a
forged decree granting them a free pardon and murdered their
officers at a banquet. At the same time 4000 Deccani horse fell
upon their camp, put to the sword 1200 Sayyids, 1000 other
foreigners, and five or six thousand children, and appropriated the
wives, daughters, and goods of their victims. Qāsim Beg and two
other Foreign officers, whose suspicions bad led them to encamp
at a distance from the rest, contrived to escape, and, after under.
going great difficulties and hardships, succeeded in conveying to
the king a true report of all that had passed. 'Alā-ud-din, overcome
by remorse, avenged the wrongs of the Foreigners by executing
the leaders of the Deccani party and reducing their families to
beggary, Qāsim Beg was appointed to the government of Daulat-
ābād, vacant since the death of Malik-ut-Tujjār, and his two
companions were promoted to high rank.
high rank. The Foreign party com-
pletely regained its former ascendancy, and in 1451 the king re-
ceived from the poet Āzari, in Isfarāyīn, a letter urging him to
abandon the use of wine and to dismiss all Deccani officials. He
obeyed both injunctions, and henceforth attended personally to
affairs of state.
In 1453 the king received an injury to his leg which confined
him to his palace, and rumours of his death were circulated and
credited. Jalāl Khān, a Sayyid who had married a daughter of
Ahmad Shāh, rose in rebellion in Telingāna, with the object of
establishing the independence of his son, Sikandar, in that province.
He learned too late that the king yet lived, but might still have
been recalled to his allegiance by his promise of forgiveness but
for Sikandar, who, having been deeply implicated in the revolt of
Muhammad Khān at the beginning of the reign, despaired of pardon
for a second act of rebellion. He sought aid, therefore, of Mahmud
I of Mālwa, assuring him that ‘Alā-ud-din was dead, that the cour-
tiers were concealing his death for their own ends, and that Berar
and Telingāna might be annexed to Mālwa without difficulty or
opposition. Mahmūd responded to the appeal, and in 1456 invaded
Berar, where Sikandar joined him with a thousand horse.
‘Alā-ud-din marched against Mahmud I who, indignant at the
deception of which he had been the victim, hastily returned to
Mālwa, while Sikandar joined his father at Bālkonda, where both
were besieged by Khvāja Mahmūd Gāvān of Gilān, a foreigner
who afterwards rose 10 the highest rank in the state. They were
compelled to surrender and 'Alā-ud-din not only pardoned them
but injudiciously permitted them to retain Bālkonda.


## p. 410 (#456) ############################################

410
[CH
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
>
'Alā-ud-din died in 1458, having some time before designated
as his heir his eldest son Humāyün, who bore a reputation so evil
that his father had been urged to reconsider his decision, which
however, had never been revoked. On the king's death a party
among the courtiers, headed by Saif Khān, Mallũ Khān, and Shāh
Habibullāh, the soldier son of Khalilullah the Iconoclast, enthroned
his younger son, Hasan Khān, and the populace assembled for the
purpose of attacking Humāyūn in his house and putting him to
deat h, but cowardice was not among the prince's many faults, and
he came forth with his personal guard of eighty horsemen, and cut
his way through the crowd to the palace, where the royal troops
joined him. He secured his brother's person, caused Saif Khān to
be tied to the leg of an elephant and dragged through the streets
until he perished, and imprisoned Habībullāh, but Mallũ Khān fled
into the Carnatic.
Humāyūn bestowed his favours chiefly upon the Foreign faction,
and appointed Mahmūd Gāvān lieutenant of the kingdom and
governor of Bijapur, conferring on him the title of Malik-ut-Tujjār,
but the Deccanis were not entirely excluded from office, and
received some appointments.
Sikandar Khān, who had been with Humāyūn when the mob
threatened to overwhelm hiin, and had contributed materially to
his success, was so disappointed at not receiving the government
of Telingāna that he joined his father at Bālkonda, again rebelled,
and defeated the army of Berar, under Khān Jahān, which was sent
against him. Humāyūn marched in person to Bālkonda where
Sikandar, on being summoned to surrender, insolently replied that
iſ Humāyān was son's son to Ahmad the Saint he was daughter's
son, and demanded the cession of the eastern half of the kingdom.
To this there could be but one reply, and Humāyūn sounded the
attack. Sikandar was on the point of defeating the royal troops
when he was thrown to the ground by an elephant and trampled to
death by his own cavalry. His army broke and fled and Humāyün
captured Bālkonda after a week's siege and imprisoned Jalāl Khān.
The Hindus of Telingāna, and especially those of the district of
Deūrkonda, had generally supported Sikandar, and early in 1459
Humāyūn marched to Warangal and sent a force to reduce Deūr.
konda. The garrison obtained assistance from one of the rajas of
southern Orissa and Khyāja Jahän the Turk and Nizām-ul-Mulk
Ghūri, who commanded the Muslims, were attacked simultaneously
by the garrison and the relieving force, and were utterly defeated,
and Aed to Warangal. Here Khvāja Jahān basely attributed the
>


## p. 411 (#457) ############################################

xvi ]
HUMĀYON THE TYRANT
411
disaster to his colleague, who had in fact recommended that the siege
should be raised in order that the relieving force might be dealt
with singly, and Humāyān, without investigating the facts, put
Nizām-ul-Mulk to death, and the family of the unfortunate officer
fled to Mālwa and threw themselves on the protection of Mahmūd 11.
Khvāja Jahān was imprisoned and the king was preparing to march
to Deūrkonda when he learned of a rising in his capital. Scald-
headed Yusuf, the Turk, had released the king's brothers, Hasan
Khān and Yahya Khān, Shāh Habībullāh, and Jalāl Khan. The
Kotwal had put to death the younger prince, and the aged Jalāl
Khān, but the rest of the party, after an abortive attempt to seize
the citadel, had fled to Bir, where Hasan assumed the royal title
and appointed Habībullāh and Yūsuf his ministers. Humāyūn left
Mahmud Gāvān in charge of affairs in Telingāna, and returned by
forced maches to Bidar, where he displayed the ferocity which
brands his memory. The Kotwāl, who had done his best to suppress
the rising, was confined in an iron cage and exhibited daily in the
city for the remainder of his life, which was not of long duration,
for the tyrant caused portions of his body to be cut off daily, and
presented to him as his only food. The three or four thousand
infantry to whom the defence of the city had been entrusted was
put to death with various tortures, and a force was sent to Bir to
suppress the rebellion. The royal troops were defeated, but a
second and larger army defeated Hasan, who fled with his ad-
herents towards Vijayanagar. Sirāj Khān Junaidi, governor of
Bijāpur, lured them into that fortress by professions of attachment
to the prince's cause, and attacked them. Habībullāh was so fortu-
nate as to fall fighting, but the rest were taken and sent to meet
their fate at Bidar, where all suffered in public. The prince was
thrown to a tiger, some of his followers were beheaded, their wives
and families were dragged from their houses and tortured to death
and seven hundred innocent persons who were connected with
Hasan or had been dependent on his bounty were impaled, thrown
to beasts, boiled to death, or slowly cut to pieces, joint by joint,
and nearly all the descedants of Bahman Shāh were put to death.
Humāyūn's behaviour for the rest of his reign was that of a
homicidal maniac. 'The torchbearer of his wrath ever consumed
both Hindu and Muslim alike, the broker of his fury sold at one
price the guilty and the innocent, and the executioner of his
punishment slew whole families for a single fault. ' Nobles sum-
moned to court made their wills and bade their families farewell
1 See Chapter XIV


## p. 412 (#458) ############################################

412
[ch.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
before leaving them, and the inmates of the harem were butchered
in mere sportive brutality, but the most hideous of all his acts of
oppression were the forcible abduction of the wives and children
of his subjects and his exercise of the droit du seigneur. He earned
the name of Zālim, 'the Oppressor,' by which he is still remembered
by the Deccan, and tormented his subjects until 'God the Most
High, the Most Merciful, and the Succourer of them that seek aid
answered the prayerful cries of his people' and stretched the
monster on a bed of sickness. On September 4, 1461, the tyrant
died and his people were 'freed from the talons of his tortures. It
was understood that he had succumbed to his illness, but the best
authority for his reign relates the true story of his death. He re.
covered but the, inmates of the harem could no longer endure his
barbarity and the eunuch Shihāb Khān suborned an African maid-
servant to stab him to death when he was helpless with drink.
The dome of the Tyrant's tomb at Bijar is split, and half of it
has fallen away. It is locally believed that this occurred when the
monster's body was placed in it, and that the Almighty refused his
remains protection. The accident happened when the building was
struck by lightning forty or fifty years ago, but the currency of the
legend proves at least that his memory is still execrated.
He was succeeded by his infant son Nizām Shāh, whose mother,
with the assistance of Khvāja Jahān and Mahmud Gāvān, managed
the affairs of the kingdom, but the neighbouring rulers regarded
the reign of a child as their opportunity, and the Hindus of Orissa,
who were joined by those of Telingāna, invaded the kingdom and
advanced to within twenty miles of Bīdar, where they were met by
the royal army. Their advanced guard, driven in on to the main
body of their army threw them into a panic, and they fled headlong,
but the raja of southern Orissa was compelled to pay half a million
of silver tangas in order to secure his retreat from molestation.
The young king had hardly been borne back to the capital when
news was received that Mahmūd I of Mālwa, instigated by the
family of the murdered Nizām-ul-Mulk, had invaded the kingdom
with 28,000 horse and that the Hindus of Orissa and Telingāna
had reassembled their forces and were menacing the capital from
the east and north-east.
The local troops in Telingāna were instructed to deal with the
Hindus while the ministers with the rest of the royal army carrying
with them the young king, met the army of Mālwa in the neigh-
bourhood of Kandhār. The wings of the invading army were put
1 See p. 357.


## p. 413 (#459) ############################################

XVI ]
WAR WITH MĀLWA
413
to flight and the day would have been won for the Deccan had not
Mahmūd I of Mālwa happened to hit the elephant of Sikandar
Khān, the young king's tutor, in the forehead with an arrow. The
beast, maddened with pain, turned and fled, trampling down many
in its fight, and Sikandar Khān bore the young king with him from
the field. The army of the Deccan, no longer perceiving the royal
elephant, began to retire in confusion, and, overtaking the king and
Sikandar Khān, bore them back with them to Bidar. Here Khvāja
Jahān threw Sikandar Khān into prison, but his incarceration,
owing to the number and influence of his supporters, created dis-
sensions which encouraged Mahmud of Mālwa to advance on the
capital, and the queen-mother carried her son to Firūzābād, where
he was out of danger. Mahmūd of Mālwa captured the town of
Bidar after a siege of seventeen days, but the citadel held out, and
Mahmud Begarha, in response to an appeal from the young king's
ministers, appeared on the frontier with 80,000 horse, and was
joined by Mahmud Gāvān who, with 20,000 horse placed at his
disposal by the king of Gujarāt and a force of equal strength
assembled by himself threatened the communications of the army
of Mālwa. Mahm ūd of Mālwa, thus menaced, retreated, and was
much harassed by Mahmud Gāvān. His troops also suffered severely
in their passage through the hills of the Melghāt, into which he
plunged in order to shake off his pursuers.
This discomfiture failed to deter him from invading the Deccan
in the following year with 90,000 horse, and he advanced as far
as Daulatābād, but the reappearance of Mahmud Begarha on the
northern frontier compelled him to retire to Māndū without having
effected anything.
The youthful Nizām Shāh died suddenly on July 30, 1463, and
was succeeded by his brother, aged nine, who ascended the throne
as Muhammad III.
The Foreign party retained its predominance in the state, and
the kingdom was administered, as in the preceding reign, by the
queen-mother, Khvāja Jahān, and Mahmūd Gāvān, but the ambi.
tion of Khvāja Jahān disturbed the harmony which had hitherto
prevailed. He aimed at the chief power in the state, and under-
mined Mahmúd Gāvān's influence at the capital by employing him
continually on the frontier. The queen-mother became suspicious
of his designs and persuaded her son to put him to death. When
he entered his master's presence two maidservants of the harem
appeared and cried aloud, in accordance with preconcerted arrange-
ments, ‘The matter which was spoken of yesterday should now bę


## p. 414 (#460) ############################################

414
[cu.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
taken in hand. ' Muhammad turned to Nizām-ul-Mulk and, pointing
to Khvāja Jahān said, 'This man is a traitor. Slay him. ' Nizām.
ul-Mulk seized Khvāja Jahān by the hand, dragged him forth, and
cut him to pieces.
Mahmud Gāvān, who had devoted such care to the young king's
education that he was the most accomplished monarch who had sat
on the throne since the days of Firūz, was summoned to the capital
and received the titles of Khvāja Jahān and Amir-ul-Umarā. The
queen-mother wisely retired from the management of public affairs
when her son reached the age of fifteen, and left him in the hands
of his advisers, but retained his respect, and was consulted by him
throughout her life.
In 1467 Nizām-ul-Mulk was appointed to the command of the
army of Berar and was sent against Kherla, which was in the
possession of Mahmūd I of Mālwa. He induced or compelled the
governor to surrender the place, but was himself murdered by two
Rājputs of the garrison, and Muhammad gained nothing by the
campaign, which was terminated by a treaty acknowledging Kherla
to be a fief of Mālwa, as in the reign of Ahmad the Saint. The
treaty was preceded by protracted negotiations, in the course of
which Mahmūd taxed Muhammad with bad faith in violating the
treaty which had secured Kherla to Mālwa, but was forced to admit
the justice of the retort that he had first violated the treaty of
peace between the two countries by twice invading the Deccan
during the reign of Nizām Shāh.
Mahmud Gāvān yet retained the government of Bījāpur, and in
1469 was sent into the Konkan to reduce to obedience the rajas of
Khelna (Vishālgarh), Sangameshwar, and other districts, whose
pirate fleets had inflicted much loss on Muslim merchants and
pilgrims. The two leading rajas entered into a close alliance and
fortified the Western Ghāts, but Mahmūd Gāvān went patiently to
work and forced and occupied the passes one by one. He dismissed
his cavalry, useless in mountain warfare, and assembled corps of
infantry from Junnār, Dābhol, and Karhād. The jungle was burnt
and the siege of Khelna was opened and continued for five months,
when Mahmud, wisely shunning the dangers of a campaign in the
hills during the rainy season, withdrew into quarters at Kolhāpur,
leaving garrisons to hold the passes.
When the rainy season was past he returned to Khelna and, by
tampering with the fidelity of the garrison, succeeded in capturing
and occupying the fortress. As the rainy season approached he
again retired above the Ghāts, leaving a garrison in Khelna, and,


## p. 415 (#461) ############################################

XVI ]
WAR IN THE KONKAN AND ORISSA
415
returning when the rains were abated, took Sangameshwar, aveng-
ing as Fīrishta says, the sufferings of Khalaf Hasan of Basrah.
Leaving officers to carry on the administration of his conquests he
marched to Goa, then one of the best ports of the raja of Vijaya-
nagar, attacked it by land and sea, and took it. The exploit was
celebrated with great rejoicings at Bidar, both as an important
victory over the hereditary enemies of the kingdom and as a boon
to Muslim pilgrims and merchants, for the western ports, which
might be dominated from Goa, harboured pirates whom their
nominal sovereigns might disown at will, while profiting by their
depredations.
Mahmud Gāvān returned to Bidar, after more than two years,
absence, in the early summer of 1472, and was received with the
highest honours by the king and the queen-mother. His slave
Khushqadam, who had ably seconded his efforts during the arduous
campaign in the Konkan, received the title of Kishvar Khān and
was manumitted and ennobled.
Before the great minister's return news had been received at
the capital that the Hindu chieftain of southern Orissa who had
vexed the kingdom during the reigns of Humāyūn and Nizām had
died and had been succeeded by an adopted son, Mangal whose
title to the throne was contested by the deceased raja's cousin,
Hambar. Hambar, having been defeated by Mangal and driven
into the mountains, sought aid of Muhammad III, in rerurn for
which he promised, on attaining to the throne, to pay tribute.
Malik Hasan, surnamed Bahri', the Brāhman of Pāthri who had
been captured during the invasion of Vijayanagar by Ahmad the
Saint and brought up as a Muslim, received the title of Nizām-ul-
Mulk, and was sent to the assistance of Hambar. The expedition
was successful. Mangal was defeated and put to flight and Hambar
was placed on the throne and assisted Hasan to reduce Raja.
mundry (Rajamahendri), the Hindu ruler of which had maintained
his independence and had assisted the rajas of southern Orissa in
their campaigns against the Muslims. Kondavīr also was captured,
1 The origin and meaning of this epithet, which is applied both to Hasan and to
his descendants, the Nizām Shāhi kings of Ahmadnagar, are obscure. As written by
Muslim historians it is an Arabic adjective singifying ‘of, or connected with, the
sea,' but Hasan was in no way connected with the sea and the word is never ex-
plained as bearing its obvious etymological signification. It is said to be connected
with a Hindi word for a falcon, and to have been given to Hasan owing to his hav-
i ng at one time kept the favourite falcon of Muhammad III, but the derivation is
unconvincing and fanciful, and the story lacks confirmation. I believe it to be a
corruption of an adjective Bhiravi, regularly formed from Bhairav, the name of
Hasan's father, and Arabicized in accordance with a custom not uncommon in
India.
a


## p. 416 (#462) ############################################

416
( CH.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
and the kingdom of the Bahmanids for the first time extended from
sea to sea.
Malik, Hasan, on his return to the capital with his spoils, was
received with every mark of distinction and was made governor of
Telingāna, now the most extensive of the four provinces. At the
same time Fathullāh 'Imād-ul-Mulk, the other Brāhman who had
been captured in Ahmad Shāh's campaign, was made governor of
Berar, and Yûsuf 'Adil Khān, Savāi', a Turk”, received the govern-
ment of Daulatābād.
Honours were now fairly evenly divided between the Foreigners
and the Deccanis. Of the four great provincial governments two,
Gulbarga (with Bījāpur ) and Daulatābād, were held by Mahmūd
Gāvān and Yusuf 'Adil Khān, foreigners, and two, Telingāna and
Berar, by Malik Hasan and Fathullāh Imād-ul-Mulk, Deccanis.
The leaders of the Foreigners were well disposed towards the Decc-
anis, and of the latter Fathullāh was a lifelong friend of Yusuf 'Adil
Khān and was on terms of intimacy with many of the Foreigners,
but the crafty, unscrupulous, and ambitious Malik Hasan could not
tolerate a Foreigner's tenure of the first post in the kingdom, and
never rested till he had destroyed Mahmud Gāvān. His ambition
was purely selfish, for Mahmud was free from party spirit, and it
was Yūsuf that became the leader of the Foreigners, who flocked
around him in Daulatābād and enabled him to complete the sub-
jugation of the northern Konkan, which earned him higher honours
than those which had been accorded to Hasan, and the bitter
hostility of the latter and of his followers.
At the end of the same year the rajas of Belgaum and Bankāpur,
instigated by Virupaksha of Vijayanagar, attempted to recover
1 The meaning of this title, corrupted by the Portuguese into Sabaio or Cabaio, is
also obscure. It has been explained as Sawai, 'the one and a quarter man,' i. e. he
who is better by one quarter than others-a conceit common enough in northern
India, where the Mahārāja of Alwar still bears the title, but peculiar to Hindus, and
unusual, if not unknown, in the Deccan. It is otherwise explained as an adjective
formed from Sāva, the town in northern Persia where Yûsuf's youth was spent, but
the first syllable of Sawai is short and the second long, whereas in Sāva the first is
long and the second short. Moreover, the adjective formed from Sāva takes the
form Sāvaji.
2 Yūsuf claimed to be a son of Murād II, of Turkey, saved from the cus-
tomary massacre of the males of the imperial house by the affection of his mother,
who caused him to be secretly conveyed from the palace on the accession of his elder
brother, Muhammad II, and delivered to a Turkish or Persian merchant of Sāva,
who brought him up as his adopted son. There is little or no evidence in support
of this legend, and the most that can be said of it is that it involves no impossibilities
and may be true ; but it is at least equally probable that Yusuf was a Turk of Såva.
The principal objection to the legend that he was a scion of the imperial house of
Turkey is that he was a bigoted Shiah, and was the first Muslim ruler in India to
attempt to establish that faith as the state religion in his kingdom.


## p. 417 (#463) ############################################

XVI)
CAMPAIGN IN TELINGANA
417
Goa and Muhammad III marched, with Mahmūd Gāvān, to
punish them. Birkāna, raja of Belgaum, was besieged in his strong-
hold and, when the outer defences had been carried and only the
citadel remained to him, escaped in disguise and appeared in the
Muslim camp in the character of an envoy. It was not until he was
in the royal presence that he disclosed his identity and begged for
mercy. His life was spared, but Belgaum was annexed and granted
to Mahmūd Gāvān, whose fiefs it adjoined, and Muhammad III on
entering the fortress, assumed the title of Lashkari, 'the Soldier,'
by which he is known in history. After the fall of Belgaum his
mother, who had served the state so well, died, and her body was
sent to Bidar for burial while he halted at Bījāpur as the guest of
Mahmud Gāvān.
The Deccan now suffered from a terrible famine, the result of
the failure of the rains for two successive years. Large numbers
died of hunger and of an epidemic of cholera, which usually ac-
companies or follows a famine in India, and the kingdom was
further depopulated by the flight of a large proportion of its in-
habitants to Gujarāt and Mālwa, which escaped the visitation. The
land lay untilled and cultivation was not resumed until, in the third
year, the rain once more fell in abundance.
As soon
as this calamity was past news was received that the
people of Kondavir had risen against their Muslim governor, an
oppressor belonging to the school of Humāyān, had put him to
death, and had delivered the town to Hambar, who, forgetful of his
obligations to Muhammad, had accepted the offering and, doubtful
of his ability to retain it, had sought help of the raja of Jājpur in
Orissa, who invaded Telingāna and besieged Malik Hasan in Raja-
mundry.
Muhammad marched to Rajamundry and relieved Malik Hasan,
while Hamber shut himself up in Kondavir and the raja withdrew
to the northern bank of the Godavari, secured his position there by
seizing all the boats which could be found, and, finding that nothing
was to be gained by lingering in the neighbourhood, retired to
Orissa. Muhammad followed him, invaded Orissa in February,
1478, and spent six months in the country, which he laid waste.
He was contemplating its annexation when envoys arrived from
the raja, bringing numbers of elephants and other rich gifts and
charged with expressions of contrition, but Muhammad refused to
retreat until the raja, most unwillingly, had surrendered other
twenty-five elephants, the best which his father's stables had con-
tained. On his return he besieged Hambar in Kondavīr, and on his
C. H. JIJI,
27


## p. 418 (#464) ############################################

418
( CH.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
surrendering granted him his life, but destroyed the great temple
of Kondavir, built a mosque on its site, and earned the title of
Ghāzi by slaying with his own hand some of the attendant Brāhmans.
He made Rajamundry his headquarters for nearly three years
and, having completely subjugated Telingāna, prepared to invade
the eastern Carnatic, but, before setting out, provided for the
efficient administration of Telingāna by dividing it into two pro-
vinces, and appointed Malik Hasan to the eastern, or Rajamundry,
division and A'zam Khān, son of the rebel Sikandar, to Warangal,
which became the capital of the western division. The kingdom
had outgrown the old provincial system established by the first two
kings of the dynasty. Its extension to the sea coast on the west
and on the east had doubled the area of the old provinces of
Gulbarga and Daulatābād, and very much more than doubled that
of Telingāna, the partition of which was part of a scheme for the
division of the other provinces ; but Malik Hasan, who had hoped
to assume the government of the whole vast province, bitterly
resented its dismemberment, and resolved to destroy Mahmud
Gavān, the author of the scheme. He begged that he might be
permitted to accompany the king on his expedition into the
Carnatic and to leave his son Ahmad as the deputy at Rajamundry.
Ahmad bore a higher reputation as a soldier than his father and
had been provided with a fief in the Māhūr district of Berar
because it had been considered dangerous to employ father and
son in the same province, but Hasan's prayer was granted, and his
son was summoned from Māhūr and installed in Rajamundry.
Narasimha, whose territory Muhammad invaded, was probably
a viceroy or the decendant of a viceroy of the rajas of Vijayanagar,
who had extended his power at the expense of his former masters
until his territories included the eastern districts of their kingdom
and extended on the north to Machchhlīpatan (Masulipatam).
Muhammad made Kondapalli his headquarters, and leaving his
son Mahmūd with Mahmūd Gāvān, in that town led a raid to the
famous temple of Kānchi (Conjeveram). He rode so hard that of
6000 horse who had set out with him no more than forty, among
whom were Yusuf 'Adil Khān and Malik Hasan, were with him
when he arrived at his destination. Nothing daunted herode
towards the temple, from which emerged 'many Hindus of devilish
appearance, among them a black-faced giant of the seed of demons,
mounted on a powerful horse, who, having regarded them fixedly,
urged his horse straight at the king. While his companions were
occupied with other Hindus Muhammad slew this champion and


## p. 419 (#465) ############################################

XVI ]
PARTITION OF THE PROVINCES
419
another, and entered the temple, plundered it, and slew the at-
tendant Brāhmans.
After resting for a week in Conjeveram Muhammad sent
15,000 horse against Narasimha and, having captured Masulipatam,
returned to Kandapalli, where Malik Hasan, Zarif-ul-Mulk, and
the Deccani party lost no opportunity of slandering Mahmūd Gāvān
to him.
It was at Kondapalli that Mahmud Gāvān's plan for the parti-
tion of the four great tarafs or provinces of the kingdom was
completed. As Telingāna had been divided into the two provinces
of Rajamundry and Warangal, so Berar was divided into those of
Gāwil, or northern, and Māhūr, or southern Berar ; Daulatābād
into those of Daulatābād on the east, and Junnār on the west ;
and Gulbarga into those of Belgaum on the west and Gulbarga on
the east. At the same time the powers of the tarafdārs or provin-
cial governors were curtailed in many ways. Many of the parganas,
or sub-districts, in the provinces were appropriated as crown lands
and removed from the jurisdiction of the governor, and all military
appointments which had formerly been part of the governor's
patronage, were, with the exception of the command of the
principal fortress in each province, resumed by the king. Allow-
ances for the maintenance of troops, whether in cash or in grants of
land, had hitherto been calculated at the rate of 100,000 huns for
five hundred and 200,000 for 1000 horse. These sums
raised to 125,000 and 250,000, but on the other hand a system of
inspection and control was introduced, and deductions were made
on account of men not regularly maintained and mustered. These
reforms were most unpopular. The older nobles disliked them
because they curtailed the power and diminished the wealth of the
provincial governors, and all resented the curtailment of oppor-
tunities for peculation. They rendered their author more odious
than ever to the Deccani faction, headed by Malik Hasan, who
had been the first to suffer by them.
The new governments were fairly divided, Fathullāh 'Imād-ul.
Mulk retained Gāwil, Yusuf 'Adil Khān Daulatābād, Malik Hasan
Rajamundry, and Mahmūd Gāvān Belgaum, and to the four pro-
vinces of Māhūr, Junnār, Gulbarga, and Warangal Khudāvand
Khān the African, Fakhr-ul-Mulk the Turk, Dastūr Dīnār the
African, and Afzam Khān the Deccani were appointed. 'The
Deccani faction thus held five of the eight provincial governments,
but this advantage was neutralised by Malik Hasan's hostility to
the interloper, Ąʻzam Khān.
were now
27-2


## p. 420 (#466) ############################################

420
(CH.
THE KINGDOM OF THE DECCAN
The absence of Yusuf 'Adil Khān with the field force encouraged
Malik Hasan, Zarif-ul-Mulk, and Miftāh the African, the leaders
of the Deccani party, to prosecute their designs against Mahmūd
Gāvān. They induced the keeper of his seals, an African, to affix
his private seal to a blank paper, on which they wrote, above the
seal, a letter to the raja of Orissa, informing him that the people
of the Deccan were weary of the tyranny and perpetual drunken-
ness of their king and urging him to invade the country. The paper
was read to the king when he was drunk, and he at once sent for
Mahmud Gāvān, who insisted on obeying the summons, notwith-
standing the protests of his friends, who warned him that mischief
was brewing. The king made no inquiries and did not even require
the production of the messenger with whom the letter was said to
have been found, but when Mahmūd appeared roughly demanded
what was the punishment due to a traitor. 'Death by the sword,
, ‘'
replied the minister, confident in his innocence.