Dynasties of the Deccan

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Five dynasties. Six hundred years. One civilisation born in the heart of India — where Persian poetry met Telugu devotion, Sufi wisdom met warrior courage, and an early literary form of Urdu/Hindustani took shape in the Dakhni dialect.^[1]

From the Bahmani capital at Gulbarga to the Nizam's court at Hyderabad, the kingdoms of the Deccan plateau shaped a culture that was at once Indian and Islamic, vernacular and cosmopolitan. These five pages trace that arc — the rulers, the cities, the patronage, the wars and the inheritances — that together formed the Dakhni world.^[2]

The Five Dynasties

In chronological order of founding

I · The First Kingdom

Bahmani Sultanate

1347 – 1527 · Gulbarga, then Bidar

The first independent Muslim sultanate of the Deccan, founded by Alauddin Bahman Shah. For 180 years its polyglot court of Persian scholars, Telugu poets and Sufi mystics laid the cultural foundation for Dakhni civilisation.

Qutb Shahi Dynasty

1518 – 1687 · Golconda, then Hyderabad

The greatest patrons of Dakhni literature, builders of Golconda and founders of Hyderabad in 1591. Their diamond trade made the kingdom a byword for fabulous wealth from Madrid to Edo.

Bidar Barid Shahi

1489 – 1619 · Bidar

Successors to the Bahmanis at Bidar, the Barid Shahis produced one of the most distinctive art forms of the Deccan — Bidriware, the inlaid black-metal craft still made in the lanes of Bidar after five centuries.

Read More IV · Patrons of Dakhni Poetry

Adil Shahi Dynasty

1490 – 1686 · Bijapur

Nine sultans ruled Bijapur, a major cosmopolitan capital of the Deccan. Ibrahim Adil Shah II commissioned the Ibrahim Rauza; the later ruler Muhammad Adil Shah commissioned the Gol Gumbaz.

Asaf Jahi Nizams

1724 – 1948 · Hyderabad

Seven Nizams ruling the largest princely state in the Indian subcontinent. Under the seventh Nizam, widely described in the 1930s as one of the world's wealthiest men, Hyderabad maintained its own railway, currency and university.

Chronology

Key dates across six centuries

1347Bahmani founded
1489Barid Shahi at Bidar
1490Adil Shahi at Bijapur
1518Qutb Shahi at Golconda
1591Hyderabad founded
1687Fall of Golconda
1724Asaf Jahi founded
1948Hyderabad accedes to India

Five dynasties. Six hundred years. One civilisation.

References

^ Richard M. Eaton, A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761: Eight Indian Lives, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
^ H. K. Sherwani & P. M. Joshi (eds.), History of Medieval Deccan (1295–1724), 2 vols., Government of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, 1973–74.