Al Hind

the name currently employed in Arabic for the Indian sub-continent. The current names in Persian were Hindūstān, Hindistān, “land of the Hindūs” [q.v.], whence Ottoman Turkish Hindistān. The present article comprises the following sections:

i.— the geography of india according to the mediaeval muslim geographers.

(a) The term “ Hind” : The Muslim geographers of the mediaeval period generally used the term “Hind” to denote regions east of the Indus. It was also applied to practically all the countries of South-East Asia, when used imprecisely in such phrases as ‘the Kings of Hind’, or ‘the lands of Hind’, which included not only India but also Indonesia, Malaya, etc. The term ‘Sind’ as used by them referred to Sind, Makran, Baluchistan, portions of the Panjab and the North-West Frontier Province. Thus no single term covered the whole of India. Only ‘Hind’ and ‘Sind’ used together denoted the whole of mediaeval India. The geographical accounts of India in Arabic and Persian literature are therefore covered under two separate headings, namely, ‘Sind’ and ‘Hind’.

(b) Geographical position, boundaries and area: Muslim geographers, following Claudius Ptolemy, divided the inhabited quarter of the earth ( al-rubʿ al-maskūn ) into seven climes, each running parallel to the equator from east to west, and covering the area north of the equator up to the Island of Thule as described by Ptolemy. India was usually placed between the first and the third climes. In the Iranian system of climes, which divided the ‘inhabited world’ into kis̲h̲war s by drawing seven circles of equal size and placing six of these around the fourth in such a way that they touched each other, India was placed in the second kis̲h̲war (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , i, 181). Although the Muslim geographers were acquainted with the Greek division of the land-mass into three continents: Asia ( Āsiyā ), Europe ( Urūfa ) and Africa ( Lūbiyā ), they did not use it much. Al-Bīrūnī, however, describes India as part of “the northern continent” (meaning thereby Asia) and bordering on the ‘Great Ocean’ (al-Baḥr al-Aʿẓam , the Indian Ocean) (A.I. [for this abbreviation and others employed in this article, see Bibl .], i, 197; Ṣifa , 5). His image of India was of a plain surrounded on three sides (north, west and east) by lofty mountains forming a part of the long range of mountains that extended from China in the east and crossed the whole of Asia and Europe latitudinally, reaching as far as the lands of the Franks and the Galicians. India was placed to the south of this long range and the waters (rivers) of this range flowed down through the Indian plains (A.I., i, 198). Al-Bīrūnī was the only Muslim geographer who conceived of India as having been a sea in the geological period and perhaps the first scientist to present this concept. He arrived at this conclusion by observing the different types of stones, round and big, near the mountains (of the north) and both above and under the surface of the earth, but becoming smaller further away and finally getting pulverized into sand near the mouths of the large rivers and near the sea. He says, “... if you consider all this, you could scarcely help thinking that India has once been a sea which by degrees has been filled up by the alluvium of the streams” (op. cit., i, 198).

Again, according to the Muslim geographers and navigators India lay on the great mediaeval sea-route between the Persian Gulf and China. The Arab navigators of the early Middle Ages divided, for navigational convenience, the seas lying along this route into ‘the seven seas’. These were: (1) Baḥr Fārs (the Persian Gulf); (2) Baḥr al-Lārwī (after the ancient name of Gujarat, Lār [ Larike of Ptolemy ], from Sanskrit Lāṭa , see Sauvaget, Ak̲h̲bār , 35, note 4.3); this was the portion of the Arabian Sea stretching between Oman and the Laccadives; (3) Baḥr Harkand (Bay of Bengal, from Sanskrit Harketiya representing Eastern Bengal; kand may be due to the influence of the Iraniankand meaning ‘town’; in M. Filliozat’s view it may have some relation with the Tamil word arikandam , one of the nine divisions of the world as regarded by the Indians, see Sauvaget, Ak̲h̲bār, 35, note 4.2); (4) Baḥr Kalah (the Strait of Malacca; Salahat , from Malay selat , salat , meaning ‘strait’, see Ak̲h̲bār, 4); (5) Baḥr Kardand̲j̲ (Panduranga?); (6) Baḥr Ṣanf (the Sea of Champa; the Kingdom of Champa lay between the sea and the mountain all along the eastern coast of Indo-China, see Ak̲h̲bār, 44-5); (7) Baḥr al-Ṣīn (the Sea of China).

(c) Maps of India: Muslim geographer-cartographers like al-K̲h̲uwārizmī [q.v.] and al-Idrīsī [q.v.], ¶ who followed Ptolemy in their world cartography, committed grave mistakes in incorporating their contemporary data in the framework of maps that were conceived and drawn by Marinos and Ptolemy a thousand years earlier. Ptolemy’s maps of India erred in depicting wrong courses of the rivers, e.g., the Ganges flowed south instead of east and discharged itself into the Arabian Sea at the south-western coast; peninsular India was shown much smaller than its actual size, and Ceylon was highly exaggerated. These and other defects of the Ptolemaic charts were handed down to the Muslim cartographers, who did not try to improve upon them. Thus, the configuration of India is confused on the maps of al-K̲h̲uwārizmī (his sectional maps of the world have recently been reconstructed by S. Razia Jafri, of Aligarh Muslim University, on the basis of the latitudes and longitudes given by him in his workKitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ ) as well as on those of al-Idrīsī. The geographer-cartographers of the Balk̲h̲ī School of geography, like al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal [qq.v.], who probably followed some ancient Iranian traditions of cartography, likewise do not show peninsular India on their world maps. Their regional maps of Sind are useful, but one does not get any idea of the shape of the country from these maps. Al-Bīrūnī’s description of south India, when represented on paper, does result in the shape of a peninsula but not quite as large as it actually is. His ‘map of the seas’ also shows the peninsula in a limited way.

(d) Boundaries and area: For the Merchant Sulaymān, India was more extensive than China, in fact twice its size (Ak̲h̲bār, 26; cf. Ibn al-Faḳīh, 14), and according to al-Yaʿḳūbī, India extended from the region of China in the east up to Daybul in Sind, and from ʿIrāḳ up to the Arabian Sea and Ḥid̲j̲āz (i, 93). Al-Masʿūdī [q.v.] describes India as a vast country comprising land, water and mountainous regions. The limits of India, according to him, extended up to ‘the kingdom of the Maharād̲j̲’ (Sumatra) in one direction and adjoined K̲h̲urāsān. Sind and Tibet in the other. Sind was the borderland between ‘the kingdom of Islam and Hind’ (Murūd̲j̲, i, 162-3, 349); its boundaries are described as follows: the Ocean in the east, the Arabian Sea (in the west), Daybul (to the south) and the regions adjacent to China in the north ( Tanbīh , 32). Al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī gives the measurement of India’s length from Makrān, across Kannawd̲j̲ up to Tibet as being about four months’ journey, and its width, from the Sea of Fārs across Kannawd̲j̲, as being about three months’ journey (cf. Ibn Ḥawḳal, Ṣūra , 16). As for its boundaries, to the east lay the Sea of Fārs, to its west and south ‘the Kingdom of Islam’ and to its north, China. Tibet, according to this author, lay between China and India, (the land of) the K̲h̲arluk̲h̲s and the Tog̲h̲uzg̲h̲uzz and the Sea of Fārs. Part of it was in India and part in China (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 16, 19). Sind, according to al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, included Makrān, Ṭūrān and al-Budha. To the whole of its east lay the Sea of Fārs and to its west Kirmān, the desert of Sid̲j̲istān and its districts. To its north lay the country of al-Hind and to its south a desert stretching between Makrān and al-Ḳufṣ, on the rear side of which lay the Sea of Fārs. The Sea of Fārs encircled these lands on the eastern side and to the south of this desert, because the sea stretched from Ṣaymūr (Chaul, in the Kolaba district of Bombay) towards the east roughly up to Tīz of Makrān; then it turned round this desert until it formed an area around Kirmān and Fārs (Jafri, 7). Exactly the same boundaries of ¶ Sind are given by Ibn Ḥawḳal (Jafri, 11), who included in India, Sind, Ḳas̲h̲mīr and a portion of Tibet ( Ṣūra , 9). Describing India’s boundaries, he says that to its east lay the Sea of Fārs, to its west and south K̲h̲urāsān and to its north China (Ṣūra, 11). According to him parts of Tibet lay in India and parts in China (Ṣūra, 15).

An exaggerated account of India’s limits and boundaries is, however, found in Marvazī who says: “Their lands are numerous, with extensive areas, and the outlying parts of them are far-flung, stretching as they do down to the limit of habitation where cultivation and procreation cease and the existence of animals comes to an end” (Marvazī, 39). The anonymous author of Ḥudūd al-ʿālam gives the following boundaries of Hindustan: east of it lay the countries of China and Tibet; south of it, the Great Sea, west of it the river Mihrān (Indus); north of it, the country of S̲h̲aknān and some parts of Tibet (Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, 86); and the boundaries of Sind given by him are: east of it is the river Mihrān; south of it, the Great Sea; west of it, the province of Kirmān; north of it a desert adjacent to the Marches of K̲h̲urāsān (Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, 122).

The apparent disparity between al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal on the one hand and the author of Ḥudūd al-ʿālam on the other as noticed in the above accounts with regard to the boundaries of India, is not actual but due only to a difference in the way of looking at the maps used or drawn by them. Generally speaking, if the maps and the descriptions are read correctly, the Sea of Fārs or the Great Sea (Indian Ocean) lies to the south of India; China and Tibet to the north and east; Kirmān, Sid̲j̲istān, K̲h̲urāsān. etc. to the west; and the relative positions of Sind and Hind are correct. Again, according to the reckoning of al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal, the length of India from the borders of Makrān up to Tibet would be about 3600 Arabian miles or 3840 geographical miles (counting 1 day’s journey to be an average of 30 Arabian miles). Similarly, the width of India from the Indian Ocean (Sea of Fārs) across Kannawd̲j̲ would be about 2700 Arabian miles or 2880 geographical miles.

(e) Regions: The western, north-western, southern and eastern regions of India were thoroughly surveyed by the early Muslim geographers and travellers both for political and for commercial reasons. Among the early writers Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, the Merchant Sulaymān, al-Balād̲h̲urī, al-Masʿūdī, al-Yaʿḳūbī, Ḳudāma b. Ḏj̲aʿfar, Ibn Rusta, Ibn al-Faḳīh, al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī. Ibn Ḥawkal, al-Muḳaddasī, al-K̲h̲uwārizmī and al-Idrīsī give topographical accounts of western and southern India. Of these, those of al-Balād̲h̲urī, al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī. Ibn Ḥawḳal and al-Muḳaddasī are of special importance with regard to Sind and the Panjab. They not only furnish us with information on important cities and towns of these regions, but give distances and describe roads; their maps of these regions are of great value. The majority of the later Muslim writers seemed to have borrowed from them. The itineraries given by al-Bīrūnī cover a wider region of India and some new areas not mentioned by the Muslim writers up to his time. Al-Bīrūnī was critical of the Indian method of measuring distances; so he uses the farsak̲h̲ for his measurements. The Arab geographers also used the (Arabian) mile in their topographical accounts. Al-Bīrūnī gives the distances between important towns and ports of India and gives an approximate idea of the coastal regions by naming the important ports. From his topography one can get a sufficiently clear ¶ idea of the road-systems of India of this period. His information covers practically the whole of northern and central India as well as the western and eastern regions and parts of southern India. Moreover, his account is original and covers for the first time a detailed account of Kashmir. From the accounts of the Muslim geographers some idea about the regions of the country may be formed. Roughly speaking the following regions are described by them: (1) Sind, covering the region between Daybul, al-Manṣūra and Mūltān, including the lower course of the Indus; (2) Ṭūrān (covering parts of Baluchistan); (3) Makrān (along the coast of Sind and Baluchistan; (4) al-Ḳas̲h̲mīr al-suflā or al-Ḳas̲h̲mīr al-k̲h̲ārid̲j̲a (the Panjab and the Himachal Pradesh); (5) D̲j̲azīrat al-Mayd̲h̲ and Kač or Kis̲h̲ (Kachh and Kathiawar); (6) ‘the land of al-D̲j̲urz or D̲j̲azarāt or Lāra-deśa’ (Gujarat and parts of Rajasthan); (7) Mālwā (central India); (8) al-Kumkam (Konkan, Maharashtra); (9) Malībār or Manībār (Kerala); (10) Kanara (Kanada); (11) al-Ag̲h̲bāb or al-Ak̲h̲wār (the region facing Ceylon on the Indian coast); (12) al-Maʿbar (the Coromandal Coast, Madras); (13) Ūrīsīn or Uwarihār (Orissa); (14) Bankala (Bengal); Kāmrū or Ḳāmarūb (Kamarupa, Assam); (15) Gangāsāyara (mouth of the Ganges); (16) Assam; (17) Naypāl (Nepal); (18) ‘the mountains of sulphur’ or Himāmanta (the Himalayan ranges); (19) Ḳas̲h̲mīr al-dāk̲h̲ila or al-Ḳas̲h̲mīr al-ʿulyā (Kashmir Valley); and (20) ‘the country of Kanōd̲j̲ or ‘al-Ḳinnawd̲j̲’, or ‘Madhyadeśa’. It was so called because it was the centre of India from the geographical point of view in that it lay halfway between the sea (Indian Ocean) and the mountains (the Himalayas), and was in the middle of the hot and the cold provinces and also between the eastern and the western frontiers of India (A.I., i, 198).

(f) Ports and towns: Some of the important ports on the western coast of India with which the Arab navigators were acquainted and which are described by Arab geographers and travellers in their accounts are: Daybul (mediaeval main port of Sind, near modern Karachi), Barūd̲j̲ or Barūṣ (Broach), Sindān (Sand̲j̲ān, 50 miles north of Thana, Bombay), Sūbāra (Sopara, near Bassein, in the Thana district of Bombay), Tāna (Thana), Ṣaymūr (modern Chaul, in the Kolaba district of Bombay), Sindābūr (the Island and the bay of Goa, cf. Gibb, Ibn Battúta , 363-4; but Nainar identifies it with Shadāshivagad (Nainar, 74)), Hannaur (Honavar), Mand̲j̲arōr (Mangalore), Hīlī (the name of the mediaeval kingdom, Ili or Eli, has left a trace in Mount Delly. The mediaeval port is probably now represented by the village of Nileshwar, a few miles north of the promontory, cf. Gibb, Ibn Battúta, 364), Fandarayna (identified with Panderani by Gibb, Ibn Battúta, 234; with Pantalayini, Pantalayini Kollam, north of Quilandi, by Nainar, 35), Kūlam Malay (Quilon, Malabar).

The main sea-ports of the east coast of India described by the Muslim geographers are: Ballīn (probably Negapatam; it was from here that the Arab sea-route to the east bifurcated. Arab boats lay at anchor here for some months; then, those bound for China sailed straight to the Nicobar Islands, and others, going to Bengal and Assam, sailed north), Kand̲j̲a (Conjeevaram) and Samundar/Sumundar (an important mediaeval Indian port visited by the Arabs. V. Minorsky places it south of Baruva and north of Ganjam, see Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, 241. However, the more probable identification is with the Sunur ¶ Kāwān (Sonargaon) of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, see Gibb, Ibn Battúta , 271).

The Coromandal Coast was called al-Maʿbar (‘the place of crossing’) because it was from here that the boats of the Arabs sailed or crossed over from India to China, probably at the port of ‘Ballīn’.

The number of inland cities and towns described by Arab writers is too large to be mentioned here fully. We may, however, enumerate some of the more important towns: Manṣūra/Manṣūriyya (the Arab capital of Sind; ruins of the town 47 miles to the north-east of Ḥaydarabād, Sind), Nīrūn (at the site of the present Ḥaydarābād, Sind), Multān, Ḳannawd̲j̲, Nahrwāra/Anhalwāra (Patan, Gujarat), Asāwal (Āśāpalli, near Ahmedabad, Gujarat), Kanbāya (Cambay) and Mālwā (Mandu or Ud̲j̲d̲j̲ain); then, Tanjore, Rāmēs̲h̲ar (Rameshwaram), Mandarībīn (Mandūrpattan, Mandapam), Somnāt (Somnath), Dhār, Uzayn (Ud̲j̲d̲j̲ayn), Mēg̲h̲ār (Mewar), Mahūra (Mathura), Kāland̲j̲ar, Kwālīr (Gwalior), Kad̲j̲ūrāha (Khad̲j̲ūrāho), Ad̲j̲ūdha (Ad̲j̲udhya), Bānārasī (Varanası), Bātlīputra (Patna), Munkērī (Monghyr), Ḳuzdār (Khozdar), Arūr (Rohri), Parāswar (Peshawar), D̲j̲ēylam (Jehlum), Sālkūt (Sialkot), Rad̲j̲kīrī (Rad̲j̲giri), Sunnām, Mīrat (Merut), Tānēs̲h̲ar (Thanesar) and Ad̲h̲istān (Srinagar); then Uwarīhār (Uriyadēśa), Prayāk (Allahabad), and Vayhind (Ohind, which lay between the Indus and the Kabul river, just above their confluence, Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , 253-4); then, Dillī (Delhi), Dawlatābād the proposed capital of Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ (Gibb, Ibn Battúta, 204), Hansī, Sūdkāwān (Satgaon), Sunurkāwān (Sonargaon), Koel (old Aligarh) and Maitra (Madura).

(g) Islands: The word d̲j̲azīra was used by the Muslim geographers both for an ‘island’ and a ‘peninsula’. Thus, al-Mayd̲h̲ (Kathiawar), Kūlam Malay (Quilon), etc. are described by some as ‘islands’. Among the islands of India, the Maldives ( al-Dībad̲j̲āt ) (meaning ‘the Islands’ from Sanskrit Diva with the Perso-Arabic plural termination -ad̲j̲āt), the Andaman and the Nicobar ( Lankabālūs ) islands are described in great detail. The Maldives were famous for boat-building activities and for the craftsmanship of their artisans. These islands were ruled by a queen who along with her husband lived on the Island called Anb.riya (probably Ptolemy’s Eiréné , see al-Idrīsī, India, 24 and [comm.] 114).

Arab merchant boats on the way to China also called at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The inhabitants of the former are described by Sulaymān as cannibals, having curly hair, ugly faces and long legs and those of the latter as being white in colour and having scanty beards ( Ak̲h̲bār , 5, 8).

(h) Climate, Soil and Crops: On the basis of the information provided by the Muslim geographers one can form a rough idea of the climatic conditions, the soil and other topics relating to physical geography. The climate of India is generally described as hot and some geographers compare it to that of Ethiopia and describe the common features between them. Al-Bīrūnī describes the Hindu division of the year (A.I., i, 357-8): the people of Kathiawar divided the year into three parts; 1. Vars̲h̲akāla , beginning with the month of Ās̲h̲āḍha ; 2. Śitakāla (i.e., the winter); and 3. Us̲h̲nakāla (i.e., the summer). But his actual description of the climatic conditions ‘seems to pertain mainly to northern India. He says, ‘the rains are the more copious and last the longer the more northward the situation of a province of India is, and the less it is intersected by ranges of mountains”. Multān had no rains but in Bhātal and¶ Indravēdi (Antarvedi, the old name of the lower Doab, extending from about Etawah to Allahabad, op. cit., annotation, 321) it rained for four months heavily and incessantly, beginning from Ās̲h̲āḍha, as though buckets full of water were being poured out. Around the mountains of Kashmir up to the peak of D̲j̲ūdarī it rained heavily for two and a half months, beginning with Śravaṇa; on the other side of this peak, there were no rains. Hence, Kashmir had no vars̲h̲akāla but continuous snowfall during two and a half months, beginning with Māgha, and shortly after the middle Chaitra continuous rains set in for a few days, melting the snow and cleaning the earth. This rule, he says, has an exception; however, a certain amount of extraordinary meteorological occurrance was peculiar to every province of India (op. cit., i, 211-2). The rainy season was considered to be the most important season of India by almost all Muslim geographers. Sulaymān describes the rains as being very heavy (Ak̲h̲bār, 26).

The soil of India is usually spoken of very highly by the Muslim geographers. Passages relating to cultivated lands and agriculture are also found in their writings, as are those pertaining to waste-lands, mountainous regions and deserts.

Seasonal crops are also described by Muslim geographers. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, describing those of northern India, mentions the following as the grains of the k̲h̲arīf crop: al-kud̲h̲rū (a kind of millet) in abundance; al-s̲h̲āmāk̲h̲ ,Panicum frumentaceum, (called to-day sāṅwā or sāṅwāṅ in the eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh, and sāṅwak in its western districts and in Panjab); it was cooked with buffalo milk and formed the food of ‘the good and poor people’; al-mās̲h̲ (Indian peas); al-mūṅd̲j̲ (moong); lūbyā (haricots); al-mūt (mooth); and barley. The grains of therabiʿ crop were: wheat, chick-peas and lentils. Rice had three crops in the year and India produced a type with large grains. Sesame and sugar-cane were cultivated in the k̲h̲arīf season. Referring to the food of the people of Nahrwāra (Patan, Gujarat) al-Idrīsī says that it consisted of rice, chick-peas, beans, haricots, lentils, Indian peas, fish and animals that died a natural death (al-Idrīsī, India, 60-1).

(i) Mountain ranges: Not all the Muslim geographers had an overall view of the mountain ranges of India, though many of them describe ranges that they knew either through first-hand knowledge (which was very rare) or through earlier original sources. The Himalayas, the mountains of Kashmir, the Kamarupa Mountains ( Ḳāmarūn), the ranges of the Western Ghats, the hills of Kathiawar (Girnar Hills, Marvazī , 43), the mountains of Thana (Tāna ) and a few other mountain ranges of India were known to many, but few go into the details of these ranges or describe their exact locations or directions. A very early attempt, though based on Ptolemy’s account, was made by al-K̲h̲uwārizmī. who gives the geographical positions of many of the Indian ranges (see Ṣūrat al-arḍ ). Following the same Ptolemaic system and sources, al-Idrīsī also gives the Ptolemaic names of some of the Indian mountains (e.g., Ūndiran, Gr. Ouindion = Vindhya Mountains) and adds some additional ones known to the Arabs.

A clear picture of India’s mountain ranges is, however, presented by al-Bīrūnī and by the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam. Al-Bīrūnī describes mainly the mountains of the north, north-west and the north-east. Describing the Himāvanta. (Himalaya) he says that the mountains formed the boundaries (north, north-west and east) of India. In the middle of the snowy ¶ Himāvanta lay Kashmir, and they were connected with the country of the Turks. “The mountain region becomes colder and colder till the end of the inhabitable world and Mount Meru” (A.I., i, 258). Al-Bīrūnī conceived of the Himalayas as extending longitudinally; the rivers that arose on their northern side flowed into the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea, the Black Sea or the Baltic, whereas those that arose on the southern slopes passed through India and some flowed into ‘the great ocean’ (Indian Ocean), either singly or jointly (op. cit., i, 258). The mountains of Kāmrū (Kamarup, Assam), according to him, stretched as far as the sea (i, 281). He also describes some Tibetan ranges, on the authority of a certain traveller. From Bhōteshar ( bhauṭṭa-īśvara , lord of the bhauṭṭa s, or Tibetans, A.I., annotations, i, 318) to “the top of the highest peak is 20 farsak̲h̲ . From, the height of this mountain, India appears as a black expanse below the mist, the mountains lying below this peak like small hills, and Tibet and China appear as red. The descent towards Tibet and China is less than one farsak̲h̲” (op. cit., i, 201-2). He describes Kashmir as being surrounded by “high and inaccessible mountains” (i, 206). Kulārd̲j̲ak mountain is described as a cupola, and here the snow never melted (i, 207-8). The D̲j̲ūdarī peak was situated between Dunpūr and Barshāwar (i, 211). The author of Ḥudūd al-ʿālam conceived of the Central Indian ranges as “starting from the western coast of India, stretching eastwards and then splitting into two so that its outer ramification... comprises the Himalaya, Karakorum, Pamir and the ranges north of the Oxus, while the inner ramification... comprises the part of the Himalaya immediately north of Kashmir which is then connected with the Hindu Kush &c.” (Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, commentary, 196).

(j) Rivers: Of the rivers of India, the best known to the Muslim geographers were those of the north and north-west. References are, however, found to the rivers of the eastern and the south-eastern regions. Al-Bīrūnī conceived of the rivers of India as rising either from “the cold mountains in the north or from the eastern mountains, both of which in reality form one and the same chain, extending towards the east until they reach the great ocean, where parts of it penetrate into the sea at the place called the Dike of Râma” (A.I., i, 258).

The Indus and its tributaries and the rivers of the Panjab are the best described, and many details pertaining to their sources and courses can be found in the works of the Muslim geographers. According to al-Bīrūnī the river Ghorvand fell into the river Sindh (Indus) near Gandhāra (Ohind); the rivers Biyatta, known as D̲j̲aylam (Jhelam), the Candarâha, the Biyâh (Beas), the Irâva, and the S̲h̲atladar (Satlej) all united below Multan at a place called Pañcanada and formed an enormous watercourse. After it passed Aror as a united stream, the Muslims called it Mihrân (Indus); see A.I., i, 259-60 and cf. al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , i, 278, who says that it was called Mihrān after it passed (to the south) the town of S̲h̲ākira. The earliest reference to the Mihrān is found in Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih (62, 173-4) and al-K̲h̲uwārizmī ( Ṣūrat al-arḍ , 131) who describes ‘the Lesser Mihrān’ ( Mihrān al-Ṣag̲h̲īr ) and ‘the Greater Mihrān’ ( Mihrān al-Kabīr ), of which the former seems to stand for the Narmada and the latter for the Indus (see also Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, 72, 196, 198, 210, 236). The mouth of the river, according to the Muslim geographers, was divided between two points, one near Lohrânî (near Karachi) and the other in Kachh (A.I., i, 260). The river has since ¶ changed its course. Again, al-Manṣūra (the Arab capital of Sind) was encircled by a branch of the Mihrān, forming an island. But this branch of the Indus no longer exists today. A branch of the Ravi, according to these writers, flowed past Multan.

The Ganges (variously described as Ḏj̲and̲j̲is , or Kank ) was the second best known river to these writers. It was well-known as the sacred river of the Hindus, where they practised self-immolation and other religious rites. According to al-Bīrūnī it arose in a place called Gaṅgâdvâra and flowed into the sea at a place called Gaṅgâsâyara (Gaṅga-sagar) (A.I., i, 199-201). Those Arab geographers who followed the Ptolemaic description of the Ganges, like al-K̲h̲uwārizmī and al-Idrīsī, depict this river on their maps as flowing south (!) instead of following its true eastern course. Again, some Muslim geographers do not distinguish between the Yamuna and the Ganges, thus causing great confusion and misplacement of the towns along its banks. But al-Bīrūnī calls the Yamuna “Ḏj̲awn” (A.I., i, 261).

Besides these two main river-systems, among the other large rivers of India described by the Muslim geographers are: the Narmada, Sarsutī (A.I., ii, 105); the Godavari ( Kūdāfarīd ); the lower course of the Brahmaputra; the Meghna, called “the Blue river” by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (Gibb, Ibn Battúta , 271); a Nahr al-Ṭīb is also mentioned by some (al-Idrīsī, India, 111-2, tentatively identified by me with the Godavari or the Kistna). There are many other smaller rivers and rivulets described by them, the details of which it is not possible to give here.

(k) Flora: Among fruits, the citron is specially described (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲, ii, 438). According to Ibn Baṭṭūṭa sweet oranges were found in abundance in India, but the sour variety was rare. There was a third variety with a taste between sweet and sour and about the size of a citron ( al-līm ) (Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, iii, 128). Jack-fruit (Ar.: al-s̲h̲akī wa ’l-barkī , Malayalam: chakka; Hindi: kaṭhal ) is mentioned (al-Idrīsī, India, 34; Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, iii, 127). Mango (Ar.:al-ʿanbā , Hindi: ām ; Marathi: amba ) and the condiments prepared from it are described in detail (al-Idrīsī, India, 34, 35; Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, iii, 125-6; Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 173; Ibn Ḥawḳal, 320; al-Muḳaddasī,482). It is compared with peach in taste.Mahuwā ( Bassia latifolia or longifolia ) was, according to Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (iii, 129), found in abundance in Delhi and some other parts of India. Jāman (Ar.: al-yamūna , Eugenia jambolana) is described by many Arab geographers (Iṣṭak̲h̲rī. 173; Ibn Ḥawḳal, 320; al-Muḳaddasī, 482; al-Idrīsī, India, 42; Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, iii, 128). Figs and grapes were rare in India according to the Arab writers. Among some fruits mentioned by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (iii, 125-9) are tēndū ( tenda isDiospyros ebenum or glutinosa ); kasīrā ( kaseru is a fibrous root eaten as a fruit, Scirpuskysoor , see Fr. tr. at iii, 129). Al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī (Spies, 49) describes several fruits: sugar-cane, bananas, date-palms, peaches, mulberries, jujube, quince, pears, apples, and green and yellow melons. Sugar-cane ( ḳaṣb al-sukkar) is usually described by the writers on Sind and Makrān, where sugar-candy (Ar.: al-fānīd̲h̲ , Sanskrit: phāṇiṭa ) was manufactured from it in abundance.

Of the plants and woods, bamboo ( al-ḳasḅ or k̲h̲ayzurān ) is described as growing in abundance in the mountains of Thana (Maharashtra), see al-Idrīsī, India, 62-3; the plant whose bark was used by the ancient Indians as paper is called by al-Masʿūdī kād̲h̲ī (Murūd̲j̲, ii, 202), but al-Bīrūnī gives the correct spelling, tārī ( tāṛ , Borassusflabelliformis), ¶ A.I., i, 171. This was not the same as bhojpattarbark which came from a tree said to be a kind of birch ( Betula bhojpatra) used in making ḥuḳḳa -snakes (Shakespeare, s.v.).

The betel leaf (Ar.: tanbūl , Hindi: pān ; leaf of Piper bettle) was according to al-Masʿūdī ( Murūd̲j̲ , ii, 84) very popular with the Arabs of Yemen and Ḥid̲j̲āz, and especially in Mecca. The coconut tree and the pepperplant (al-filfil) are described by many. Al-baḳḳam (Brazil-wood, Caesalpinia sappan) was found in abundance in south India (al-Idrīsī, India, 63-4). Indian cotton is described as being superior to that grown in Baghdad (al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Spies, 93). Aloes-wood ( al-ʿūd ) grew in abundance in the mountains of Kamarup (Assam) (al-Idrīsī, India, 64) and the Indian variety is described as the best in the world. It was called Bankālī (of Bengal) and Samandarūk (of Samundar, see above), see al-Bīrūnī, Ṣifa , 128. The banyan tree is mentioned by many writers (see al-Masʿūdī,Murūd̲j̲, ii, 81-3).

A variety of vegetables and aromatic plants are mentioned, e.g., cucumber, pumpkin, egg-plant, turnip, carrot, asparagus, ginger, onion, garlic, fennel, thyme, cardamom, tamarind (Ar.: t̲h̲amar hindī , ‘the Indian fruit’, Hindi:ʾimlī ), etc. (see al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Spies, 49-50).

Of the flowers, rose, nenuphar, violet, narcissus, jasmine and the blossom of henna, etc., are mentioned (al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Spies, 50).

(1) Fauna: A variety of Indian wild and domestic animals are mentioned, but the elephant occupies the most Important place in the geographical accounts for its various qualities and its great size (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 67; al-Idrīsī, India, 36; Ibn Rusta, 134; Marvazī , 46-7; Buzurg b. S̲h̲ahriyār, ʿAd̲j̲āʾib , 163-5; al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲, iii, 11-26). The Indian rhinoceros (al-karkaddan) is also described for its commercial value. Its horn was a very precious commodity used for making ornaments, etc. Strange stories connected with it are also mentioned (see Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih. 67-8; al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲, i, 385-7; al-Idrīsī, India, 30-1). Among other animals, the two-humped camel of Sind (Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 176; Ibn Ḥawḳal, 323) and sharava (probably a wild boar) found in Konkan, Maharashtra (A.I., i, 203) are mentioned. Among the domestic animals, water-buffaloes, cows, goats and sheep, two types of horses (the Arabian and the pack-horse), mules and donkeys are mentioned (al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Spies, 47-8). Some fishes and water-animals are also mentioned, e.g., al-mīzara (probably the eels belonging to the moray family of the order of Apodes, al-Idrīsī, India, 72, 132), crocodiles, grahu (an Indian alligator or a shark?) and a fish calledburlū (al-Bīrūnī thought it was the dolphin, A.I., i, 204); another dangerous water animal, graha jalatantu ortanduwā , is described by al-Bīrūnī (A.I., i, 204); this may be the octopus.

Of the Indian birds, peacocks, pigeons, the domestic fowl, cranes, bulbul (probably the shrike, Lanius boulboul, see Shakespeare, s.v.) are mentioned.

(m) Commercial products: Of the commercial commodities of India, the Muslim geographers mention especially the cotton cloth of Bengal as early as the 3rd/9th century (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih. 67; Ak̲h̲bār , 13; Marvazī, 48). Shoes manufactured in Cambay, Indian swords, aloes-wood from Assam, diamonds from Kashmir, gold from Kamarup (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih. 67; Marvazī, 48), pearls from Thana (Bombay) (al-Idrīsī, India, 55), sugar-candy from Sind, are mentioned as commercial commodities.

 history

This article aims at being no more than a guide to the numerous articles on individual topics of the Muslim history of India and Pakistan to be found elsewhere , and to relate these to a chronological framework

Muslim history in the sub-continent begins with the Arab invasion and capture of Sind in 92-3/711-2, which thereby came under first the Umayyad and later the ʿAbbāsid caliphates; this period is, however, no more than a curtain-raiser, since caliphal authority ¶ was almost extinct by 257/871, although two Arab principalities in Sind endured for a little longer. 

Hindū rulers in the west and north-west of India were not slow to see the dangers to themselves in the establishment of an active Muslim state at G̲h̲azna in the 4th/10th century; the first conflict between Hindū and Muslim powers came when a ruler of the Pand̲j̲āb invaded the territory of the G̲h̲aznawid Sebüktigīn, but the balance of power was soon reversed and Sebüktigīn became the aggressor, compelling the cession of Kābul. Sebüktigīn’s empire was consolidated and extended by his successor Maḥmūd, who between 389/999 and 417/1027 entered India fifteen times on marauding raids, the chief towns plundered being Wahind, Mūltān, Nardīn (Tarāʾōrī), Thānesar, Baran, Mathurā, Kannawd̲j̲, Gwāliyar, Kālind̲j̲ar and Sōmnāth, although permanent occupation of the captured territories never seems to have entered his mind, and in consequence Islam was not established there; except in the Pand̲j̲āb which became the G̲h̲aznawids’ frontier province and in which, in Lāhawr (Lahore), they established their capital after losing G̲h̲azna to the G̲h̲ūrids. 

The G̲h̲aznawids’ successors, the G̲h̲ūrids, were the next pre-eminent Muslim power to harass India from the north-west, although at first the ruler of their eastern province, S̲h̲ihāb al-Din (later Muʿizz al-Dīn) Muḥammad b. Sām, merely continued the g̲h̲āzī tradition of Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna by making rapid local incursions: thus in 571/1175-6 he supplanted the Ismāʿīlī rulers of Mūltān by an orthodox governor, and later took the fortress of Uččh [q.v.]; in 574/1178-9 he marched through Mūltān and Uččh to Pāt́an in Gud̲j̲arāt, where his exhausted army was defeated. Sind and Daybul were acquired the next year, and in 582/1186-7 Lāhawr was finally added to the G̲h̲ūrids’ territories, this last conquest ending G̲h̲aznawid rule in India and placing the G̲h̲ūrids in a favourable strategic position for an assault on upper India. A G̲h̲ūrid army was defeated in 587/1191 at Tarāʾōrī [q.v.] by a Čawhān force under Prithvīrād̲j̲a, but a further G̲h̲ūrid army was successful at the same place in the following year and Hānsī and Dihlī (Delhi) [qq.v.] were occupied. Mīrat́h and Koyl (the modern ʿAlīgaŕh) [qq.v.] and the territory south-west as far as Ad̲j̲mēr [q.v.] soon capitulated to the invaders under their local commander Ḳuṭb al-Din Aybak, and Muʿizz al-Dīn returned in 592/1195-6 to take Bayānā. Thereafter affairs were left in Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Aybak’s hands, and he, after defeating attacks by local Hindū rulers, occupied Badāʾūn in 594/1197-8, Kannawd̲j̲ the following year, Gwāliyār in 597/1200-1 and Kālind̲j̲ar in 599/1202-3; he was appointed walī ʿahd-i Hindūstan by Muʿizz al-Dīn shortly before the latter’s death in 602/1206. The political rôle of the G̲h̲ūrids in India was still limited, and Aybak was more concerned after Muʿizz al-Dīn’s death with maintaining his position vis-à-vis Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn Yi̊ldi̊z, the G̲h̲ūrid governor in G̲h̲azna, than with extending, or even consolidating, the G̲h̲ūrid possessions in India; indeed, at this time certain local Hindū rulers were accepted as tributaries. But the G̲h̲ūrids nominally controlled wider possessions in India than those administered by Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Aybak, for two other local governors, who like Aybak¶ were Turkish slaves, were established in remoter provinces: Nāṣir al-Dīn Ḳabāča in Mūltān and Sind and Muḥammad b. Bak̲h̲tiyār K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī in Lakhnawtī in Bengal. At Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Aybak’s death in 607/710 he was succeeded by his son Ārām S̲h̲āh, but Aybak’s son-in-law Iletmis̲h̲ was set up at Dihlī by a group of army officers; after he had overcome initial opposition he was able to consolidate his Indian position to the extent of severing the political connexion with Afg̲h̲ānistān, where the K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āhs had supplanted the G̲h̲ūrids and in turn were being harassed by the Mongols under Čingiz K̲h̲ān, and by securing the main strategic points of north India. Under him Islamic government received a settled form in north India, and he may be regarded as the founder of the Dihlī sultanate. 

by his victory over Ḳabāča, Iletmis̲h̲ established his authority over Sind in 623/1226; he also recovered Bengal, where the successors of Muḥammad b. Bak̲h̲tiyār had for some time enjoyed virtual independence. He was succeeded in 634/1236 by his daughter, the only female ruler in Muslim India  and later by his third son Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd [q.v.] (644-64/1246-66), although in this reign de facto power was exercised by G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn Balban as nāʾib . The latter, who later succeeded as sultan, was engaged in ceaseless military activity to consolidate Dihlī as the principal power in north India against the local Hindū dynasties, especially those of Mēwāt; he suppressed an attempt at independence by the Bengal governor Tug̲h̲ril in ca. 680/1281-2; and had to maintain constant strong garrisons on his north-western frontiers, where skirmishes with the Mongols, although not a serious threat to India, were frequent. Sind, however, seems to have remained virtually independent under its local rulers, the Sūmrā dynasty, who gradually became converts to Islam. The so-called ‘House of Balban’ was never a real dynastic power in the Dihlī sultanate, although Balban was succeeded for a time by his grandson Muʿizz al-Dīn Kayḳubād (and theoretically by his great-grandson Kayūmart̲h̲), and his second son Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd Bug̲h̲ra K̲h̲ān. followed in turn by his son Rukn al-Dīn Kaykāʾūs, assumed the title of sultan in Bengal.

A coup by K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī Turk officers led to the establishment of the next dynasty of the Dihlī sultanate. D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn assumed the royal title in 689/1290, succeeded after six years by his nephew ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn, under whom the sultanate assumed an imperial character. Attacks by the Čag̲h̲atay Mongols were repulsed; Gud̲j̲arāt was conquered in 697/1298, several victories in Rād̲j̲āsthān subdued most of that area in the early 8th/14th century, the Yādava kingdom of Devagiri was taken in 707/1307, the Kākatīya kingdom of Tilingānā was laid under tribute two years later, and even the southern Pānd́ya kingdom was invaded and plundered. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn entered into matrimonial alliances with ¶ defeated Hindū rulers’ families, and was a shrewd administrator whose principal concern in this field was the regulation of prices. The K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī dynasty lasted only four years after his death; the last sultan, Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Mubārak, was assassinated by his favourite slave, a Hindū convert, who usurped the throne as Nāṣir al-Dīn K̲h̲usraw; a brother of the first sultan was, however, an ancestor of the K̲h̲ald̲j̲īs of Mālwā . For Bengal, where from about 696/1297 the province had been divided into an eastern and western part with capitals at Sonārgāwn and Lakhnawtī respectively and where Dihlī had not reasserted its suzerainty

With Islam threatened by the excesses of Nāṣir al-Dīn K̲h̲usraw, a d̲j̲ihād was declared against him by G̲h̲āzī Malik, the governor of Dīpalpur, who succeeded to the sultanate as G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn Tug̲h̲luḳ in 720/1320. An account of the events leading to the Tug̲h̲luḳ succession is given in g̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-dīn tug̲h̲luḳ i; see also nāṣir al-dīn k̲h̲usraw. Further military activity consolidated and expanded the territory of the sultanate: the Pāndya kingdom of Madurā (Maʿbar) was annexed, D̲j̲ād̲j̲nagar in Orissa (Uŕisā) invaded, and Bengal, then suffering from civil war, partly re-annexed;  Tug̲h̲luḳ’s son D̲j̲awna K̲h̲ān, entitled Ulug̲h̲ K̲h̲ān, who succeeded his father in 725/1325 as Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ, was the general who brought about this consolidation; yet after his accession his oppressive rule led to many rebellions, some of which resulted in a permanent loss of hegemony: Maʿbar (735/1334-5), Gulbargā (740/1339), Warangal (746/1345-6), and Dawlatābād, which he had earlier attempted to make a second capital, in 748/1347. This last loss led to the proclamation of an independent sultanate under ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Bahman S̲h̲āh in the Deccan. By the close of his reign (752/1351) Bengal was again independent  and the Sūmrā dynasty in Sind had been succeeded by the Sammās [q.v.].   Kas̲h̲mīr, where Islam had been introduced ca. 715/1315 by S̲h̲āh Mīr or Mīrzā, who later became the first Muslim ruler of the country,

Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ’s nephew Fīrūz S̲h̲āh (usually conveniently but inaccurately differentiated as Fīrūz S̲h̲āh Tug̲h̲luḳ) succeeded in 752/1351 to a reduced domain. He early led expeditions to restore the Dihlī hegemony over Bengal, in 754/1353-4 and 760/1359; but that province, reunited since 753/1352, retained its independence under Ilyās S̲h̲āh [q.v.] whose successors remained in power for another half-century. His prolonged expedition to Sind against the Sammās of T́hat́t́hā restored Dihlī’s suzerainty over Sind for a short time only, although in expeditions against Kāngŕā and It́āwā [qq.v.] he was more successful. His reign was generally peaceful and prosperous—particularly in the hindsight of historians writing after the Tīmūrid invasions of the end of the 8th/14th century—and he is remembered. ¶ as an innovator in agriculture and especially irrigation, a remitter of the harsher taxes (but as an upholder of the necessity of levying d̲j̲izya from Brāhmaṇs, and as a constant public builder; but he was mild to the extent of culpable leniency, and his delegation of authority to his subordinates eventually weakened the royal power. 

Some half-dozen kings of the Tug̲h̲luḳ line followed Fīrūz after his death in 790/1388, none (except the last: see below) for more than a year or two. The Dihlī sultanate was in a state of political disintegration, and many provincial muḳṭāʿ s achieved virtual independence at this time. Even before Fīrūz’s death the muḳṭāʿ Malik Rād̲j̲ā of Karwand near Thālnēr had been able to act independently of Dihlī after about 784/1382 ]. The Bahmanīs of the Deccan strengthened their independence and enlarged their dominions, the second sultan, who succeeded in 759/1358, bringing in careful and extensive administrative reforms . The constant skirmishing with the neighbouring Hindū kingdom of Vid̲j̲ayanagara flared up in 766/1365 in the first major battle between Hindūs and Deccani Muslims; accounts vary, but it seems that the boundaries drawn between the rival powers were more in Vid̲j̲ayanagara’s favour and that consequently the Bahmanīs cannot have had the better of the argument. Some five years later the Vid̲j̲ayanagara ruler extinguished the Muslim dynasty of the small southern sultanate of Madurā [q.v.]. In Mālwā [q.v.] the governor, Dilāwar K̲h̲ān, had failed to remit to Dihlī the revenue collections of the district since 795/1392, although he did not declare himself independent until 804/1401. In the eastern provinces of the sultanate, disaffected Hindūs were rejecting all obedience to Dihlī when the (Ḥabs̲h̲ī?) eunuch Malik Sarwar, K̲h̲wād̲j̲a D̲j̲ahān, was sent there in 796/1394 to control them; having done this he occupied Ḏj̲awnpur as sulṭan al-s̲h̲arḳ and there made himself independent of Dihlī. Disorder had similarly arisen in Gud̲j̲arāt, where Ẓafar K̲h̲ān had been sent by Dihlī in 793/1391 to establish the Tug̲h̲luḳ authority; he pacified the province, but remained there as a virtually independent ruler during the confused Tug̲h̲luḳ rivalries in the north; yet he did not assume the royal prerogatives until 810/1407 (although his son Tātār K̲h̲ān had had himself proclaimed king five years previously)

In 800/1398 Pīr Muḥammad, governor of Kābul and grandson of Tīmūr, attacked India, capturing Uččh and Mūltān [qq.v.]; the chiefs and nobles of Dīpālpur had also submitted to him, but later revolted and killed his governor. This seems to have been made a casus belli by Tīmūr in 801/1398-9: Dīpālpur and Bhat́ner, where the rebels had taken refuge, were sacked, and Tīmūr proceeded through Pānīpat to Dihlī, chastising the D̲j̲āt́s [q.v.] on the ¶ way: the sultan (Maḥmūd Tug̲h̲luḳ) fled, Dihlī was occupied, and was given up to pillage, plunder and wholesale massacre. On his withdrawal in the spring of that year, the Dihlī sultanate was left in virtual anarchy and moral, political and financial bankruptcy, although Maḥmūd Tug̲h̲luḳ had returned to his ‘capital city without an empire’ after the Tīmūrid armies had withdrawn; de facto authority seems, however, to have been exercised by Maḥmūd’s minister Mallū Iḳbāl K̲h̲ān [q.v.]. The Sayyid K̲h̲iḍr K̲h̲ān held Mūltān, Lāhawr, Dīpālpur and other localities as governor owing allegiance to Tīmūr or to his son S̲h̲āh Ruk̲h̲. In addition to the now fully independent Muslim states mentioned in the last paragraph, many minor Muslim governors had become more or less independent, and the local Hindū chieftains, particularly those of the Dōʾāb, had thrown off all pretence of recognizing the suzerainty of Dihlī. Maḥmūd Tug̲h̲luḳ’s military governor of the Dōʾāb, Dawlat K̲h̲ān Lōdī—who after the death of Mallū came to occupy the same position in the state as Mallū had—gained some small success in re-asserting the authority of Dihlī over the neighbouring states; he and K̲h̲iḍr K̲h̲ān were the chief contenders for power in the north, and after the death of Maḥmūd Tug̲h̲luḳ in 815/1412 or 1413 (the evidence on this point is conflicting) Dawlat K̲h̲ān was raised by the nobles to the Dihlī throne. In about 806/1404 Islam had suffered a setback in Bengal with the defeat of G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn Aʿẓam S̲h̲āh by Rād̲j̲ā Gaṇes̲h̲ of Dinād̲j̲pur; and this Hindū minister continued to wield power (and, according to some Muslim historians, persecuted Muslims; but their accounts are not well authenticated and may be tendentious) until his death in 818/1415. Apparently he never assumed the royal title; but a succession of minor Muslim kings were puppets in his hands. He was succeeded by his son, who had been converted to Islam as D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Muḥammad.

In the Bahmanī kingdom the fifth ruler, Muḥammad S̲h̲āh II [q.v.], a liberal and enlightened sultan, enjoyed a long reign (780-99/1378-97) undisturbed by foreign campaigns, and showed his administrative ability in his famine relief measures during 789-97/1387-95. On his death, one Tug̲h̲alčīn, chief of the Turkish slaves, seized power and installed a puppet ruler; but Fīrūz and Aḥmad, two grandsons of the first sultan, resenting the degradation to which the royal family was being subjected and being assured of support, rose to power; Fīrūz succeeded as the next sultan in 800/1397, his brother Aḥmad becoming Amīr al-Umarāʾ and K̲h̲ān-k̲h̲ānān. Fīrūz reorganised the administration, in which Brāhmaṇs came to be extensively employed—probably to balance the high proportion of influential ‘foreigners’ (Īrānīs and ʿIrāḳīs) whom previous sultans had favoured. He was three times involved against Vid̲j̲ayanagara (800/1398, 809/1407, 820-2/1418-20), possession of the Rāyčūr [q.v.] dōʾāb being the main point of contention; in 802/1399, after the foundation of the new city of Fīrūzābād on the river Bhīma, he was engaged against the Gond rād̲j̲ā of Kherlā [q.v.], and shortly afterwards against Tilingānā. About 803/1401 he is said to have sent an embassy to Tīmūr and to have obtained from him a brevet of sovereignty over the Deccan; this is not recorded by historians of ¶ Tīmūr’s reign, but its truth seems confirmed by the actions of other southern rulers: an understanding of mutual assistance between the rulers of Gud̲j̲arāt, Mālwā, K̲h̲āndes̲h̲ and Vid̲j̲ayanagara against the Bahmanī kingdom, and a demand from these rulers to Fīrūz to keep the peace. Fīrūz was able to maintain excellent relations with the Hindūs of the Deccan, taking wives from several prominent Hindū houses, not excluding Vid̲j̲ayanagara (being persuaded, although a Sunnī, to contract mutʿa alliances in this respect: S̲h̲ī ʿī doctrines were at this time penetrating the Deccan). Opposition to Fīrūz towards the end of his reign centred around the Čis̲h̲tī saint Gīsū Darāz [q.v.], who favoured his brother Aḥmad; and to the latter Fīrūz assigned the throne in 825/1422. 

In Dihlī the sultanate had fallen to K̲h̲iḍr K̲h̲ān in 817/1414, who, however, never assumed the royal title. He and his house, the so-called Sayyid dynasty, ruled Dihlī until 855/1451; their rule was never strong, and military force was always necessary for the mere collection of the revenues; their military expeditions were undertaken in attempts to maintain the small prestige remaining to the sultanate: e.g. 817/1414 Katahr [q.v.]; 818/1415-6 Nāgawr [q.v.], which was being approached by Aḥmad S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt; 821/1418 Badāʾūn; 823/1420 Mēwāt, Gwāliyar and It́āwā [qq.v.]; 826-32/1423-8 constant trouble with Bayānā; and unhappy relations with most of the neighbouring states. The sultanate was menaced by uprisings of disaffected Turkish nobles (the ‘Turkbaččas’), the Khōkars of the Pand̲j̲āb, and, in the 830s/1430s in the reign of Mubārak S̲h̲āh. Mug̲h̲als from Kābul; and the rulers of the new Muslim sultanates of western India and the Deccan had become strong enough to attack some of the possessions of the Dihlī sultanate, such as Gwāliyar by Hūs̲h̲ang of Mālwā in 826/1423, Kalpī in 834/1431 by Mālwā and Ibrāhīm S̲h̲arḳī of Ḏj̲awnpur simultaneously. During the reign of the third Sayyid, Muḥammad S̲h̲āh (838-49/1434-45), the governor of Sirhind, Malik Bahlūl Lōdī, gradually came to control the whole of the Pand̲j̲āb; Bahlūl defended the Sayyid kingdom in 844/1440-1 against the invasion of Maḥmūd K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī. of Mālwā, probably to keep Dihlī secure for himself; and the last Sayyid king, ʿĀlam S̲h̲āh, who had moved his court to Badāʾūn, voluntarily resigned the throne to Bahlūl in 855/1451.

In Mālwā, Dilāwar K̲h̲ān had been succeeded by his son Hūs̲h̲ang S̲h̲āh [q.v.] in 808/1405, who was accused of parricide and attacked and carried off by Muẓaffar S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt  he was reinstated in 811/1408, and thenceforth transferred his capital from Dhār to Mānd́ū [q.v.]. He invaded Gud̲j̲arāt several times in the early part of his reign, although when in 824/1421 Hūs̲h̲ang in search of elephants invaded Uŕisā his dominions were in turn invaded by Gud̲j̲arāt armies; in 831/1428 he supported the rād̲j̲ā of Kherlā [q.v.] against the Bahmanīs but was badly beaten by a Bahmanī army; in 834/1431 he attacked Kalpī [q.v.] at the same time as Ibrāhīm S̲h̲arḳī of Ḏj̲awnpur and, gaining possession of it, left a governor there, who, being at some distance from Mālwā, was soon able to assert a considerable degree of independence. On Hūs̲h̲ang’s death in 838/1435 [?] the barbaric rule of his eldest son ¶ Muḥammad S̲h̲āh caused Maḥmūd K̲h̲ān, a former general and counsellor of Hūs̲h̲ang and son of his minister Malik Mug̲h̲īt̲h̲ [q.v.], to remove Muḥammad and, Mug̲h̲īt̲h̲ having declined it, assume the throne as Maḥmūd S̲h̲āh K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī in 840/1436. In spite of an attempt by Aḥmad S̲h̲āh I of Gud̲j̲arāt to secure the throne for Masʿūd, a son of Muḥammad G̲h̲ūrī. Maḥmūd consolidated his position, and during his long reign (33 years) the Mālwā sultanate reached its greatest extent. He several times attacked Čitawr in Mēwār [q.v.]. eventually compelling its ruler, Rāṇā Kumbha, to acknowledge his suzerainty (858/1454); he exacted tribute from the rulers of minor Hindū states to the north of his dominions (Bundī, Kot́ā, Kumbhalgaŕh, etc.) and, while engaged in the conquest of Mandasor, ‘recovered from the idolaters’ the city of Ad̲j̲mēr [q.v.] (861/1457); disputes over Kalpī led to occasional war with the sultanate of Ḏj̲awnpur; he caused the k̲h̲uṭba to be read in his name in Bayānā; several times he invaded the Deccan to attack the domains of the Bahmanī minor Niẓām S̲h̲āh, once (865/1461) being utterly defeated, but able later to despoil Barār and to defend his outpost at Kherlā [q.v.]; and even Dihlī, as noticed above, was not safe from his ambition (844/1440-1). But he was a good Muslim and a great builder and patron of the arts, and in his time Mālwā acquired renown as a centre of learning. 

The Gud̲j̲arāt sultanate had, at much the same time, similarly profited by a long reign. Aḥmad I had succeeded his grandfather Muẓaffar I in 813/1410 and spent much of his reign in hostilities with neighbouring Rād̲j̲pūt princes, especially Īdar [q.v.], Čāmpānēr [q.v.] and D̲j̲ūnāgaŕh [q.v.], and with his Muslim neighbours; his interest in Mālwā has been described above, but he was also involved against K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ and the Bahmanīs. He founded the new capital of Aḥmadābād [q.v.] in 813/1411, Aḥmadnagar ca. 830/1427, and consolidated Islam throughout Sorat́h [although this town itself did not become a centre of Islamic propaganda until ca. 874/1470 in the reign of Maḥmūd], where Islam was already well established in the coastal towns He extended the Gud̲j̲arāt dominions southwards into the northern Konkan coast from 834/1431 by the capture of Thānā [q.v.] from the Bahmanīs . His strict but impartial justice, and through him the example of the religious teachers of Bat́wā and Sarkhed̲j̲ near Aḥmadābād, did much to establish the firm rule of Islamthroughout Gud̲j̲arāt in the early 9th/15th century. The policy of constant pressure on Gud̲j̲arāt’s Hindū neighbours was maintained under Muḥammad I (846-55/1442-51) and Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Aḥmad S̲h̲āh (855-62/1451-8), the latter having once entered into a Muslim alliance with Maḥmūd of Mālwā against Čitawr. With the accession of Maḥmūd I in 862/1458 Gud̲j̲arāt entered the period of its greatest prosperity

The small state of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲, where Malik Rād̲j̲ā (= Rād̲j̲ā Aḥmad) had been appointed to an iḳṭāʿ by Fīrūz S̲h̲āh and where he had established himself sufficiently to act independently of Dihlī since ca. 784/1382, early sought alliance with Mālwā through a royal marriage; but on the temporary division of the state between Malik Rād̲j̲ā’s two sons on his ¶ death in 801/1399 the elder brother, Naṣir, dissatisfied with lack of support from Mālwā against Aḥmad I of Gud̲j̲arāt who had intervened on behalf of the younger brother Ḥasan, had to recognize the over-lordship of Gud̲j̲arāt, 820/1417. A K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ attack on Nandurbār in 833/1429 provoked Gud̲j̲arāt reprisals, and an alliance with the Bahmanīs was sought by marriage: but when his daughter complained that her husband was neglecting her, Naṣīr K̲h̲ān invaded the Bahmanīs’ northern territories; however, his army was defeated and only the threatened assistance of Gud̲j̲arāt led to a Bahmanī withdrawal. ʿĀdil K̲h̲ān (d. 844/1441) and Mubārak K̲h̲ān (d. 861/1457) accepted Gud̲j̲arāt suzerainty, but in 904/1498 ʿĀdil K̲h̲ān II failed to pay tribute and was chastised by Maḥmūd Bēgŕā. After the death of ʿĀdil K̲h̲ān II in 907/1501 a disputed succession caused the intervention in K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ of the stronger neighbouring powers. None of the Fārūḳī rulers was recognized as equal by the sultans of Gud̲j̲arāt, Mālwā, Aḥmadnagar or the Deccan, and were known as K̲h̲ān rather than S̲h̲āh.

Bengal, where rival sultanates had been established in the late 7th/13th century at Lakhnawtī (capital later transferred to Pānd́uā) and Sonārgāwn, had been reunited about 753/1352 under Ilyās S̲h̲āh. and after Fīrūz S̲h̲āh Tug̲h̲luḳ’s vain attempts to recover the province (see above) was never again molested by Dihlī. The Ilyās S̲h̲āhī succession had degenerated into a number of puppet kings under the influence of the Hindū minister Rād̲j̲ā Gaṇes̲h̲ of Dinād̲j̲pur, and was terminated by the accession of Gaṇes̲h̲’s son the Muslim convert D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Muḥammad in 818/1415; his reign seems to have been a time of peace and prosperity for Bengal, to judge by the magnificence of the monuments and the evidence for the growth of sea-borne trade with China; and he has the rare distinction of receiving praise for his justice and equity from both Muslim and contemporary Hindū sources. There was, however, a continual threat to the western regions from the Ḏj̲awnpur sultans, and the existence of coins dated Śaka 1339-40 (= 819-20/1416-18) of Danud̲j̲a-mardana-deva and Mahendra-deva perhaps shows the temporary rise of local Hindū chiefs to power in regions away from the capital. He was succeeded by his son S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Aḥmad S̲h̲āh in 836/1432, in whose reign Bengal was invaded by Ibrāhīm S̲h̲arḳī of Ḏj̲awnpur. against whom Aḥmad S̲h̲āh sought help from Tīmūr’s son S̲h̲āh Ruk̲h̲. On his assassination a year later the Ilyās S̲h̲āhī dynasty was restored, and with the D̲j̲awnpur rulers continually engaged with the Dihlī sultans the removal of the western threat brought some peace; although Arakanese disturbances on the east led to the loss of Čāt́gām . However, the sultanate was extended south to Bāgerhāt́ and westward to Bhagalpur (now in Bihār). One of the many changes in the course of the river Ganges  caused the transfer of the capital from Pānd́uā back to Gawŕ-Lakhnawtī. In the reign of the second sultan of the restored dynasty, Rukn al-Dīn Bārbak (864-79/1459-74), the Ḥabs̲h̲ī [q.v.] slaves are first known to have become prominent, and it was they who finally superseded the Ilyās S̲h̲āhīs in 892/1486

Some of the incidents between the sultanate of ¶ Ḏj̲awnpur and its neighbours have been mentioned above. Its first ruler, Malik Sarwar, left at his death in 802/1399 a kingdom extending from Koyl (ʿAlīgaŕh) in the west to Tirhut and Bihār in the east. It early received tribute from the sultans of Bengal, for whom it obviously represented a buffer state between the Dihlī sultanate and themselves; but later, as its strength grew, it was all too often the aggressor against Bengal. The reign of Malik Sarwar’s adopted son and successor, Mubārak (802-4/1399-1402), was distinguished only by the last Tug̲h̲luḳ attempt to regain D̲j̲awnpur; but the long reign of Ibrāhīm (804-44/1402-40) established the S̲h̲arḳī sultanate as one of the major powers of northern India. His campaigns against his neighbours have been mentioned above; but his reign was distinguished by his patronage of art, letters, and religion, and by the great building activity in the capital. Ibrāhīm’s son Maḥmūd (844-61/1440-57) continued the indecisive hostilities with Mālwā and unsuccessfully besieged Dihlī in an attempt, inspired by malcontents in that city, to oust Bahlūl Lōdī in 856/1452; an uneasy peace resulted, for Bahlūl saw that Ḏj̲awnpur constituted a greater threat to the Dihlī sultanate than the petty campaigns in which he was involved in the Pand̲j̲āb. Maḥmūd seems to have had greater success against Čunār, south of Banāras, shortly after this, and Muslim historians credit him also with a successful incursion into Uŕisā. In 861/1457 he died and was succeeded by Muḥammad S̲h̲āh, whose initial successes against Bahlūl were wasted by disturbances in Ḏj̲awnpur provoked by his cruelties; he was killed in the following year and succeeded by his brother Ḥusayn. Ḥusayn overran Tirhut and successfully raided Uŕisā with the not uncommon aim of capturing elephants; his army was at that time possibly the strongest in India, and he made several attempts to take Dihlī, instigated by his wife, the daughter of ʿĀlam S̲h̲āh the last Sayyid king of Dihlī. He was finally decisively defeated by Bahlūl in early 884/spring 1479, and Dihlī annexed the Ḏj̲awnpur territories; Ḥusayn retired to Bihār, and in spite of fomenting dissensions between the Lōdī princes after the death of Bahlūl he never recovered his kingdom. 

Mūltān recognized the suzerainty of Dihlī until 847/1443-4; the first Sayyid king of Dihlī, K̲h̲iḍr K̲h̲ān, had in fact been appointed governor of Mūltān by Tīmūr, but under the weaker later Sayyids Mūltān was left without a governor. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Yūsuf Zakariyyāʾ Ḳurays̲h̲ī was elected governor, but was soon dispossessed by a Langāh chief of the district of Sibi who proclaimed himself as Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad. Yūsuf took refuge in Dihlī and persuaded Bahlūl Lōdī to send an army to recover Mūltān, but the province remained in Langāh hands under its first two able rulers Ḳuṭb al-Dīn (d. 864/1460) and Ḥusayn (d. 908/1502); under the next ruler, Maḥmūd, the affairs of the province became troubled, rule eventually passing to S̲h̲āh Ḥusayn of the Arg̲h̲ūn dynasty of Sind, with Mug̲h̲al support, in 932/1525. 

In Sind itself at this time the Sammā dynasty was still ruling, isolated, independent, and little troubled by or for their neighbours; Sind history for long is purely local with no great concern either for the rest of India or for Islam, and until the late 9th/15th ¶ century few details of it are known beyond the list of its kings—and even here the chronology is uncertain. The later Sammās were, however, connected by marriage with the sultanate of Gud̲j̲arāt. Mug̲h̲als of the Arg̲h̲ūn clan began to exert some influence in lower Sind in the last quarter of the 9th/10th century, in the long reign of Nandā, D̲j̲ām Niẓām al-Dīn (ca. 866-914/1461-1508); and in ca. 876/1472, on a report that 40,000 rebels had risen against the Ḏj̲ām. Maḥmūd I of Gud̲j̲arāt marched against them. On a previous report of persecution of Muslims by Hindūs in Sind, Maḥmūd had intervened there, to be informed that the Sind Muslims knew little of Islam and married freely with Hindūs. In 898/1493 S̲h̲āh Beg Arg̲h̲ūn of Ḳandahār occupied some forts in northern Sind, and eventually, after the death of the last of the Sammā D̲j̲āms in 933/1527, the Arg̲h̲ūns became rulers of Sind. For details of this period see sindh , sammās , t́hat́t́hā .

Kas̲h̲mīr, like Sind, had at first little connexion with other Islamic powers in India, although the reign of S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn (755-74/1354-73?—here again the chronology is uncertain) saw the arms of Islam victorious over most of Kas̲h̲mīr’s immediate Hindū neighbours and the rise of Kas̲h̲mīr to the status of a great power, although the rule within its borders was characterized by religious toleration. Under Sikandar (ca. 791-815/1389-1413), however, a fierce policy of persecution of Hindūs, banishment of Brāhmaṇs, iconoclasm, and immigration of Muslims from other regions made the country a predominantly Muslim state, earning for Sikandar the title of Buts̲h̲ikan (“Breaker of Idols”). That policy was strikingly reversed under the greatest of the Kas̲h̲mīr sultans, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (823-75/1420-70), who recalled the exiled Brāhmaṇs and permitted the observance of Hindū practices by that community provided the ordinances of their sacred books were observed; he abolished the d̲j̲izya and also illegal taxes and cesses, and was active in building public works, including bridges and canals; he was a patron of the arts, especially literature and music. Kas̲h̲mīr was still little involved with other kingdoms of India, although the sultan maintained friendly relations with Indian and other rulers, Hindū and Muslim alike. After his death the power of the royal line declined and the nobles manipulated the throne with a succession of puppet kings; several tribes obtained great power at this time, one of whom, the Čakk, later usurped the throne. For the region at this time see, besides kas̲h̲mīr, the articles s̲h̲ihāb al-dīn , sikandar buts̲h̲ikan , zayn al-ʿābidīn ; also srīnagar and, for the wooden bridges of Kas̲h̲mīr, references under ḳanṭara .

To revert to Dihlī: Bahlūl Lōdī, who had peacefully acquired the Dihlī throne in 855/1451, at first gained by this more in prestige than in territory, for he was already master of the Pand̲j̲āb and Sirhind and the area of the sultanate under the Sayyids had been of little extent. On his early expedition to repossess Mūltan from the Langāhs, some of the old nobles of the last Sayyid king invited Maḥmūd of D̲j̲awnpur to attack Dihlī; the attack was repulsed on Bahlūl’s prompt return, but D̲j̲awnpur remained the most powerful threat to Dihlī over the next quarter century, with major conflicts in 856/1452, 861/1457, 878/1473-4, 881/1476, and 884/1479. On the last occasion Bahlūls victory was decisive; he recovered all the D̲j̲awnpur territories for Dihlī, and established his son Bārbak S̲h̲āh on the D̲j̲awnpur throne. Many of Bahlūls tribe of Afg̲h̲āns came to India during his reign, and, by dividing his territories before his ¶ death among his relations and most influential nobles, he wrought the Dihlī sultanate into an Afg̲h̲ān confederacy. Sikandar Lōdī, who succeeded his father in 894/1489, was soon compelled to intervene in D̲j̲awnpur, where his ineffective elder brother was incapable of dealing with large-scale rebellion by the Hindūzamīndār s fomented by Ḥusayn S̲h̲arḳī from his exile in Bihār; Bārbak was replaced, and Sikandar forced Ḥusayn to flee to Bengal; he had brought Bihār again within the sphere of influence of Dihlī by 899/1494. After occupying Sambhal [q.v.] and holding court there for four years he turned his attention to the subjugation of the smaller Rād̲j̲pūt states near Dihlī, especially the territories of Gwāliyar, founding a new capital at Āgrā [q.v.] the better to conduct his campaigns: thus Dholpur fell in 907/1502, Mandrāyl in 910/1505, Utgīr in 911/1505, Narwar in 914/1508; Čandērī [q.v.] was virtually governed as a dependency of Dihlī (although nominally on behalf of the pretender to the throne of Mālwā, Ṣāḥib K̲h̲ān “Muḥammad S̲h̲āh”) from late 919/1513 after Sikandar’s intervention in the Mālwā domestic struggles, although it later passed into Rād̲j̲pūt hands. Sikandar Lōdī, perhaps the greatest king of the dynasty although his fierce intolerance of Hindūs and destruction of their temples was hardly the way to command popular support, died in Āgrā (922/1517) and was succeeded by his eldest son Ibrāhīm; but at the suggestion of a prominent faction of the nobility the small kingdom was partitioned and Ibrāhīm’s younger brother (?) D̲j̲alāl K̲h̲ān was established on the revived throne of D̲j̲awnpur. The moderates, however, condemned this policy, and D̲j̲alāl K̲h̲ān became the figurehead of a rebellion against Dihlī fomented by members of the Lōḥānī and Farmūlī clans in Bihār and D̲j̲awnpur. D̲j̲alāl K̲h̲ān, before his surrender and death, had fled for refuge to Gwāliyar, giving Ibrāhīm the pretext for annexing it in 923/1518; but the rebellion had caused Ibrāhīm to suspect even the loyal nobles, whom he dismissed and degraded indiscriminately. Disaffection spread; and when the son of Dawlat K̲h̲ān Lōdī, the powerful governor of Lāhawr, reported to his father the iniquities of Ibrāhīm’s rule Dawlat K̲h̲ān applied to the Mug̲h̲al Bābur for help. A similar request had come from Ibrāhīm’s uncle, ʿĀlam K̲h̲ān Lōdī, who had hopes of gaining the Dihlī throne. It soon became plain that Bābur’s intervention in Indian affairs was prompted more by his own interest than that of the Lōdīs; ʿĀlam K̲h̲ān failed to take Dihlī on his own, Dawlat K̲h̲ān died in flight having been dispossessed of Lāhawr by Bābur, and Bābur’s army moved on through the Pand̲j̲āb to encounter and defeat the Dihlī Afg̲h̲āns at the battle of Pānīpat in 932/1526. Within the next four years the whole of north India had become subject to the Mug̲h̲al power. 

In the Deccan the last of the Bahmanī kings had fled from Bīdar a year after the victory of the Mug̲h̲als in the north, although the old Bahmanī sultanate had been partitioned nearly forty years previously. Its history from the reign of Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Walī is largely one of faction between local and foreign Muslims. Aḥmad soon (826/1423) devastated Vid̲j̲ayanagara, and then annexed Warangal, whose rād̲j̲ā had assisted Vid̲j̲ayanagara against the Bahmanīs; but probably the threat of the proximity of Vid̲j̲ayanagara to Gulbargā caused Aḥmad to move his capital to Bīdār [q.v.] shortly thereafter. Three ¶ northern campaigns between 829/1426 and 831/1428 brought Māhūr [q.v.] under subjection and secured also Gāwīlgaŕh [q.v.]; and the fort of Narnālā [q.v.] was rebuilt, thus strengthening the Bahmanīs’ northern frontiers for an assault on Mālwā in pursuance of the empty claim on that kingdom and on K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ and Gud̲j̲arāt on the ground of Tīmūr’s “grant” of them to Fīrūz: Mālwā had in fact provided the Bah m an is with a casus belli by demanding allegiance from the rād̲j̲ā of K̲h̲erlā [q.v.], a Bahmanī tributary. A Mālwā army was defeated in 832/1429, and an alliance with K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ was effected by a marriage between the two houses; but a rash attack on Gud̲j̲arāt the next year led to a Bahmanī defeat and the loss of T̲h̲ānā [q.v.]. Aḥmad died in 839/1436; towards the end of his life he had shown great partiality for foreigners, especially Persians, and he seems to have accepted S̲h̲īʿī beliefs under the tutelage of K̲h̲alīl Allāh “Buts̲h̲ikan” [q.v.]. He was succeeded by his eldest son ʿAlaʾ al-Dīn Aḥmad, under whom the foreigners rose to greater power after their victory over an invasion from K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲. In 847/1443 the Vid̲j̲ayanagara forces—in which large numbers of Muslim mercenaries had recently been recruited—invaded the Deccan but were eventually overcome. Three years later the foreigners were inveigled into a disastrous campaign in the Konkan and, through Dak̲h̲nī treachery at court, many of them (including 1200 sayyid s) were butchered in the massacre of Čākan. Before the king’s death in 862/1458 the Deccan had been twice more invaded by Mālwā, and an attempted rebellion in Tilingānā crushed by a recently arrived foreigner, Maḥmūd Gāwān [q.v.]. The next king, Humāyūn, in a reign of three and a half years, endeavoured to strike a balance between Dak̲h̲nīs and foreigners and to consolidate the kingdom; his ruthless persecution of adherents of his rebel brother earned him the title of Ẓālim, “the Tyrant”, apparently unjustly. A regency followed until ca. 870/1466 with Maḥmūd Gāwān as wazīr , not without further trouble from Mālwā when the infant king’s dominions were defended with the help of Maḥmūd Begŕā of Gud̲j̲arāt. Maḥmūd Gāwān was sent on an extensive campaign in the Konkaṇ coast between 874/1469 and 876/1472, where local Hindū chiefs were causing heavy loss to Muslim merchantmen and pilgrim-vessels by piracy—probably with encouragement from Vid̲j̲ayanagara; the country was laid under tribute, and as a sort of bonus to the campaigns the Vid̲j̲ayanagara port of Goa was taken by the Bahmanīs in 876/1472. Tribute was also exacted from Uŕisā in 882/1478; a mutiny in the eastern provinces with Vid̲j̲ayanagara support was quashed, and the Vid̲j̲ayanagara lands were invaded, in 885-6/1480-1. A conspiracy between some Dakhnīs and Ḥabs̲h̲īs led to Maḥmūd Gāwān’s murder in the latter year and consequent political chaos. Muḥammad III died in 887/1482, and his successor Maḥmūd’s reign of 25 years saw the gradual decline of the state. The ruler became completely subservient to Ḳāsim Barīd in the capital, and the provincial governors became increasingly autonomous: thus Malik Aḥmad Niẓām al-Mulk in his new city of Aḥmadnagar, Fatḥ Allāh ʿImād al-Mulk in Barār, and Yūsuf ʿĀdil K̲h̲ān in the western province (Gulbargā and Bīd̲j̲āpur) all broke away from the Barīdi ascendancy at Bīdar in about 895/1490, still, however, acknowledging Bahmanī suzerainty; since all were succeeded in their territories by their sons they may be considered as the founders of new dynasties. Sulṭān Ḳulī Hamadānī, governor of Tilingānā, was appointed to Golkond́ā ¶ in 903/1498 with the title of Ḳuṭb al-Mulk; after about 924/1518 he ceased to send tribute to Bīdar and became virtually independent. When Ḳāsim Barīd died in 910/1505 he was succeeded as chief minister by his son Amīr Barīd; Bahmanī sultans occupied the throne until 934/1528, but as no more than puppets of the Barīds; and the Barīd family succeeded to the Bīdar throne when the last Bahmanī ruler fled. Perhaps the last concerted action of the Bahmanī state was the expedition in 898/1493 to punish Bahādur Gīlānī, the refractory governor of Goa who, having turned pirate, was plundering ships of the Gud̲j̲arāt fleet: it was in the interest of all the provincial governors to avoid giving Maḥmūd Begŕā of Gud̲j̲arāt an excuse for an invasion of the Deccan, and their combined force defeated the rebel. 

In Mālwā Maḥmūd K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī had been succeeded in 873/1469 by his eldest son G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn, a religious, simple and peaceable man, whose reign was devoid of external incident. His eldest son Nāṣir al-Dīn succeeded to the throne on his father’s abdication in 906/1500, and in his earlier years continued an old struggle with the Hindū rāṇā of Mēwāŕ. His tyranny caused his elder son to revolt in 916/1510; on his death in the following year his third son was enthroned as Maḥmūd II, the succession being disputed by the second son Ṣāḥib K̲h̲ān, who was proclaimed as Muḥammad II by a rival faction. Maḥmūd eventually became established through his Hindu ministers, especially Mēdinī Rāī [q.v.], in spite of interventions against him by Sikandar Lōdī of Dihlī and Muẓaffar II of Gud̲j̲arāt; but Mēdinī Rāī’s growing power caused Maḥmūd to flee to Gud̲j̲arāt later for protection. Muẓaffar took Mānd́ū in 924/1518, massacred the Rad̲j̲pūt garrison, and restored Maḥmūd. Mēdinī Rāī and the Rāṇā of Mēwāŕ later invaded Mālwā, defeated the army and captured the king, who was generously restored to Mānd́ū; but the northern part of Mālwā was annexed by Mēwāŕ. Maḥmūd offended Bahādur, the new sultan of Gud̲j̲arāt, by sheltering a rival; Bahādur captured Mānd́ū in 937/1531, and annexed Mālwā to Gud̲j̲arāt. In 941/1535 Mānd́ū was taken by Humāyūn in his war with Bahādur, but the following year a former officer of the K̲h̲ald̲j̲īs, Mallū K̲h̲ān, assumed the royal title as Ḳādir S̲h̲āh. The latter was dispossessed by S̲h̲ēr S̲h̲āh Sūr, who left S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿat K̲h̲ān as governor of Mālwā in 952/1545; his son Bāyazīd, known in popular legend as Bāz Bahādur, succeeded him in 962/1555 and, refusing to acknowledge the restored Humāyūn, assumed the royal title; he surrended Mālwā in 968/1561 to an army sent by Akbar.

In Gud̲j̲arāt the 54 years reign of Maḥmūd I, 862/1458-917/1511, brought the sultanate its greatest prosperity and extended Islam into southern Rād̲j̲pūtānā, Sōrat́h and the northern Konkaṇ: in 865/1461 he secured ʿUt̲h̲mān K̲h̲ān in Ḏj̲ālor [q.v.], in 871-4/1467-70 overcame D̲j̲unāgaŕh [q.v.], extended Islam into Sindh and Kaččh in 875/1472 and next put down piracy in Dwārkā [q.v.]; in 887/1482 ¶ the campaign was opened against Pāwāgaŕh and Čāmpānēr [q.v.]. In 913/1508 he was allied with the Mamlūks of Egypt in a naval campaign against the Portuguese, who had arrived in the Indian Ocean in 1498. Muẓaffar II, who succeeded in 917/1511, was soon involved in a clash with Mālwā (capturing Mānd́ū in 924/1518 from a Rād̲j̲pūt faction and restoring Maḥmūd II there) and with Rāṇā Sangrām of Čitawr in Mēwāŕ; there was some diplomatic intercourse with the Portuguese, now established at Goa, who first sought permission to build a fort at Dīw (Diu) and later twice tried to take Dīw by force. Bahādur S̲h̲āh. 932-43/1526-37, attacked the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs of Aḥmadnagar in 935/1528 to settle a territorial dispute with K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲, conquered Mālwā in 937/1531, lost Bassein to the Portuguese in 941/1534 and the following year gave them permission to build a fort at Goa; from 941/1534 he was engaged in a long war with Humāyūn until the latter returned to face the Sūr threat. After Bahādur’s murder by the Portuguese in 943/1537 the history of the sultanate is largely one of puppet monarchies and rival factions of nobles. In 944/1538 an Ottoman fleet attacked the Portuguese at Dīw, but received only lukewarm support from Gud̲j̲arāt; the Portuguese power increased, and the Muslims of Dīw and Bharoč [q.v.] were massacred in 953-4/1546-7. After this time the Ḥabs̲h̲ī [q.v.] community rose to some power, as did the Mīrzās [q.v.], who had taken control of Sūrat, Baŕodā, Bharoč and Čāmpānēr; they were defeated in Akbar’s conquest of Gud̲j̲arāt in 980-1/1572-3. 

In the neighbouring state of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ a disputed succession eventually led to ʿĀdil K̲h̲ān III being installed as ruler in 914/1509 by Maḥmūd Bēgŕā, who had overcome the opposition by the Niẓām S̲h̲āhī forces supporting a rival claimant. ʿĀdil K̲h̲ān married the daughter of the next Gud̲j̲arāt sultan, Muẓaffar II, and their son Muḥammad I (926-43/1520-37) co-operated in many campaigns with his uncle Bahādur S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt, received from him the title of S̲h̲āh, and was designated his heir-apparent; he died, however, before he could reach Gud̲j̲arāt and claim his second throne. The reign of his successor Mubārak II saw in 969/1562 a defeat of a Mug̲h̲al army and in 972/1564 the compulsion to accept Mug̲h̲al overlordship: chaos in Gud̲j̲arāt, the annexation of Mālwā by the Mug̲h̲als, and the growing concern of Aḥmadnagar with her southern neighbours, had so altered the balance of power between the great sultanates that the position of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ as a buffer state was no longer tenable. K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ at first connived at the Mug̲h̲al manipulation of the Aḥmadnagar throne, and joined the Mug̲h̲als in the siege of Aḥmadnagar in 1004/1596, but later the Mug̲h̲als, having been opposed by the last K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ ruler Bahādur S̲h̲āh, besieged him in Asīrgaŕh and K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ became a Mug̲h̲al province in 1009/1601.

In Bengal a succession of Ḥabs̲h̲ī rulers had succeeded the Ilyās S̲h̲āhīs in 892/1486, of whom the second, Sayf al-Dīn Fīrūz (d. 895/1489), re-established order; but later Ḥabs̲h̲ī rule became intolerable, and a Tirmid̲h̲ī sayyid , ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ḥusayn, was brought to the throne in 899/1493. He disbanded the Hindū infantry, expelled the Ḥabs̲h̲īs, ¶and transferred the capital from Gawŕ to Ikdālā; he recovered the provinces lost in the six preceding reigns, and in 904/1498 was able to annex part of Assam: his army had been reinforced by the influx of the disbanded Ḏj̲awnpur forces after Sikandar Lōdī had driven Ḥusayn S̲h̲arḳī from Bihār to the protection of Bengal. In the years 918-22/1512-6 there were extensive military campaigns in the Tripura and Arakan regions as well. Ḥusayn S̲h̲āh’s reign saw also a great development of Bengali literature, a liberal attitude towards the Hindūs and the growth of the syncretistic Satyapīr [q.v.] sect. In the reign of his son and successor Nuṣrat S̲h̲āh (925-38/1519-31) many Afg̲h̲āns arrived in Bengal from Dihlī after Bābur’s defeat of Ibrāhīm Lōdī. After 934/1528 there were clashes with the Portuguese on their first appearance in Bengal. His brother G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn Maḥmūd, who had usurped the throne from his nephew in 939/1533, was early faced with a rebellion by a brother-in-law who leagued himself with the Afg̲h̲ān S̲h̲ēr K̲h̲ān and defeated the governor of Monghyr (Mungēr [q.v.]). S̲h̲ēr K̲h̲ān later invaded Bengal, whose army pressed Portuguese captives into service; but on the fall of Gawŕ in 945/1538 S̲h̲ēr K̲h̲ān assumed the royal title in Bengal—only to lose it later that year to Humāyūn. 

In north India after Pānīpat Bābur’s first task was consolidation and extension of his authority, for many who had supported him as an ally against Lōdī oppression turned against him when it became obvious that he intended to remain. Thus he first occupied Dihlī and Āgrā in 932/1526, moved his forces, eastwards down the Ganges to Ḏj̲awnpur and, by his defeat of Rānā Sanga of Čitawr, secured his western territories against Rād̲j̲āsthān the next year; by the defeat of an eastern Afg̲h̲ān force in 935/1529 he extended his paramountcy up to Bengal. . After his death in the following year he was succeeded by his son Humāyūn, whose first act on his accession was to assign Kābul, Ḳandahār and the west Pand̲j̲āb to his brother Kāmrān [q.v.], and to make smaller assignments to his younger brothers. A force of Afg̲h̲ān supporters of Maḥmūd Lōdī, brother of the last Lōdī king, which had taken Ḏj̲awnpur in 937/1531, was defeated, although the ablest soldier among them, S̲h̲ēr K̲h̲ān the future Sūrī emperor, was enabled to continue his preparations against the Mug̲h̲al power through Humāyūn’s preoccupation with again securing his western front against the ambitious Kāmrān. A brother-in-law, Muḥammad Zamān Mīrzā, gave Humāyūn further trouble in offering his services to Bahādur S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt, and the latter’s refusal to surrender the rebel led to war between the Mug̲h̲als and Gud̲j̲arāt, and to their first conquest and occupation of that province in 942/1535-6. 

. A rebellion to put a younger brother on the Mug̲h̲al throne caused Humāyūn’s return to the centre, whereupon Mallū K̲h̲ān profited by his withdrawal to proclaim himself ruler of Mālwā as Ḳādir S̲h̲āh . Humāyun continued to be troubled by rebellious or independent-minded relations after his return to the centre , and S̲h̲ēr K̲h̲ān was able to consolidate his position and occupy all the south of Bihār [q.v.]; he was soon able to besiege Gawŕ, the Bengal capital, ¶ but by the time Humayūn had at last made up his mind to crush S̲h̲ēr K̲h̲ān the latter had occupied Rōhtāsgaŕh [q.v.]. Humāyūn marched to Gawŕ and occupied a deserted city, and then found that S̲h̲ēr K̲h̲ān had cut his line of communication to Dihlī; on his retreat he was defeated first at Čawsā in 946/1539, later near Kannawd̲j̲ the following year, and fled towards Sind since he found no welcome in his brother Kāmrān’s territories. Expelled from Sind by the Arg̲h̲ūn ruler, S̲h̲āh Ḥusayn, he eventually arrived at the court of S̲h̲āh Ṭahmāsp [q.v.] of Īrān for the start of his fifteen years’ exile. 

Meanwhile, S̲h̲ēr S̲h̲āh had assumed sovereignty over Humāyūn’s former possessions, and had regained the Pand̲j̲āb by driving Kāmrān back to Kābul, establishing a fortress at the northern Rōhtās [q.v.]. In 948-9/1542 he conquered Mālwā from Ḳādir S̲h̲āh, who fled to Gud̲j̲arāt, and in the next year laid waste Rāysen in revenge for its rād̲j̲ā’s massacre of Muslims at Čandērī [q.v.] and established his authority in Rād̲j̲āst̲h̲ān, being killed in an explosion there at Kālind̲j̲ar in 951/1545. During his periods at the capital he set about reorganizing the revenue system of the country. His reforms are described s.v. ḍarība , 6 b. He was succeeded by his younger son Islām S̲h̲āh, who took stern measures to suppress the adherents of his elder brother. This revived tribal strife among the Indian Afg̲h̲āns. The Niyāzī tribe, in particular, rebelled in the Pand̲j̲āb and at first allied themselves with the malcontent Gakkhaŕ [q.v.] community, but later intervened in Kas̲h̲mīrī affairs and were killed by the Čakk tribe there, IslamS̲h̲āh having regained the Pand̲j̲āb. A revolt of a different kind was suppressed by the execution of one S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿAlāʾī, a follower of the teachings of Sayyid Muḥammad of D̲j̲awnpur , which put an end to the Mahdawī [q.v.] movement in India. On Islām S̲h̲āh’s death in 961/1554 he was succeeded by an infant son who was within days murdered by his mother’s brother Mubāriz K̲h̲ān. The latter ascended the throne as Muḥammad ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh, and retained it only by the generalship of a Hindū administrator named Hēmū; two other Sūrī nobles, cousins of S̲h̲ēr S̲h̲āh, contested the throne by rising in rebellion in their own provinces, and all three were calling themselves Sultan—ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh in Mālwā and the tract from Āgrā to Ḏj̲awnpur. Sikandar from Dihlī to Rōhtās in the Pand̲j̲āb, and Ibrāhīm in a Pand̲j̲āb region further north still—when Humāyūn, who had regained Kābul, took advantage of the tribal squabbles among the Sūrs to reconquer his former empire. The army of Sikandar was defeated at Sirhind in 962/1555, and Humayūn went on to reoccupy Dihlī without opposition. Within six months he had died after a fall from a height, and his elder son Akbar, then not fourteen years of age, succeeded to the Mug̲h̲al throne.

On Akbar’s accession the three Sūrī ex-monarchs were still active, although Muḥammad ʿĀdil was shortly afterwards killed in a clash with Bahādur S̲h̲āh of Bengal; Sikandar was the most dangerous, although Muḥammad ʿĀdil’s old minister, Hēmū, was also campaigning against the Mug̲h̲als, ostensibly on behalf of his former master but privately on his own account. Hēmū soon occupied Dihlī, but was ¶ killed in the battle between his followers and Akbar’s smaller force at the familiar plain of Pānīpat in 964/1556. Sikandar Sūr resisted until mid-964/1557 before surrendering. The Mug̲h̲al generals quickly recaptured Ad̲j̲mēr, Gwāliyar and Ḏj̲awnpur [qq.v.], the young emperor remaining under the influence of the “ḥaram party”, his former nurses and foster-mother and their husbands and children, at Āgrā. Since Akbar’s tutor, the general Bayram K̲h̲ān [q.v.], was a S̲h̲īʿī he was unpopular at the court, and in 967/1560 Akbar, doubtless under the persuasion of the “ ḥaram party”, announced that he was assuming charge of the government; within two years he was able to free himself from the ḥaram influence as well. Mālwā had been occupied in 968/1561, rebelled the following year, and was finally subdued by Akbar in person in 971/1564; his generals in that year crushed an attempt at Afg̲h̲ān resurgence in Bihār. In the next few years Akbar had to contend with rebellions on the part of an Uzbek faction at court, and of his distant relations, princes of the house of Tīmūr, the Mīrzās [q.v.] of Katahr (later Rohilkhand́), who had received small assignments after the Mug̲h̲al restoration; the latter invaded Mālwā and made their way to Gud̲j̲arāt, where in the local disorder they possessed themselves of much land, especially in its southern provinces. Meanwhile the Rād̲j̲pūts were defeated in Čitawr (975/1568) and, in the two following years, Ranthambor and Kālind̲j̲ar. The heir, Salīm (later Ḏj̲ahāngīr), was born in 977/1569 at Sīkrī, where in 979/1571 Akbar founded his new capital, later known as Fatḥpur Sīkrī [q.v.]. Next Gud̲j̲arāt was conquered —one party in the civil strife had invited his assistance, and the sultanate was showing itself incapable of dealing with the Portuguese threat on its coast and its interference with the Mecca pilgrim traffic— in 980/1572-3. Good relations were established with the Portuguese to protect the pilgrim traffic; but about this time Akbar began to have his doubts about the sufficiency of Islam.

Soon after this, Dāʾūd K̲h̲ān Kararānī [q.v.], who had succeeded to the Bengal throne, refused to acknowledge Akbar’s supremacy, and invaded Bihār. Akbar marched against him, drove his Afg̲h̲ān army out of Bihār, and invaded Bengal; Dāʾūd surrendered, but later rebelled and was finally defeated and killed in 984/1576.  . K̲h̲āndes̲h̲. the buffer state between the Mug̲h̲al empire and the Deccan, was occupied in 985/1577. In 988/1580 the first Jesuit mission reached Āgrā; religious toleration was preached in the court, largely as a result of the influence of Abu ’l-Faḍl ʿAllāmī and his brother Fayḍī [qq.v.], but that toleration now appeared to exclude Islam. Many Muslims, believing their faith in danger, supported the idea of replacing Akbar by an orthodox sovereign; first Bihār and later Bengal, where a faction of Ḳāḳs̲h̲āl Turks had become prominent, rebelled and the Ḳāḳs̲h̲āls proclaimed Akbar’s younger brother Muḥammad Ḥakīm, the ruler of Kābul, as their sovereign. The latter indeed marched on Hindustān, but was repulsed by Akbar and made his submission, and the rebels in the east were put down gradually by Akbar’s generals. In 990/1582 he promulgated his syncretistic faith, the Dīn-i Ilāhī [q.v.], and two years later introduced an Ilāhī [q.v.] era. The year 994/1586 saw the annexation of Kas̲h̲mīr, and a first abortive attempt on Aḥmadnagar. By 1001/1593 Sind, Uŕisā and Kāt́hīāwād́. had made their submission, and within ¶another three years Barār, the first of the Deccan provinces which were the object of Mug̲h̲al ambition, had been ceded to Akbar; the fortresses of Gawīlgaŕh and Narnāla followed, in 1009/1600 Aḥmadnagar was taken by storm, and the following year Asīrgaŕh [q.v.] fell. Akbar died in 1014/1605, his last few years having been clouded by disagreement with Salīm, the heir-apparent.

Salīm succeeded, as Ḏj̲ahāngīr. to a powerful empire, and was soon challenged by his own son, K̲h̲usraw [q.v.]; his rebellion was promptly put down and the rebels severely punished—including the Sikh [q.v.] leader Guru Ard̲j̲un Singh, whose execution provoked the constant hostility of the Sikhs to the Mug̲h̲al power. In the north S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās [q.v.] of Persia laid claim to Ḳandahār, and D̲j̲ahāngīr moved to Kābul to be near the potential trouble, at the same time sending armies against the Rānā of Mēwāŕ; operations were also commenced against the Deccan from Burhānpur, but the former Ḥabs̲h̲ī slave Malik ʿAnbar [q.v.] developed guerilla tactics for use against the Mug̲h̲als by trained bands of Marāthā soldiers, and by 1019/1610 had recovered Aḥmadnagar and expelled the imperial forces. Further attacks on the Deccan proved useless and the Mug̲h̲als in fact lost more territory, which was not regained until 1030/1621 when prince K̲h̲urram, the future S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān, who had been placed in command of the Deccan force, met with some success at last. The following year Ḳandahār fell to S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās, and K̲h̲urram, ordered to retake it, went into open rebellion against his father; he moved quickly through Central India and Uŕisā to Bihār, and Malik ʿAnbar profited from the disorganization by taking Bīdar. K̲h̲urram’s activities in the distant provinces of the empire led him at one point to join forces with Malik ʿAnbar against the imperial forces, but he was eventually reconciled to his father. Ḏj̲ahāngīr died in 1037/1627 and was buried in Lāhawr, which he had raised to the status of a capital city.

S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān’s reign too started with a war of succession, and after that a rebellion on the part of K̲h̲ān D̲j̲ahān Lōdī [q.v.], who defected to Aḥmadnagar; this led to a renewed conflict with the Deccan kingdoms, Aḥmadnagar being invaded in 1039/1630 and finally surrendering to the Mug̲h̲als with the capture of Dawlatābād [q.v.] three years later. The Mug̲h̲als now had to take account of the Marāt́hās [q.v.], some of whom had now joined the Mug̲h̲al forces but who were always a potential source of danger. Attempts to take Bīd̲j̲āpur were at first unsuccessful, but a peace was concluded with that kingdom, in exchange for the promise of tribute, in 1045/1636. Shortly afterwards Prince Awrangzīb was appointed viceroy of the Deccan, and S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān returned north, where he began building his new Dihlī. In 1047/1638 Ḳandahār was ceded to the ¶ Mug̲h̲als by its governor ʿAlī Mardān K̲h̲ān and held for eleven years, after which it was retaken by the Persians; three attempts to recover it failed between 1059/1649 and 1063/1653. Before these an attempt to subdue Balk̲h̲ had been a failure. After these northern campaigns the Mug̲h̲als again directed their efforts to the conquest of the Deccan until the sickness of S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān in 1067/1657 led his four sons to quarrel among themselves for the throne. The third son, Awrangzīb, was victorious over his brothers Dārā S̲h̲ukōh, S̲h̲āh S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ and Murād Bak̲h̲s̲h̲ [qq.v.], and assumed the imperial title, with the regnal name of ʿĀlamgīr, placing his father in confinement in the court of Āgrā where he died in 1076/1666.

Before Awrangzīb had assumed the throne, the western Deccan had already been troubled by S̲h̲ivād̲j̲i [q.v.] the Marāt́hā adventurer, who had encroached more than once on the imperial dominions, and had met with success against the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhī armies as well. He was attacked by the Mug̲h̲al armies, to whom he surrendered in 1076/1666, concluding a treaty which gave him the right to collect one-fourth ( čawth ) of the revenues in Bīd̲j̲āpur; this was no doubt agreed by Awrangzīb with a view to weakening the Bīd̲j̲āpur resources, but its effects were far-reaching as the right to čawth was arrogated by S̲h̲ivād̲j̲ī’s Marāt́hā followers wherever they later conquered; for details see marāt́hās, also references under ḥaydarābād, ii. When various Afg̲h̲ān tribes (Yūsufzays, Afrīdīs) rebelled beyond the Indus in and after 1082/1671, Awrangzīb went to Ḥasan Abdāl [q.v.] for two years, which gave S̲h̲ivād̲j̲ī even more scope to continue his depredations in the Deccan. He assumed the insignia of royalty, and abandoning an alliance with the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs, he joined forces with the Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhīs to invade the Madrās coastal tracts  and Mahisur (“Mysore”) in 1085/1647, taking from the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs a number of their southern districts. When he died, six years later, he had created a nation out of the Marāt́hās who had been the former subjects of the Aḥmadnagar and Bīd̲j̲āpur sultanates, and who were to be Awrangzīb’s strongest and most persistent rivals for the rest of his life—indeed, of the Mug̲h̲al empire as long as it lasted as a power, and of the British in India as well. Awrangzīb moved to the Deccan in 1093/1682, and remained there in constant warfare until his death 25 years later. After exacting a peace treaty with Golkond́ā he captured Bīd̲j̲āpur in 1097/1686; Golkond́ā fell next after a siege of nearly a year; and within the next few years all the former forts of the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhī and Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhī sultanates had been taken, and many forts recovered from the Marāt́hās, to enlarge the Mug̲h̲al empire to its greatest extent. The years 1101-9/1690-8 were spent trying to wear down the fortress of Ḏj̲ind̲j̲ī (“Gingee”), where Rād̲j̲ā Rām, son and successor of S̲h̲ivād̲j̲ī, had set up new headquarters; years of petty sieges against minor Hindū kings followed, but the army was becoming exhausted and a retreat was at last made to Aḥmadnagar, where Awrangzīb died in 1118/1707. 

The Deccan sultanates, the last two of which were extinguished by Awrangzīb, grew out of the chaotic Bahmanī empire, its provincial governors having gradually asserted their autonomy since about 895/1490. Their history is a record of continuous strife among them, with occasional uneasy alliances but rarely the community of interest to combine against their common foes. The immediate successors of the Bahmanīs in Bīdar were the Barīd S̲h̲āhīs. whose domination over the later Bahmanīs has been noticed above. Their sultanate was gradually whittled away in the north and west by Bīd̲j̲āpur, against whom they were allied on several occasions with the neighbouring sultanates. The Rāyčūr [q.v.] dōʾāb was a continuous bone of contention between Bīd̲j̲āpur and Vid̲j̲ayanagara [q.v.], and the only occasion on which the four southern sultans seem to have been united in a common cause is in 972/1564-5 when their confederacy finally crushed the power of Vid̲j̲ayanagara at the battle of Tālīkot́a [q.v.]. Bīdar was finally annexed by Bīd̲j̲āpur in 1028/1619. 

The ʿImād S̲h̲āhī sultanate of Barār was remote enough to stand aside from part of the Deccan conflicts, although there were occasional border clashes with the Niẓām S̲h̲ahīs of Aḥmadnagar. In 933/1527 Barār was invaded by the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs and the Barīd S̲h̲āhīs; the ruler, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿImād S̲h̲āh, fled to K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ from where he invited the help of Bahādur S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt, who promptly invaded the Deccan, The ruler was restored, and Barār was for some time left unmolested while the larger sultanates were quarrelling among themselves. In 969/1561-2 Daryā ʿImād S̲h̲āh, the son of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn, had been succeeded by his infant son Burhān, and the minister Tufāl K̲h̲ān took de facto control over the sultanate. The latter stood aloof from the confederacy which defeated the Vid̲j̲ayanagara kingdom, and plundered the Niẓām S̲h̲āhī dominions while their ruler was at Tālīkot́a; the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh and Niẓām S̲h̲āh sultans invaded Barār in 973/1566 to punish Tufāl, but strife between them saved the ʿImād S̲h̲āhī state from destruction at that time. Eventually the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs, intent on strengthening their position to match that of the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs who had annexed many former Vid̲j̲ayanagara possessions in the south, again invaded Barār in 981-2/1574-5, capturing Tufāl K̲h̲ān in Narnāla and forcing the surrender of Gawilgaŕh; with the imprisonment of Tufāl K̲h̲an and Burhān ʿImād S̲h̲āh, the Barār sultanate was extinguished and absorbed in the Niẓām S̲h̲āhī dominions. For the detailed history of this sultanate See ʿimād s̲h̲āhīs , gawīlgaŕh , iličpur ,narnāla , as well as references under niẓām s̲h̲āhīs .

The Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs, like the Barīd S̲h̲āhīs and ʿImād S̲h̲āhīs, were Sunnīs, although after about 944/1537 Burhān I adopted S̲h̲īʿism. The ancestral home of the Niẓām S̲h̲āhī kings was at Pathrī in Barār, the claim to which led to several Niẓām S̲h̲āhī raids on ʿImād S̲h̲āhī territory. For the most part, however, the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs were in a constant state of dispute with their larger neighbours, the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs and the Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhīs, in turn, one sultanate always eventually being compelled to intervene in a war between any two others lest the balance of power be upset to the disadvantage of the ¶ non-belligerent party. In this strange way the rival sultanates were in fact able to keep going where the Bahmanīs had failed, and to destroy the powerful Vid̲j̲ayanagara kingdom to their south. To give an account of these three sultanates seriatim would involve unnecessary repetition and, since the political history of each is so closely bound to that of its neighbours, would fail to show clearly the events in the Deccan in relation to a chronological framework; the purely domestic affairs of each sultanate are less relevant to the history of Islam in India, for each “produced more history than it could consume locally.”

Yūsuf, the founder of the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhī dynasty, had been a S̲h̲īʿī and established that form of Islam in his dominions. On his death in 915/1510 his son Ismāʿīl was a minor, and a regent reintroduced the Sunnī faith; this was politically to the disadvantage of the “foreigners”, who were as powerful a faction in Bīd̲j̲āpur as they had been in the Bahmanī sultanate, and were on this occasion successful in returning to power and reintroducing S̲h̲īʿism. But the state was torn by political rivalry, and was not powerful enough to prevent the Portuguese from capturing Goa  later that year. Their troubles with Vid̲j̲ayanagara immediately followed when that state, in 916/1510, annexed the Rāyčūr [q.v.] dōʾāb. Four years later Bīd̲j̲āpur was strong enough to defeat Amīr ʿAlī Barīd, who had established a provincial governor at Gulbargā—now virtually part of the Bīd̲j̲āpur state—on behalf of the puppet Bahmanī king. Shortly after this the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhī sultan, in reward for extricating a Persian ambassador from detention at Bīdar, had received recognition of his royal title from S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl, the Ṣafawī sultan. By 927/1521 Bīd̲j̲āpur was in a position to try to recapture the Rāyčūr dōʾāb, although the attack failed; the Hindū king had been incited to take the dōʾāb by Amīr ʿAlī Barīd, against whom Bīd̲j̲āpur sought an alliance with Aḥmadnagar, marrying the sister of the Bīd̲j̲āpur king to the Niẓām S̲h̲āhī sultan. But the princess’s dowry, the fort of S̲h̲ōlāpur [q.v.], was never ceded to Aḥmadnagar, and so in 931/1525 the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs, in alliance with Barār and Bīdar, invaded Bīd̲j̲āpur but were defeated and driven out. The invasion of Barār by Bīdar and Aḥmadnagar, which resulted in the Gud̲j̲arāt sultan Bahādur S̲h̲āh’s attack on the Deccan, has already been mentioned; Aḥmadnagar and Bīd̲j̲āpur were on this occasion united against the invader, but even on this occasion Amīr ʿAlī Barīd had tried to interfere between them and Ismāʿīl ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh marched to Bīdar to punish him. Bīdar fell, but was restored to the Barīd S̲h̲āhīs on condition that Kalyānī and Ḳand̲h̲ar [qq.v.] were ceded to Bīd̲j̲āpur, and that assistance should be given to recapture the doʾāb . Rāyčūr and Mud́gal were regained shortly, but the Barīd S̲h̲āhīs did not in fact cede the two northern forts. In 937/1531 Bahādur S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt had annexed Mālwā and Burhān Niẓām S̲h̲āh, alarmed by his growth of power, offered allegiance to him and obtained from him recognition of his royal title; Bahādur’s aim was to enlist Burhān’s support against the Mug̲h̲als, but secretly Burhān suggested to Humāyūn an attack on Gud̲j̲arāt. Later that year Burhān’s insolence to Ismāʿīl ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh, who was attempting to force the promised cession of Kalyānī and Ḳand̲h̲ār, led to further Aḥmadnagar-Bīd̲j̲āpur war, in which the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs were defeated; but next year, 938/1532, an agreement was reached between these two powers permitting Aḥmadnagar to annex Barār and Bīd̲j̲āpur to annex ¶ Golkond́ā. The campaigns started, but were cut short by the death of Ismāʿīl ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh, in 941/1534, upon which first Mallū K̲h̲ān and shortly afterwards Ibrāhīm succeeded to the Bīd̲j̲āpur throne. Ibrāhīm reintroduced the Sunnī faith, dismissed the “foreigners”, and introduced Kannad́a and Marāt́hī as court languages in place of Persian—thus allowing the employment of many Hindūs in the administration. A few years afterwards Burhān Niẓām S̲h̲āh was converted to S̲h̲īʿism, and consequently relations worsened between him and Ibrāhīm; in 947/1540 Burhān marched again on the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhī kingdom and annexed S̲h̲ōlāpur, then drove Ibrāhīm out of Bīd̲j̲āpur, occupied the town, and set off in pursuit of Ibrāhīm; the latter received reinforcements and drove the invaders to Dawlatābād, where Burhān bought peace by relinquishing his claim to S̲h̲ōlāpur. Smarting under his defeat he persuaded Ḏj̲ams̲h̲īd Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āh and the rād̲j̲ā of Vid̲j̲ayanagara to join a confederacy against Bīd̲j̲āpur in 950/1543. These three powers, together with ʿAlī Barīd, invaded Bīd̲j̲āpur that year and the next without success; on a third attempt ʿAlī Barīd decided to support the Sunnī Ibrāhīm rather than the S̲h̲īʿī Burhān, causing the latter to invade Bīdar and taking three strongholds on the Bīdar-Bīd̲j̲āpur border. In the consequent troubles in Bīd̲j̲āpur a disaffected minister and the king’s younger brother, ʿAbd Allāh, sought the aid of the Portuguese at Goa, who were claiming the Konkan coast. A rebellion in the Konkan was crushed by Ibrāhīm. Further attacks on ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhī territory were made by Burhān, with Vid̲j̲ayanagara support, in 954/1547 and 959/1552, the Rāyčūr dōʾāb again being annexed to Vid̲j̲ayanagara on the latter occasion. In 961/1553 Burhān died and eventually his son Ḥusayn gained the Aḥmadnagar throne after a war of succession. Ḏj̲ams̲h̲īd Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āh had similarly been succeeded by his youngest brother Ibrāhīm. At this time the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs actually turned to Vid̲j̲ayanagara for assistance in 962/1555, against a rebel noble Sayf ʿAyn al-Mulk, and alone waged war against the Portuguese in the northern Konkan. Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh died in 965/1558 and was succeeded by his son ʿAlī, who re-established the S̲h̲īʿī faith and readmitted the “foreigners”. On ʿAlī’s enlisting Vid̲j̲ayanagara aid again, this time for the recovery of S̲h̲ōlāpur, his kingdom was again attacked by the Niẓām S̲h̲āhī and Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhī forces; but the Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhī opposition was suddenly withdrawn: the Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhīs could not risk supporting a Sunnī state against a S̲h̲īʿī one. ʿAlī’s demands for the return of S̲h̲ōlāpur and Kalyānī became more insistent, and in 967/1559 it was Aḥmadnagar which was invaded, by the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs, Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhīs, and a large Vid̲j̲ayanagara contingent; a Barār army soon joined in, invading Aḥmadnagar from the east. The Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhī ruler later withdrew and the ʿImād S̲h̲āhī contingent changed sides, but still Ḥusayn Niẓām S̲h̲āh had to sue for peace from the Vid̲j̲ayanagara commander who had now become the dominant party in the confederacy. Bīd̲j̲āpur and Vid̲j̲ayanagara continued the campaigns for the next few years; but the Hindū army of Vid̲j̲ayanagara offended allies and enemies alike by their excesses on their campaigns, including desecrating mosques and violating and enslaving Muslim women; their arrogant rād̲j̲ā now demanded large tracts of land from both Golkond́ā and Bīd̲j̲apur. On this the Muslim rulers sank their differences, and in 972/1564-5 marched on Vid̲j̲ayanagara and defeated an enormous army at the battle of Tālīkot́a [q.v.]. The Vid̲j̲ayanagara empire was destroyed and its ¶ lands divided among the victors. The Muslim alliance did not last long: the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs, where Ḥusayn had been succeeded by Murtaḍā, and the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs were soon at war again, although in 977/1569-70 they again united against a common enemy, the Portuguese. The ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs attacked Goa, the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs Čewal (“Chaul”); but the Portuguese were so adroit at manipulating dissensions in their opponents’ forces, and in playing off one enemy against the other, that both towns held fast against overwhelming odds and the attackers were forced to conclude peace treaties. ʿAlī ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh turned to the former Vid̲j̲ayanagara territories for easier conquests, and it was this aggrandisement of the Bīd̲j̲āpur lands which caused similar ambitions on the part of Aḥmadnagar, whose ruler annexed Barār in 981-2/1574-5, as mentioned above. A general state of warfare persisted between Aḥmadnagar and Bīd̲j̲āpur for some years to come, not without internal troubles such as the rebellion of a Niẓām S̲h̲āhī prince in 987/1579 who fled to Akbar; later wars of succession in Aḥmadnagar between 996/1588 and 999/1591 ended in the accession of that prince as Burhān II. In Bīd̲j̲āpur the minor Ibrāhīm II had succeeded ʿAlī I, and the Ḥabs̲h̲i Dilāwar K̲h̲ān rose to supreme power, re-establishing the Sunnī faith (for the Ḥabs̲h̲ī factions in both sultanates see ḥabs̲h̲ī); during the Bīd̲j̲āpur internal struggles, the Aḥmadnagar forces contested Naldrug [q.v.], a border fort between the two states. Before the accession of Burhān II in Aḥmadnagar the effective control of the state had been in the hands of one Ḏj̲amāl K̲h̲ān, a Mahdawī, who persecuted Sunnī and S̲h̲īʿī alike, which led to the intervention of Bīd̲j̲āpur and the defeat of D̲j̲amāl K̲h̲ān a few months before the millennium. At least four contending factions in Aḥmadnagar after the death of Burhān II in 1003/1595 led the minister to appeal for help from Murād [q.v.], Akbar’s second son, governor of Gud̲j̲arāt; Burhān II, though once in Akbar’s service, had refused to swear fealty to the Mug̲h̲als, and in fact the Mug̲h̲al armies in Gud̲j̲arāt and Mālwā were already preparing for an attack on Aḥmadnagar when the appeal arrived. The city of Aḥmadnagar was soon under siege, and in 1004/1596 Čānd Bībī, sister of Burhān II and widowed queen of ʿAlī ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh I, purchased its liberty by the cession of Barār. The fortresses of Gawilgaŕh and Narnālā held out, only to fall to the Mug̲h̲als two years later, and after another two years Aḥmadnagar itself was finally taken by storm. For the Mug̲h̲als in the province after that date see above. Malik ʿAnbar [q.v.] held the state together for another twenty-five years, ousting the Mug̲h̲als and restoring a nominal Niẓām S̲h̲āhī dynasty; but Aḥmadnagar was disintegrating under Mug̲h̲al pressure, and Bīd̲j̲āpur was able to acquire more of Aḥmadnagar territory. In 1046/1636 the Mug̲h̲als at last invaded Bīd̲j̲āpur and forced a peace by which Mug̲h̲al suzerainty was acknowledged, and the region was comparatively peaceful for the next twenty years; S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān objected to the succession of ʿAlī ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh II in 1068/165 6 and ordered the invasion of the kingdom, but his illness stopped operations. Bīd̲j̲āpur now faced danger from another quarter, the Marāt́hā armies who had risen under S̲h̲ivād̲j̲ī; and Marāt́hā depredations slowly nibbled away the kingdom on the north and west until its remains fell to Awrangzīb io 1097/1686. The Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhī kingdom ot Golkond́ā was less troubled than its neighbours after the battle of Tālīkot́a, and knew a long period of peace and prosperity under Muḥammad Ḳulī ¶ Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āh during which the city of Ḥaydarābād [q.v.] was built and adorned; for six years (1101-7/1603-9) a Persian embassy from S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās resided in Ḥaydarābād. That peace was preserved under Muḥammad Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āh, 1020-35/1611-26, although in 1024/1615 the Dutch established themselves at Masulipat́am, on the Madrās coast, and the English there seven years later. The next ruler, ʿAbd Allāh Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āh, was able to extend his dominions to the south; with the help of his minister Mīr Ḏj̲umla but the Mug̲h̲als were already active to the north, and in 1045/1635-6 S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān forced the payment of tribute from Golkond́ā. Mīr Ḏj̲umla became increasingly powerful in the eastern provinces, and in a quarrel between himself and the king appealed for aid from prince Awrangzīb; this led to the first Mug̲h̲al siege of Golkond́ā in 1066/1656, which was bought off. In 1078/1667 the Marāt́hā S̲h̲ivād̲j̲ī exacted tribute, and was indeed provided with money and troops to recover some of the Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhī forts which had been annexed by Bīd̲j̲āpur. The accession of the last king, Abu ’l-Ḥasan Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āh, in 1083/1672, was followed by the rise to power of two Brāhman ministers; their position in a Muslim kingdom, the assistance given by Golkond́ā to Bīd̲j̲āpur against the Mug̲h̲als, and the fact that it was in any case a S̲h̲īʿī kingdom, were all sufficient cause for Awrangzīb to renew the attack in 1096/1685; the capital, and the kingdom, fell to the Mug̲h̲als two years later. Awrangzīb had conquered the Deccan, but destroyed the balance of power; for Bīd̲j̲āpur and Golkond́ā no longer stood between the Mug̲h̲als and the Marāt́hās, and the southern states became an easy prey for disaffected adventurers from the north.

The Mug̲h̲al empire lasted barely five years as an empire after Awrangzīb’s death. There was again a war of succession, culminating in the accession of Bahādur S̲h̲āh I, whose five years’ reign was a constant struggle to retain the Mug̲h̲al authority in his dominions: Kām Bak̲h̲s̲h̲, a younger brother, usurped Ḥaydarābād; the Rād̲j̲pūts, especially in Mārwāŕ , were in rebellion against Mug̲h̲al authority; a rebellion of Sikhs [q.v.] broke out in the Pand̲j̲āb; and he provoked resentment in Dihlī and Lāhawr by commanding the introduction of S̲h̲īʿī forms in worship. The emperor D̲j̲ahāndār S̲h̲āh [q.v.] succeeded in 1124/1712, soon to be supplanted by Farruk̲h̲siyar [q.v.] supported by the Sayyid brothers of Bārhā [q.v. in Supplement], the effective kingmakers of the Mug̲h̲al empire for some years to come. Attempts to quell the rebellions of the Rād̲j̲pūts and Sikhs were partly successful; the D̲j̲āt́s [q.v.], near Dihlī and Āgrā, and the Marāt́hās, too strong to be attacked, received revenue concessions. Farruk̲h̲siyar attempted to remove the Sayyids, and was consequently deposed by them in 1131/1719. Neither Rafīʿ al-Darad̲j̲āt nor Rafīʿ al-Dawla retained the throne for more than a few months before the Sayyids produced Muḥammad S̲h̲āh [q.v.]; but there was so little faith in the monarchy, and less in the Sayyids, that provincial governors and nobles were ¶ able to assume independence of Dihlī more or less as they desired. Ḳamar al-Dīn Čīn Ḳilič K̲h̲ān. entitled Niẓām al-Mulk [q.v.], opposed to the Sayyids, abandoned his province of Mālwā and established himself first at Asīrgaŕh; for a time he returned to Dihlī as minister, but retired again to the Deccan ostensibly on hearing of Marāt́hā depredations there. His deputy in the Deccan had been ordered by Dihlī to oppose him; he defeated this deputy at the battle of S̲h̲akark̲h̲eld́ā [q.v.] in 1137/1724, and made himself independent in the Deccan with Ḥaydarābād as his capital. Dihlī could only conciliate him in his position of great strength with the title of Āṣaf D̲j̲āh, since then borne as a hereditary title by his descendants, the Niẓāms of Ḥaydarābād. The Marāt́hās—who were supported in their activities against Dihlī by the Niẓām—appeared now in Mālwā, Gud̲j̲arāt, and Bundelkhand. The D̲j̲āt́s grew in power, and an imperial officer, ʿAlī Muḥammad K̲h̲ān, had become practically independent in Katahr (later Rohilkhand́ [q.v.]) to the east of Dihlī. Bād̲j̲ī Rāo, the Pes̲h̲wā [q.v] of the new Marāt́hā empire, was recognized as governor of Mālwā in 1148/1735, and constantly demanded from the Mug̲h̲als fresh territory and tribute. Shortly after this Nādir S̲h̲āh [q.v.], who had become ruler of Persia, raided Afg̲h̲ānistān and occupied Kābul, and large numbers of Afg̲h̲ān refugees took refuge with the pro-Afg̲h̲ān ʿAlī Muḥammad K̲h̲ān in Rohilkhand́. Nādir S̲h̲āh’s advance on India continued, and in 1131/1739 Dihlī was sacked by his army and a general massacre of the inhabitants began; after collecting what treasure he could—enough to keep Persia free of taxes for three years!—he restored Muḥammad S̲h̲āh to his throne and left, annexing Kābul and the trans-Indus provinces on the way. Dihlī was left stupefied and desolate.

The province of Bengal was less disturbed than the centre. Its government after the time of Awrangzīb, together with the provinces of Bihār, Uŕisā and Allāhābād, was held first by Ḏj̲aʿfar K̲h̲ān, known better as Murs̲h̲id Ḳulī K̲h̲ān [q.v.]; his son-in-law S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ al-Dawla [q.v.] after him had handled the province well; but the successor of S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ, Sarfarāz K̲h̲ān. a weakling, was supplanted in early 1153/1740 by ʿAlīwirdī K̲h̲ān [q.v.], who was twice successful in repelling attempted Marāt́hā invasions of Bengal. The Marāt́hās were, however, successful in Uŕisā, which was surrendered to them in 1164/1751. ʿAlīwirdī K̲h̲ān was succeeded in 1171/1756 by Sirād̲j̲ al-Dawla, who was defeated the following year by Clive at Plassey.

Nādir S̲h̲āh was murdered in 1160/1747, and an opportunist commander of his, Aḥmad K̲h̲ān, took over the royal possessions and the royal title as Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Durrānī [q.v.], and advanced with an army through the Pand̲j̲āb to Dihlī; defeated by an imperial army, the Afg̲h̲āns retreated. They returned two years later to besiege Lāhawr, and the revenue of part of the Pand̲j̲āb was ceded to them. A third invasion, in 1165/1751, brought them Multān and the remainder of the Pand̲j̲āb; in 1170/1757 a fourth invasion took Dihlī and ransacked it; two years later a Durrānī army came to expel the Marāt́hās from the Pand̲j̲āb, and by 1174/1761 the Marāt́hā power in the north was broken at the third battle of Pānīpat in which the Durrānīs were joined by Mug̲h̲al, Awadh and Rohilla troops. These Rohillas, the Afg̲h̲āns of Rohilkhand́, had more than once risen against Dihlī and the virtually independent province of Awadh, arid had been on a previous occasion subdued by Marāt́hā troops invited by Dihlī.

¶

The Durrānīs on their numerous visits had acted as the rulers of the Mug̲h̲al empire; when they were absent the real power was manipulated by the governor of Awadh, Ṣafdar Ḏj̲ang [q.v.], the nephew and successor of Saʿādat K̲h̲ān [q,v.], a Persian S̲h̲īʿī. The titular monarch at the time of Pānīpat was S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam II, who had tried to gain control of Bihār and Bengal without success. He came under British protection from 1765 to 1771 when he was recalled to Dihlī after the Marāt́hās had again risen to power; but Awadh, under S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ al-Dawla, the Ḏj̲āt́s of Bharatpur, and the Rohilla leader Nad̲j̲īb K̲h̲ān held the balance of power, rather than any remnant of Mug̲h̲al authority. On an occasion when the Marāt́hās were engaged elsewhere the Rohilla G̲h̲ulām K̲h̲ān, in 1788, attacked Dihlī and seized and blinded S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam II, and the Marāt́hā leader Sindhia continued his virtual domination of Dihlī. In 1803 the Marāt́hā army was thoroughly defeated by the British general Lord Lake, and under British protection S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam II was restored to his barren title and hollow empire: although titular monarchs remained until the deposition of Bahādur S̲h̲āh II in 1857 after the Mutiny, the Mug̲h̲al empire had ceased to exist. .

To the south-west of the Niẓām of Ḥaydarābād’s dominions, in Mahisur (“Mysore”), a ruler who established himself about 1750 was Ḥaydar ʿAlī [q.v.], who fought against the local Marāt́hās, against the Niẓām, with the Niẓām, or with the French, against the British, and carved out for himself a large kingdom. He died in 1782 and was succeeded by his son Tipū [q.v.], who was killed in a British attack in 1799. 

After 1857 there was in effect no Muslim rule in India. For the history of the Muslim community thereafter seemuslims. The community was educationally backward and thus at a disadvantage in matters of government in comparison with the Hindūs. 

It is perhaps not quite correct to say that there was no Muslim rule in the sub-continent before 1947, since the British government did recognize independent “Native States”, some of which were under autonomous Muslim rulers, where the British retained the right to intervene if requirements of public safety demanded it and were represented by Residents officially appointed. Ḥaydarābād was the largest of the Muslim states, but there were many ¶ smaller ones