The wonder that was india

Muslim historians praise Ahmad for his devotion to sufis and for his determination to destroy idols.38 He forced the Rajput chiefs to marry their daughters to him in order to make them outcastes in their own community, thereby ensuring their subservience to him. His Muslim nobles also pursued the same policy, and the interracial marriages gave rise to a mixed religious group in Gujarat.39 The soldiers in his army drew half their salary in cash from the royal treasury and half from land-tax assignments. To ensure his subjects' obedience and to prevent them uniting against him, half of the civil posts in each department went to the free-born Muslims and the other half to slaves.

Ahmad's successor, Muhammad Shah (1442—51), was a mild ruler, as was the next Sultan, Qutbu'd-Din Ahmad Shah II (1451-9). Fath Khan, who ascended the throne aged thirteen as Muhmud Shah (1459-1511), was the greatest Muslim ruler of Gujarat. Soon after his coronation the ruler of Khandesh sought his assistance in repelling an invasion by Muhmud Khalji of Malwa. Despite his youth, Mahmud's military exploits so impressed the Malwa Sultan that he decided that no military solutions could be maintained while Gujarat had such a strong ruler, and he ceased attacking the buffer state of Khandesh.

In 1461 Mahmud defeated the Muslim ruler of Jalor in south Rajasthan and made him his protege. He then seized the port of Daman on the west coast from its Hindu rulers. Initially, in 1466,

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he exacted tribute from the Yadava Prince of Girnar (Junagarh) but four years later he annexed Girnar to his sultanate, thereby gaining control of the flourishing port of Veraval. Mahmud founded a new town at the foot of the Girnar hills, Mustafabad, where he settled members of the Muslim religious classes and elite.40

He then fought the Sumra, Soda, and Kahla tribes of the Kacch border who, although they had been Islamicized, still practised Hindu customs. After defeating them he sent some of their leaders to Mustafabad to learn the Shari'a laws. In Sind his maternal grandfather, Jam Nizamu'd-Din, ruled effectively because of his relationship to Mahmud, which not only prevented the Gujaratls from attacking him but also deterred other potential invaders. In 1473, as a reprisal for a pirate attack on a Muslim merchant, Mahmud sacked Dvarka, north-west of Kathiawar peninsula. After that he foiled an attempt to depose him by his nobles. Then he attacked Champanlr, which was surrendered by the Rajputs in 1484 after two years of intense fighting, during which the Gujaratls bombarded the fort with mortars and rockets. Meanwhile the ruler of Khandesh, having conquered Gondvana, Garha, Mandala, Kolls, and Bhils, had become puffed up with his own importance. So, in 1498, the Sultan invaded Khandesh and forced its ruler, 'Adil Khan, to take an oath of loyalty to him.41

Mahmud's supremacy was threatened only by the Portuguese. After the arrival of Vasco da Gama in Calicut in 1498, the Portuguese became a serious threat to the trade of Cambay and other Gujarat ports. In the battle of Chaul in January 1508 the governor of Junagarh and the Egyptian fleet sent by the Mamluk Sultan were victorious, but the Egyptian and Gujarati fleets were routed by the Portuguese in February 1509. Mahmud realized that the Portuguese were invincible at sea and opened negotiations for peace with Governor Albuquerque. In November 1510 the Portuguese conquest of Goa, which belonged to the 'Adil Shahi ruler of Bijapur, so greatly enhanced Portuguese power that Mahmud unconditionally released his Portuguese hostages, and the Egyptian-Gujarat confederacy was broken.42

Mahmud died in November 1511. According to the Italian adventurer Ludovico de Varthema, Mahmud's beard reached his girdle, and he tied his inordinately long moustaches behind his head. According to Barbosa, he had been regularly fed on some poison since childhood, with the result that 'if a fly settled on his hand it fell dead'.43 His ravenous hunger led him to consume enormous amounts of food. His title 'Begarha' was a constant reminder of both his conquest of the two forts, Junagarh and

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Champanir, and his moustaches, for the Gujarati word vegara means a bullock with sweeping horns.44

Mahmud's successor, Muzaffar II (1511-26), was a gentle but active ruler. He refused to allow the Portuguese to build a fortress at Div; instead he strengthened its defences and foiled two successive Portuguese attempts to seize it. He also helped Mahmud of Malwa without any motives of personal gain. Although he loved music and patronized musicians, this did not conflict with his piety. His death in 1526 was followed by the brief reigns of two incompetent rulers. Then Bahadur Shah (1526-37) ascended the throne. He was the last of the energetic Gujarat rulers. Early in 1531 his navy, in collaboration with the Turkish fleet, defeated the Portuguese fleet which took shelter in Goa. Next, he annexed Malwa to his kingdom and then arrested Silahdi, the ruler of Raisen, Sarangpur, and Bhilsa, when Silahdi visited the Sultan in his camp to conclude a treaty. Bahadur then seized Raisen and gave it to a Lodi chief from Kalpi, whom the Emperor Humayun had expelled from his territory. In March 1535 the use of artillery belonging to the Turkish gunner Rumi Khan made the Sultan master of Chitor. Rumi Khan, however, disappointed at the Sultan's refusal to make him governor of Chitor, decided to betray him. The opportunity arose before long, when Humayun, in pursuit of Bahadur, reached Mandasor. Ruml Khan urged the sultan first to strengthen his defences and then to make short work of Humayun by using his superior artillery. The suggestion seemed reasonable, but Bahadur's loyal commanders rightly rejected it.45 They believed that the victorious Gujarati army's best interest lay in an immediate assault. Waiting around would only destroy their morale. While the defences were being strengthened, Humayun naturally seized the opportunity to cut off supplies to Bahadur's camp, and his army starved. Ruml Khan deserted to Humayun at the end of April 1535, and Bahadur had no alternative but to retreat to Mandu. Chased by Humayun, Bahadur fled from Mandu to Champanir. From there he sent extremely valuable presents to the Ottoman Sultan, Suiayman the Magnificent (1520-66), in the unrealistic hope of obtaining his help. Humayun's pursusit was relentless; Bahadur had to flee to Cambay. There he burnt his fleet of one hundred warships in order to prevent them falling into Humayun's hands, and sailed to Div. In the despairing hope of obtaining assistance from the Portuguese, Bahadur granted them permission to erect a fort at Div, which he had until then refused.46 Humayun conquered Champanir and then Ahmadabad. He marched on to Div but then had to abandon the pursuit of Bahadur in order to deal with Sher Khan's threat to his throne.

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Bahadur took the opportunity to leave Div and, reassembling his army, regained his lost kingdom. Now regretting his concessions to the Portuguese, Bahadur marched to Gogha near Div, but was outwitted by the Portuguese and slain while returning from negotiations aboard their flagship. On 13 February 1537 he died. With his death the glory of the independent kingdom of Gujarat vanished. Its extinction by Akbar was only a matter of time.

THE WESTERN COAST

Ibn Battuta, who visited the western coast of India in 1343-4, mentioned several Hindu principalities which ruled between San-dapur (Goa) and Quilon. A sizeable community of Muslim merchants lived there comfortably, and their Muslim ruler, Jamalu'd-Din Muhammad of Hinawr (Honovar), owed suzerainty to the Hindu Hoysala king. The Hindu King of Calicut was the most powerful ruler on the coast. He was called Samutiru in Malyalam, but Samuri (meaning Sea-King) by the Arabs and Zamorin by the Portuguese. The Arabs, who exercised a monopoly of the trade between Malabar and the Red Sea, enjoyed considerable respect at the Zamorin court.47

On 17 May 1498 Vasco da Gama, who had left Lisbon with three vessels on 8 July 1497, touched land eight miles north of Calicut. The Zamorin welcomed the Portuguese, but the Muslims were alarmed. They poisoned the Zamorin's mind against the Portuguese and convinced him that the newcomers were spies who would bring huge forces to conquer the country. Their prophecies were not groundless. The Portuguese had meanwhile discovered that the Hindu princes on the Malabar coast were jealous of each other and that the region, which depended for food on grain vessels from the Coromandel coast, was extremely sensitive to a sea blockade. Most importantly they had learned that the Indian and Arab ships could not withstand cyclones and typhoons and sailed from Gujarat to Aden and Basra, from Bengal to Malacca, and from Malabar to Malacca, only at particular times of the year. By contrast, the Portuguese ships could hold the seas in all weathers, and their cannon could destroy Indian ships with the first volley.

Vasco da Gama returned to Lisbon in August 1499 with a cargo of spices collected at Calicut. In March 1500 the King of Portugal sent a larger fleet of thirteen vessels carrying 1,200 men, under Pedro Alvarez Cabral, to destroy their Muslim enemies. Seven ships were lost on the way to Calicut, but the journey took only a

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few days more than six months. The Zamorin welcomed but did not help them. War then broke out between the Portuguese and Muslims. The Portuguese sank ten Muslim vessels and bombarded the town of Calicut for two days. Cabral then sailed to the neighbouring port of Cochin, where the Raja gave him full support against the Muslims. Cabral also sank the ship which the Zamorin had sent to punish the Portuguese. The rajas of Cannaniore and Quilon became Portuguese allies; Cochin, which was better suited to trade, was transformed into the Portuguese trading headquarters.48

The success of their first two expeditions prompted the Portuguese King to dispatch Vasco da Gama again in 1502, not only to destroy Arab trade but also to plant Christianity in India. Da Gama exerted considerable pressure on the Zamorin to expel all the Muslims from Calicut, but the Zamorin only partially complied with his demands. Da Gama then sank several Arab ships and tortured the innocent men and women he captured. The Zamorin's attempted invasions of Cochin were easily repelled, and a war fleet, consisting of two or three hundred vessels sent to the Red Sea by the Zamorin and the Arabs, was destroyed by only four Portuguese ships.49

In 1505 the Portuguese King introduced a scheme of appointing a viceroy to reside in India for three years. The first viceroy was Francisco de Almeida. His successor, Alfonso d'Albuquerque, who conquered Goa in March 1510, encouraged the Portuguese to marry Indian women and allotted them land and cattle. In 1511 Albuquerque conquered Malacca. A year later he foiled a Bijapuri commander's attempts to regain Goa: Portuguese dominance at sea gave them a monopoly of the horse trade, which they used as a weapon in their diplomatic manocuvres with the Indian rulers. Albuquerque died in December 1515 and was buried in the church he had built in Goa. He had laid the foundation for Portuguese predominance in eastern waters. The next Portuguese objective in India was control of the Gujarati port of Div. Unfortunately for them, Malik Iyaz, governor of Div until his death in 1522, was a formidable adversary. He possessed vast personal resources, and his navy, fitted with heavy cannon and light pieces, was quite strong. Not only did he defend Div against Portuguese invasions; he also thwarted the intrigues of the Gujarati nobles, who saw no harm in granting the Portuguese permission to build a fort in Div in return for the right to trade freely.50

After Iyaz's death, interest in protecting the Gujarati ports was stepped up by Sultan Bahadur, who built a fleet of some 160 sail. During his reign the Portuguese grew even more determined to

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The Portuguese possessions in the East and the route to India

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seize Div. In 1530 the Portuguese armada invaded Surat and sacked the town. Rander was also burnt, Bassein and other small ports were destroyed, but Div was impregnable. Only the threat of a Mughal invasion prompted Bahadur to cede Bassein and the surrounding territories to the Portuguese in December 1534. All Gujarati ships bound for the Red Sea had subsequently to call at Bassein to collect a permit to sail and trade and, on their return voyage, again had to go first to Bassein to pay duty. Permission to build a fort at Div was also later given to the Portuguese by Bahadur. After Bahadur's death, frequent Turkish reinforcements helped protect the Gujarat! ports, but the Portuguese rule of the sea made them masters of trade.51

MA'BAR

The annexation of the Deccan by Muhammad bin Tughluq was short-lived. The first region to rebel was the Coromandel coast, now the coastal area of Tamilnadu. The Arabs called it Ma'bar, or 'the pass' or 'ford'. In its capital, Madurai, merchants from Iran, Arabia, and China exchanged goods. Sayyid Ahsan Shah, whose daughter Ibn Battuta had married in Delhi, was Muhammad bin Tughluq's governor there. In 1333-4 he founded his independent kingdom but after ruling for five years he was murdered by one of his own nobles. Ahsan was succeeded by seven rulers, all of whom suffered from the intrigues of their Muslim aristocracy. The Hindus naturally took the opportunity to regain their independence. Ma'bar's fourth ruler, Ghiyasu'd-Din Muhammad Damghan Shah (1340-5), like Ibn Battuta, was Sultan Ahsan Shah's son-in-law. He was an energetic warrior who destroyed his enemies ruthlessly.

Around 1364 the short-lived sultanate lost the greater part of its territory. Only Madurai remained, and in 1377-8 the Vijayanagara ruler annexed it to his kingdom.52

THE BAHMANI KINGDOM

In Chapter I we outlined the circumstances that led Hasan Kangu to carve out the independent Bahmani kingdom in 1347.53 Hasan Kangu assumed the title 'Ala'u'd-Din Hasan Bahman Shah. The court genealogists linked his ancestors with Bahman Isfandar, the Iranian king. The story that he was the servant of Gangu

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Brahmin54 of Delhi is also mythical, because he was a nephew of 'Ala'u'd-Din Khalji's famous general, Hizabru'd-Din Zafar Khan.

Hasan made Gulbarga in north Karnataka his capital and subdued the pro-Tughluq and recalcitrant chiefs there. He captured Goa and occupied Dabol, making it his principal port on the Arabian Sea. His frontiers now extended as far as' Bhongir in northern Telingana, so he divided the kingdom into four provinces; (1) Gulbarga with Raichur and Mudgal, (2) Daulatabad with Bir, Junnar, and Chaul, (3) Berar with Mahur, and (4) Bahmani Telingana with Indur and Kaulas.

'Ala'u'd-Din's successor, Muhammad I (1358-75), consolidated the kingdom most effectively. In 1363 the Raja of Warangal ceded Golkonda and its dependencies to the Sultan. The territory north of the river Tungabhadra had been a bone of contention between the fulers of these regions since ancient times. The Bahmanis were Muslims, and the Vijayanagara ruler was Hindu. The historians of each kingdom give an exaggerated communal colour to the wars between them, but they are essentially political.

The BahmanI Sultan took the field against Bukka and captured Mudgal but could not hold it. He penetrated deep into Vijayanagara territory but was again unable to consolidate his gains, and the war dragged on for several more months. At length the weary Sultan sued for peace; neither side gained any territory, although both suffered terrible human losses.

After 'Ala'u'd-Din's death in 1375 five sultans ruled up to 1397. During this period the tensions among the BahmanI population came to the fore. Immigrants such as Arabs, Turks, and Iranis, who were known as the Afaqis or Gharibs, were bitterly resented by the settlers from north India, the local Muslims, and the Habshis, who were known collectively as the Dakhinis. Hindu influence was rising in both cultural life and the government, and when Tajud-Din Flruz (1397-1422) ascended the throne he promoted Hindus to high office in order to offset any Afaqi predominance - although he also resumed the war against Vijayanagara. Like his predecessors, he was unable to capture Vijayanagara but he forced Devaraya I to give him his daughter in marriage and to cede Bankapur fort as her dowry. In 1417 he again invaded the Vijayanagara kingdom but was defeated at Panagal (Nalagonda). In his old age Flruz was forced to surrender the government to his brother, Khan-i Khanan, who defeated his supporters. He died in 1422.55

Ahmad I (1422-36) began his rule with a victory over the Raja of Warangal in 1424. He then shifted his capital from Gulbarga to Bidar, situated on a plateau not far from Warangal and Golkonda. He was more adventurous than his predecessors, soon defeating the

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chief of Mahur and making it the northern outpost of his kingdom. In 1428 he made the ruler of Kherla his tributary chief and forced the ruler of Khandesh to marry his daughter to his (Ahmad's) son 'Ala'u'd-Din.56 The Bahmanid army also advanced into Gujarat territory but was repulsed at Nandurbar. The Bahmani forces then seized Mahim near Bombay but soon lost it again. In retaliation the Gujaratis captured the Bahmani town of Thana. The fruitless war soon ended with a treaty between the two powers.

Although Ahmad's successor, 'Ala'u'd-Din (1436-58), was not as active as his father, he was also involved in wars against Vijayanagara, Khandesh, and Malwa. He had a fickle nature and first massacred the Afaqis on Dakhini allegations, then slaughtered the Dakhinis when the Afaqis lodged counter-complaints. Towards the end of his life he took to heavy drinking and dissipation. 'Ala'u'd-Din's successor, Humayun Shah (1458-61), appointed as prime minister an Iranian immigrant, Khwaja Mahmud Gilani (Gawan), who had arrived in the Deccan during his father's reign.57 Mahmud tried to persuade the Afaqis and Dakhinis to channel their energies into state interests.

After Humayun's early death, Nizamu'd-Din II, who was only eight years old, ascended the throne. His extreme youth made administration exceedingly difficult, since the members of the council of regency could not agree amongst themselves. In 1461-2 Mahmud Khalji of Malwa invaded the Bahmani kingdom, routed the defending army, and besieged Bidar. The timely arrival of Mahmud Begarh of Gujarat at the head of 20,000 soldiers, however, forced Khalji to retreat. A year later Khalji again marched against the Deccan and besieged Daulatabad, but the news of Begarh's impending arrival forced him to withdraw once more.

In July 1463 Nizamu'd-Din died. The new ruler, Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad (1463-82), was also only about nine years old. The council of regents continued to rule, but two years later one of its members, Khwaja-i Jahan, died and then the second councillor, the Queen Mother, retired from politics. Mahmud Gawan was now the sole administrator of the Bahmani kingdom. Ignoring the hatred between the Dakhinis and the Afaqis, he gave the senior positions to the Dakhinis, and also brought the Hindu chiefs into the government, in order to establish a united Bahmani kingdom. The Russian traveller, Athanasius Nikitin, who visited the Deccan from 1469 to 1474 under the Muslim name Khwaja Yusuf Khurasani, says:

The Sultan (of Beder) is a little man, twenty years old, in the power of the

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nobles. Khorassanians rule the country and serve in war. There is. a Khorassanian Boyar, Melik-Tuchar, who keeps an army of 200,000 men; Melik Khan keeps 100,000; Kharat Khan, 20,000, and many are the khans that keep 10,000 armed men. The Sultan goes out with 300,000 men of his own troops. The land is overstocked with people; but those in the country are very miserable, whilst the nobles are extremely opulent and delight in luxury. They are wont to be carried on their silver beds, preceded by some twenty chargers caparisoned in gold, and followed by 300 men on horseback and 500 on foot, and by horn-men, ten torchbearers and ten musicians.58

Mahmud Khalji's army penetrated the Bahmani borders in 1466 but was repulsed. Next year the Bahmani army seized Kherla in Malwa. Mahmud Gawan then agreed to sign a treaty with -the Malwa Sultan, according to which Kherla was ceded to Malwa and Berar went to the Deccan. Mahmud Gawan's campaigns against the western coastal plains and the Konkan were a great success. He captured Ramgarh in July 1470 and Khelna in January 1471. Making Kolhapur his headquarters, he squashed the guerrilla wars in the hills and seized several forts. The recapture of Goa in February 1472 was Gawan's major victory, and three months later he returned to a hero's welcome in Bidar.59 Daulatabad subsequently broke into revolt, but the governor, Yusuf 'Adil, crushed the rebels. Meanwhile, at Vijayanagara's instigation, the chief of Belgam rebelled and besieged Goa. Mahmud Gawan's enemies urged the Sultan to lead the campaign himself, and, accompanied by Mahmud Gawan, he marched against Belgam and besieged the fort. Gawan breached the walls by laying gunpowder mines, forcing the rebel chief to surrender.60 The conquests during Shamsu'd-Din's reign extended the Bahmanld's frontiers to Khandesh in the north, Tungabhadra in the south, and Orissa in the north-east, and included Goa in the south-west.

Gawan's administrative reforms weakened the power of the provincial governors, who had often intrigued against him and frequently rebelled. Eight provinces were carved out of the existing four districts, and certain areas in each of them were placed directly under the central administration, while their revenue was reserved for the state. The governors were allowed personal control over only one fortress in their territory; the remaining forts in their lands were surrendered to the commanders appointed by the central government. All the military commanders were paid partly in cash and partly by iqta' assignments. Iqta' holders were directly accountable to the Sultan for revenue receipts and the payment of salaries to their levies. The land was measured, and revenue records were reorganized. Gawan developed friendly relations with the Ottoman

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Sultan Muhammad II (1441-6, 1451-81), the conqueror of Constantinople. He wrote letters to the rulers of Gilan, Iraq, and Egypt and corresponded with the rulers and ministers of Gujarat, Jaunpur, and Malwa.

Mahmud Gawan built a college in Bidar which made the Deccan an important intellectual centre. Nevertheless, the curtailment of their power alienated the senior governors from him; in particular Nizamu'1-Mulk, the governor of Rajamundri, could not accept the truncation of Telingana. The dissatisfied nobles bribed Gawan's secretary to affix his master's seal to a sheet of blank paper. They then wrote on it a treasonable letter to the Raja of Orissa and showed it to the Sultan. Gawan admitted that the seal was his but denied writing the letter. The Sultan, unconvinced by Gawan's explanations, had him executed in April 1481. Many of Gawan's friends were also beheaded.61 Although the Sultan did not outlive Gawan by more then twelve months, his subsequent inquiries revealed Gawan's innocence.

THE FIVE DECCAN KINGDOMS

Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad Shah's successor, Shihabu'd-DIn Mahmud, ruled from 1482 to 1518. During his reign the factional wars between the Dakhinis and Afaqis assumed serious proportions. The central administration, which had been strengthened by Mahmud Gawan, collapsed within a few years, and the governors became rebellious. In 1487 Fathu'llah 'Imadu'1-Mulk, then governor of Berar, became virtually independent, while Qasim Band, the new prime minister, reduced the Sultan to a mere puppet. In 1490 Malik Ahmad Nizamu'1-Mulk Bahri, governor of Ahmadnagar, founded the Nizam Shahi kingdom and built Ahmadnagar as his capital. Yusuf' Adil Khan, the governor of Bijapur, proclaimed his independence in the same year. In 1491 Sultan Qull of the Shi'i Qara Qoyunlu tribe of Azerbayjan and Iraq, the governor of Telingana, became virtually independent but in his own political interest never severed relations with Sultan Shihabu'd-Din. After Shihabu'd-Din's death, four sultans ascended the Bahmanid throne between 1518 and 1526. The last one moved from Bidar to Ahmadnagar, where he died in 1526. In 1538 the Bahmani kingdom came to an end. The successors of the prime minister, Qasim Band (d. 1504), consolidated their power, until 'Ali Barid (1543—79), the first monarch of that dynasty, assumed royal power.