I. POLITICAL AND LITERARY HISTORY

Outline of political history.

Although the Deccan was in commercial contact with Persia and Arabia from ancient times, it first became a part of the Islamic world in 695/1296, when the Delhi sultan ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Ḵaljī (695-715/1296-1316) invaded the Hindu kingdom of the Yadavas, with its capital at Deogiri (now Daulatabad), and made it a vassal state. The succeeding Ḵaljī and Tughluqid sultans undertook further expeditions against the Hindu kingdoms of the Hoysalas (at Dwarasamudra), the Kakatiyas (at Warangal), and the Pandyans (at Madura). Although at first these expeditions were essentially raids that left the Hindu dynasties intact, gradually a series of local revolts and reconquests from Delhi led to the incorporation of these realms into the empire.

Sultan Moḥammad b. Toḡloq (725-52/1325-51) made Deogiri the secondary capital of his realm in 728/1328, transferring most of the Muslim population of Delhi there the following year; he briefly controlled the entire Deccan, as well as the Tamil and Malabar country in the extreme south. In 736/1336 a former Hoysala officer who had served the Tughluqids rebelled and founded the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar in the far south.

Meanwhile the centurions (amīrān-e ṣada) in the Deccan also revolted against the Tughluqids in 746/1345, and in 748/1347 ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Ḥasan took the title bahmanšāh. The Bahmanid dynasty, recognized by the ʿAbbasid pretender in Cairo, ruled the Deccan (first from Golbarga, then from Bīdar) as an independent kingdom until the early 16th century, when increasingly restive governors effectively divided the realm into five minor kingdoms, ruled respectively by the Neẓāmšāhīs in Ahmadnagar, the ʿĀdelšāhīs in Bījāpūr, the ʿEmādšāhīs in Berar, the Barīdšāhīs in Bīdar, and the Qoṭbšāhīs in Golconda. To these may be added the minor state of Khandesh, with its capital at Borhānpūr in the northern Deccan, ruled by the Fārūqīs from the late 14th century. Struggles among these small Deccani sultanates led to the conquest of Vijayanagar by a confederation of the princes of Ahmadnagar, Bījāpūr, and Golconda in 973/1565; the absorption of Berar by Ahmadnagar in 982/1574; and the conquest of Bīdar by Bījāpūr in 1028/1619.

The Mughals represented a more serious threat, however. Akbar I (963-1014/1556-1605) enrolled the Fārūqīs as tributaries and after 999/1590 as military allies against Ahmadnagar. In their quest for allies the rulers of Ahmadnagar, Bījāpūr, and Golconda, who had adopted Twelver Shiʿism at various times, consistently cultivated relations with the Safavids of Persia, sometimes addressing them in the manner of vassals to an overlord (Islam, II, pp. 107-99). Akbar conquered Khandesh in 1009/1601, and Jahāngīr (1014-37/1605-27) took Ahmadnagar in 1043/1633. Awrangzēb (1068-1118/1658-1707) spent the last years of his reign campaigning against the two surviving sultanates, defeating Bījāpūr in 1097/1686 and Golconda the following year. The Mughals had already begun to lose their hold on the Deccan, however, owing to resistance from the Marathas, who had founded their own kingdom under Shivaji in 1085/1674. Although the Marathas founded an explicitly Hindu state and assumed rights of taxation, they acknowledged theoretical Mughal supremacy and, from their capital in the western hills, functioned as an efficient war machine throughout the Deccan and northern India until they came under British domination in the early 19th century. In 1137/1724 the Mughal viceroy in the Deccan, Neẓām-al-Molk ĀsÂaf-jāh, declared himself an independent ruler. The Āṣafjāhī dynasty of neẓāms (q.v.) ruled (at first from Awrangabad and then from Hyderabad) throughout the period of French and British imperialism up to 1948, when their domain was incorporated into the Indian Union. Presently the region is divided among the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.

Persian literature and culture in the Deccan.

With the transfer of the Muslim population to Deogiri in 729/1329 the Persian culture that flourished in the Delhi sultanate was transplanted to the Deccan. The leading court poet Amīr Najm-al-Dīn Ḥasan Dehlavī (655-737/1275-1336) was one of those forced to move (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt III, pp. 817-31). Tughluqid officials in Deogiri and elsewhere sponsored works in Persian on such subjects as lexicography and Islamic law, and at nearby Rawża (now Khuldabad) the Sufi circle around the Češtī Shaikh Borhān-al-Dīn Ḡarīb (d. 738/1337; see ČEŠTĪYA) produced an extensive mystical literature, including recorded oral teachings (malfūẓāt), hagiographies, and speculative treatises (Ernst, p. 116 and passim). Legends about Sufis in the Deccan before the Ḵaljī conquest are late hagiograph-ical inventions unsubstantiated by contemporary documents. After the brief period of Tughluqid rule the Deccan sultans contributed to a remarkable flourishing of Persian literature. Persian culture always existed in tension with local Indic cultural traditions, however, as it was totally dependent upon court patronage and elite Sufi circles. The different types of Persian literature produced in the Deccan may be categorized as follows.

Court poetry and belles-lettres. The sultans of the Deccan were great patrons of Persian poetry, and some were known as poets themselves. Of the many poets who came from Persia and Central Asia to India seeking their fortunes (according to Golčīn-e Maʿānī, more than 700 in the Safavid period alone; I, pp. [5-18]), a large portion came to the Deccan courts (see Sherwani and Joshi, II, pp. 77-103). Moḥammad-Qāsem Ferešta (I, p. 302; tr. Briggs, II, pp. 215-16) reported that the Bahmanid Moḥammad Shah (780-99/1378-97) even tried unsuccessfully to lure Ḥāfeẓ from Shiraz, but the reliability of this story has been questioned (e.g., Ḡanī, p. 136 n. 1; cf. Ḥāfeẓ, comm., II, pp. 1193-95). His successor Aḥmad Shah Walī (825-39/1422-36) made Golbarga a center of Persian culture. After the establishment of the minor Deccan sultanates Moḥammadqolī Qoṭbšāh (d. 1020/1611) and his descendants eagerly welcomed talented Persian poets at Golconda. At Bījāpūr Ebrāhīm ʿĀdelšāh (d. 1035/1627) employed Ẓohūrī Toršīzī (d. 1026/1617; Ṣafā, Adabīyāt V, pp. 977-88, 1717-14), who wrote his Seh naṯr as an introduction in rhyming prose to his patron’s Dakhanī Urdu treatise on poetry and music, Ketāb-e nowras. Many critics regard Ẓohūrī as a chief exponent of the luxuriant “Indian style” (sabk-e hendī). Even the Mughal court poet Abu’l-Fayż Fayżī (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt V, pp. 838-57) was impressed with his “extremely flowery” style (Golčīn-e Maʿānī, II, p. 827).

Stylistically the Persian poetry produced in the Deccan did not differ notably from that produced in northern India or Persia; many poets circulated among all three areas. For example, Moḥammad Amīn (d. 1047/1637-38), who produced at Golconda an admired epic quintet (ḵamsa) in imitation of Neẓāmī’s works, went on to Bījāpūr and then back to Persia before finally obtaining a satisfactory position from the Mughals (Sherwani and Joshi, II, pp. 98-99). Borhānpūr also became an important center of literary patronage under the Mughal viceroy ʿAbd-al-Raḥīm Ḵān-e Ḵānān (d. 1036/1627), who surrounded himself with a large circle of Persian poets, mentioned in ʿAbd-al-Bāqī Nehāvandī’s Maʾāṯer-e raḥīmī (comp. 1025/1616), which is dedicated to him. They included Nawʿī Ḵabūšānī (d. 1019/1610), author of Sūz o godāz, a maṯnawī on the Indian theme of a widow (satī) who immolates herself on her husband’s funeral pyre (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt V, pp. 881-92). In the late 18th century, while Delhi court taste was turning toward Urdu poetry, Persian anthologies continued to appear in the Deccan; the prolific Ḡolām-ʿAlī Āzād Belgrāmī (d. 1200/1786) composed three (Yad-e bayżā, Sarv-e āzād, and Ḵezāna-ye ʿāmera), his Hindu student Lačmī Narāyan Šafīq (d. after 1214/1799) composed two (Gol-e raʿnā and Šām-e ḡārībān), and several other scholars compiled their own taḏkeras at Awrangabad (Naqawī, pp. 255, 275, 378, 383, 393, 415, 425, 445, 489). Although in the 19th century Persian literary activity waned in favor of Urdu, Hyderabad continued as a center for Persian studies, and the former court libraries there (the Āṣafīya, now the Andhra Pradesh Oriental Manuscript Research Library, and the Salar Jang) still have the finest Persian collections in the region.

Historical works. Historiography in the Deccan was modeled on the epics and chronicles of the Ghaznavids and Ghurids, which had formed the basis for the court culture of the Delhi sultanate. The first great historical work produced in the Deccan was ʿAbd-al-Malek ʿEṣāmī’s Fotūḥ al-salāṭīn (comp. 751/1351), which celebrated the triumph of the Bahmanids over the Tughluqids in epic maṯnawīs modeled on those of Ferdowsī’s Šāh-nāma. Āḏarī Ṭūsī (d. 866/1461-62) wrote Bahman-nāma (British Library, London, ms. no. Or. 2780/3; Bodleian Library, Oxford, ms. no. 2544/3) for Aḥmad I Walī (825-39/1422-36), modeling it on the prose history Toháfat al-salāṭīn by Mollā Dāwūd Bīdarī (d. 817/1414-15). In fact, the close literary relationship between Persia and the Deccan is particularly exemplified by Āḏarī’s career; he was initially a poet at the courts of the Timurid Šāhroḵ (807-50/1405-47) and Olōḡ Beg (850-53/1447-49), then a disciple of the Sufi Shah Neʿmat-Allāh Walī before going to India; after he completed his service with Aḥmad Shah Bahmanī he returned to Khorasan (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt IV, pp. 323-32). The Sufi shaikh ʿAyn-al-Dīn Bījāpūrī (d. 795/1393) wrote a continuation of the 13th-century chronicle Ṭabaqāt-e nāṣerī of Menhāj-e Serāj Jūzjānī. The latter and the Toḥfat al-salāṭīn of Bīdarī are lost, but they were used as sources by historians of the Bahmanid successor states, like Ferešta and Sayyed ʿAlī Ṭabāṭabā; some excerpts can also be found in the modern Urdu history of the Deccan by M. A. Molkapūrī, whose library of unique manuscripts of Bahmanid texts was unfortunately destroyed in the Hyderabad flood of 1908. Ṭabāṭabā’s Borhān-e maʾāṯer, written in 1004/1596 for Borhān Neẓāmšāh II, is a history of the Bahmanid and Neẓāmšāhī dynasties. The most famous Deccan history, however, is Ferešta’s Golšan-e ebrāhīmī, written for Ebrāhīm ʿĀdelšāh between 1015/1606-67 and 1033/1623-24; it is a general history of Indian dynasties focused on Bījāpūr, with an important appendix on Sufi shaikhs. The work attracted the attention of the British in the late 18th century, and most of it was translated into English. Important Bījāpūr chronicles include the Taḏkerat al-molūk of Rafīʿ-al-Dīn Ebrāhīm Šīrāzī (comp. 1020/1611-12) and the Tārīḵ-e ʿādelšāhī of Nūr-Allāh (b. Sayyed Moḥammad ʿAlī; d. 1077/1666-67). The transition from the Mughals to the Āṣafjāhī neẓāms in the Deccan can best be measured from the voluminous biographical dictionary Maʾāṯer al-omarāʾ, compiled by Ṣamṣām-al-Dawla Šahnavāz Khan (vizier to the first neẓām) and completed by Āzād Belgrāmī; almost every important political figure of the 17th and 18th centuries is included. Numerous other significant monographic histories in Persian, most unpublished, were devoted to the reigns of individual sultans of the different Deccan kingdoms (including the Marathas) down to the end of the 19th century (Sherwani and Joshi, II, pp. 102-07, 575-88; Storey, I, pp. 738-65, 1330-33). The able Bahmanid minister ʿEmād-al-Dīn Maḥmūd Gāvān (813-86/1411-81) wrote a memorable collection of state letters, Rīāż al-enšāʾ, which includes correspondence with eminent Sufis and authors like ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Ḵᵛāja Aḥrār, and Šaraf-al-Dīn Yazdī. The Persian Shiʿite scholar Shah Ṭāher (d. 956/1549), adviser to Borhān Neẓāmšāh of Ahmadnagar, also left a collection of official letters (Monšaʾāt-e Šāh Ṭāher) that is of some historical importance. In addition, a treatise on political theory, written in 984/1576 by ʿAbd-al-Laṭīf Monšī and entitled Nafāʾes al-kalām wa ʿarāʾes al-aqlām, was dedicated to Raja ʿAlī Khan Fārūqī (985-1005/1577-96), the last independent ruler of Khandesh; the unique manuscript is in the Khuda-Bakhsh collection in the Oriental Public Library at Patna (ms. no. 948, H.L. no 946).

Sufi literature. Sufi literature was initiated under the Bahmanids, when the Češtī Sufis at Rawża, led by Borhān-al-Dīn Ḡarīb’s successor, Zayn-al-Dīn Šīrāzī (d. 771/1370), began to compile malfūẓāt (Ernst, pp. 80, 134-38, 321 n. 226). Zayn-al-Dīn had no successors in Rawża, but later Sufis of Borhānpūr, like Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Bājan (d. 912/1507), claimed to have inherited the authority of Borhān-al-Dīn. In the meantime leadership of the Češtīs passed to Moḥammad Ḥosaynī Gīsūderāz (d. 825/1422), who had left Delhi for Golbarga in 800/1398 and become attached to the Bahmanid court. A prolific author, he was a major force in transmitting the heritage of Persian Sufism in the Deccan. He wrote many mystical treatises in Persian, including Ḥaẓāʾer al-qods, Asmār al-asrār; commentaries on classical works on Islamic law, theology, and Sufism; letters; and poetry. His descendants also made literary contributions to Sufism (Siddiqi, pp. 199-206; Hussaini, passim). The writings by members of other Sufi orders (selsela) prominent in the early Bahmanid period, particularly the Jonaydīs, are now known only through later references (Siddiqi, pp. 95-107, 207-09). The Bahmanid rulers encouraged the immigration of Sufi masters from Persia and Iraq as part of a policy of favoring foreigners (āfāqī) over Indians. The Neʿmat-Allāhī order became established at Bīdar when its founder, Shah Neʿmat-Allāh Walī (731-834/1330-1431), sent one of his grandsons to act as a guide for the prince who later became Aḥmad II Bahmanī (839-62/1436-58); the order thrived in the Deccan until its leaders decided to return to Persia in the late 17th century. The Qāderī order arrived at Bīdar from Baghdad, also in the 15th century, and later spread to Bījāpūr and Golconda (Eaton, pp. 56-58; Siddiqi, pp. 69-95).

At Golconda the Qoṭbšāhīs, who continued to favor Shiʿism, concentrated their patronage on Dakhani Urdu and Telegu poetry in honor of the imams and on scholarship and poetry in Arabic. There is little evidence of Sufi activity at Ahmadnagar, and in Bījāpūr the ʿĀdelšāhīs seem not to have become patrons of Sufism until the late 16th century, when Sunni Islam replaced Shiʿism there under Ebrāhīm ʿĀdelšāh (Eaton, pp. 70-79). At that time many Češtī and Qāderī Sufis settled in the city, and the Šaṭṭārī order from northern India also established centers at Bījāpūr and Borhānpūr. An exceptionally strong literary tradition was initiated by Češtī authors like Šams-al-Dīn Mīranjī (d. 905/1499), Borhān-al-Dīn Jānam (d. after 1006/1597), and Amīn-al-Dīn ʿAlāʾ (d. 1086/1675), who wrote poetry in Dakhani Urdu addressed to a wide readership. Their Persian works (often translations or commentaries on the Dakhani texts), on the other hand, were aimed at a more specialized Sufi audience (Eaton, pp. 135-74, 243-81).

As the Mughals expanded into the Deccan, so did Sufi orders that were well established in their domain. Disciples of Aḥmad Serhendī (d. 1034/1624), leader of the Mojaddedī Naqšbandīs, settled in Borhānpūr, and separate Naqšbandī lineages were established at the convents (ḵānaqāhs) of Shah Mosāfer Ḡojdovānī at Awrangabad and Shah ʿEnāyat-Allāh (d. 1117/1705) at Balapur in Berar. The Šaṭṭārī master Moḥammad Ḡawṯ (d. 971/1563) had flourished under the Mughals, and his disciples from Gujarat developed a major center in Borhānpūr, a city to which many Sufis from Sind were also attracted. The successive leaders of this Šaṭṭārī lineage were Laškar Moḥammad ʿĀref (d. 993/1585), ʿĪsā Jond-Allāh (d. 1031/1622), and Borhān-al-Dīn Rāz-e Elāhī (d. 1083/1672); ʿĪsā in particular was a prolific writer on mystical topics (e.g., ʿAyn al-maʿānī) and a commentator on Islamic law and theology. Among other significant works produced by this school were Ebrāhīm Šaṭṭārī Jannatābādī’s Āʾīna-ye ḥaqāʾeqnomā, a commentary on Moḥammad-Šīrīn Māḡrebī’s Jām-e jahānnomā based on the metaphysics of Ebn al-ʿArabī. At the end of the Mughal period there was also a renaissance of the Češtī order in the Deccan under the leadership of Neẓām-al-Dīn Awrangābādī (d. 1142/1728), who followed the instructions of his teacher in Delhi, Shah Kalīm-Allāh Jahānābādī (d. 1142/1729). Neẓām-al-Dīn’s relationship with Neẓām-al-Molk Āṣaf-jāh was so close that the latter wrote a biography of him (Nizami, 1980-85, I, pp. 290 ff., V, pp. 81-181). A good survey of Sufism under the later neẓāms has yet to be written.

As many important Persian Sufi writings from the Deccan remain in manuscript or have not survived, biographical works that include excerpts from them are extremely valuable. Among the most important is the pan-Indian hagiography Aḵbār al-aḵyār by ʿAbd-al-Ḥaqq Dehlavī. Also of great value for the Deccan is Moḥammad Ḡawṯī’s Golzār-e abrār (comp. 1022/1613), which is devoted especially to the saints of Gujarat and western India. Other significant Persian hagiographies for the Deccan are the anonymous Fatḥ al-awlīāʾ (1020/1610) on the saints of Rawża and Borhānpūr, composed for ʿAbd-al-Raḥīm Ḵān-e Ḵānān; Rawżat al-awlīāʾ (comp. 1161/1748) by Āzād Belgrāmī on the saints of Khuldabad and Awrangabad; Meškāt-e nobūwat (1220/1804-05) by ʿAlī Mūsawī on saints of the Deccan, including Hyderabad; and Rawżat al-awlīāʾ. Taḏkera-ye awlīāʾ-e Bījāpūr (comp. 1241/1825-26) by Moḥammad-Ebrāhīm Zobayrī (Storey, I, pp. 979, 984, 1024; Ernst, pp. 91-92, 209-12; Eaton, pp. 334-35). Most of these collections were either produced under royal patronage or include traditions of political origin, so that their accounts must often be measured against the traditions found in malfūẓāt texts and other Sufi writings. As use of the Persian language declined during the 19th century, the history of Sufism in Hyderabad and the rest of the Deccan must be supplemented with works written in Dakhani Urdu and other local languages for the benefit of devotees.

Other kinds of literature. Various minor Persian works were written on the subjects of music, Islamic law, astronomy, and the like, and some translations from Arabic (generally on religious topics) and Sanskrit (on veterinary science and music) were produced. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these works is the well-known Persian dictionary Borhān-e qāṭeʿ, composed by Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Borhān Tabrīzī for ʿAbd-Allāh Qoṭbšāh in 1062/1652. It was the target of caustic criticism by the 19th-century poet Mīrzā Asad-Allāh Ḡāleb in his Qāṭeʿ-e borhān.