The Bahmani Kingdom, or the Bahmani Sultanate, was a late medieval Persianate kingdom that ruled the Deccan Plateau in India. The first independent Muslim sultanate of the Deccan, the Bahmani Kingdom came to power in 1347 during the rebellion of Ismail Mukh against Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the Sultan of Delhi. Ismail Mukh then abdicated in favour of Zafar Khan, who established the Bahmani Sultanate.
The Bahmani Kingdom was perpetually at war with its neighbours, including its rival to the south, the Vijayanagara Empire, which outlasted the sultanate. The Mahmud Gawan Madrasa was created by Mahmud Gawan, the vizier regent of the sultanate from 1466 until his execution in 1481, during a conflict between the foreign (Afaqis) and local (Deccanis) nobility. Bidar Fort was built by Ahmad Shah I (r. 1422–1436), who relocated the capital to the city of Bidar. Ahmad Shah led campaigns against Vijayanagara and the sultanates of Malwa and Gujarat. His campaign against Vijayanagara in 1423 included a siege of the capital, ending in the expansion of the Sultanate. Mahmud Gawan would later lead campaigns against Malwa, Vijayanagara, and the Gajapatis, and extended the sultanate to its maximum extent.
The sultanate began to decline under Mahmood Shah. Through a combination of factional strife and the revolt of five provincial governors (tarafdars), the Bahmani Sultanate split up into five states, known as the Deccan Sultanates. The initial revolts of Yusuf Adil Shah, Malik Ahmad Nizam Shah I, and Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk in 1490, and Qasim Barid I in 1492 saw the end of any real Bahmani power, and the last independent sultanate, Golkonda, in 1518, ended the Bahmanis' 180-year rule over the Deccan. The last four Bahmani rulers were puppet monarchs under Amir Barid I of the Bidar Sultanate, and the kingdom formally dissolved in 1527.
Abd-al-Malek Esami, a contemporary historian, states that Bahman Shah was born in Ghazni, Afghanistan. He was either of Afghan or Turk origin. Encyclopedia Iranica states him to be a Khorasani adventurer, who claimed descent from Bahram Gur. Ferishta mentions that later poets "who wanted to flatter him" called Bahman Shah a descendant of Bahram Gur, but considers it implausible. Andre Wink, known for his studies on India, stated that he was an Afghan. According to the medieval historian Ferishta, his obscurity makes it difficult to track his origin, but he is nonetheless stated to be of Afghan birth.
Ziauddin Barani, the court chronicler of Sultan Firuz Shah, states that Hasan Gangu, the Bahmani Sultanate's founder, was "born in very humble circumstances" and that "For the first thirty years of his life he was nothing more than a field laborer." He was made a commander of a hundred horsemen by the Delhi Sultan, Muhammad bin Tughluq, who was pleased with his honesty. This sudden rise in the military and socio-economic ladder was common in this era of Muslim India. Zafar Khan or Hasan Gangu was among the inhabitants of Delhi who were forced to migrate to the Deccan, to build a large Muslim settlement in the region of Daulatabad. Zafar Khan was a man of ambition and looked forward to the adventure. He had long hoped to employ his body of horsemen in the Deccan as the region was seen as the place of bounty in Muslim imagination at the time. He was rewarded with an Iqta for taking part in the conquest of Kampili.
Before the establishment of his kingdom, Hasan Gangu (Zafar Khan) was Governor of Deccan and a commander on behalf of the Tughlaqs. On 3 August 1347, during the rebellion by the Amirs of the Deccan, Ismail Mukh, the leader of the rebellion (whom the rebel amirs of the Deccan placed on the throne of Daulatabad in 1345), abdicated in favor of Zafar Khan, resulting in the establishment of the Bahmani Kingdom. The Sultan of Delhi had besieged the rebels at the citadel of Daulatabad. As another rebellion had begun in Gujarat, the Sultan left and installed Shaikh Burhan-ud-din Bilgrami and Malik Jauhar and other nobles in charge of the siege. Meanwhile, as these nobles were unable to stop the Deccani amirs from pursuing the imperial army, Hasan Gangu, a native of Delhi, then being pursued by Governor of Berar Imad-ul-Mulk, the leader to whom the Deccani Amirs had re-assembled against, attacked and slew the latter and marched on towards Daulatabad. Here Hasan Gangu and the Deccani amirs put to flight the imperial forces which had been left to besiege. The rebels at Daulatabad had the sense to see Hasan Gangu as the man of the hour, and the proposal to crown Hasan Gangu, entitled Zafar Khan, was accepted without a dissentient voice on 3 August 1347. His revolt was successful, and he established an independent state on the Deccan within the Delhi Sultanate's southern provinces with its headquarters at Hasanabad (Gulbarga), where all his coins were minted.
With the support of the influential Indian Chishti Sufi Shaikhs, he was crowned "Alauddin Bahman Shah Sultan – Founder of the Bahmani Dynasty". They bestowed upon him a robe allegedly worn by the prophet Muhammad. The extension of the Sufi's notion of spiritual sovereignty lent legitimacy to the planting of the sultanate's political authority, where the land, people, and produce of the Deccan were merited state protection, no longer available for plunder with impunity. These Sufis legitimized the transplantation of Indo-Muslim rulership from one region in South Asia to another, converting the land of the Bahmanids into being recognized as Dar ul-Islam, while it was previously considered Dar ul-Harb.
Turkish or Indo-Turkish troops, explorers, saints, and scholars moved from Delhi and North India to the Deccan with the establishment of the Bahmanid sultanate. How many of these were Shi'ites is unclear. Nonetheless, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that a number of nobility at the Bahmani court identified as Shi'ites or had significant Shi'ite inclinations.
Alauddin was succeeded by his son Mohammed Shah I. His conflicts with the Vijayanagar empire were singularly savage wars, as according to the historian Ferishta, "the population of the Carnatic was so reduced that it did not recover for several ages." The Bahmanids' aggressive confrontation with the two main Hindu kingdoms of the southern Deccan, Warangal and Vijayanagara in the First Bahmani–Vijayanagar War, made them renowned among Muslims as warriors of the faith.
The Vijayanagara empire and the Bahmanids fought over the control of the Godavari-basin, Tungabadhra Doab, and the Marathwada country, although they seldom required a pretext for declaring war, as military conflicts were almost a regular feature and lasted as long as these kingdoms continued. Military slavery involved captured slaves from Vijayanagara whom were then converted to Islam and integrated into the host society, so they could begin military careers within the Bahmanid empire. Mohammad Shah II's reign was noted for its peace and lack of foreign wars. Strong measures of civil and military organizations were set up by Mohammad Shah I, but they developed only during Mohammad Shah II's rule.
Ghiyasuddin succeeded his father Muhammad II at the age of seventeen in April 1397, but was blinded and imprisoned by a Turkic slave called Taghalchin, who had held a grudge on the Sultan for the latter's refusal to appoint him as a governor. He had lured the Sultan into putting himself in the former's power, using the beauty of his daughter, who was accomplished in music and arts, and had introduced her to the Sultan at a feast. He was succeeded by Shamsuddin, who was a puppet king under Taghalchin. Firuz and Ahmed, the sons of the fourth sultan Daud, marched to Gulbarga to avenge Ghiyasuddin. Firuz declared himself the sultan, and defeated Taghalchin's forces. Taghalchin was killed and Shamsuddin was blinded.
Taj ud-Din Firuz Shah became the sultan in November 1397. Firuz Shah fought against the Vijayanagara Empire on many occasions and the rivalry between the two dynasties continued unabated throughout his reign, with victories in 1398 and in 1406, but a defeat in 1417. One of his victories resulted in his marriage to the daughter of Deva Raya, the Vijayanagara Emperor.