173

The Quṭb Shāhīs

901–1098/1496–1687

Golconda-Muḥammadnagar

The Quṭb Shāhīs ruled over the east-central, largely Telugu-speaking part of the Deccan (now Andhra Pradesh State) from the ancient hill-fort of Golconda and then from their new city of Hyderabad (Ḥaydarābād), which was adjacent to the fortress and planned by Muḥammad Qulī in 997/1589, and to which the state capital was moved some time afterwards.

The founder of the line, Sulṭān Qulī, was a Türkmen from western Persia who was descended from the Qara Qoyunlu (see above, no. 145) and who migrated to seek his fortune in South India soon after the fall of the Türkmen dynasty. He became one of Maḥmüd Shāh Bahmanī’s chief ministers and governor of Tilang Andhra or Telingana, the eastern part of the Bahmanid Sultanate and nucleus of the future Quṭb Shāhī principality. His successors turned what had been de facto independence into the reality of sovereign power. Sulṭān Qulī Quṭb Shāh had vigorously proclaimed his Twelver Shl‘ism, eventually recognising the Safawid Shāh ‘Ismā‘īl I (see above, no. 148) as his spiritual suzerain, and the Quṭb Shāhī court became a vigorous centre for Persian literature and culture in general. The Quṭb Shāhīs were almost continuously involved in warfare with the other successor-states to the Bahmanids, the ‘Ādil Shāhīs and the Niẓām Shāhīs (see above, nos 170, 171), and with Vijayanagar, until Shāh Jahān intervened in 1045/1636 and forced on the Quṭb Shāhīs their recognition of Mughal suzerainty, in the shape of tribute and a treaty of submission (inqiyād-nāma) which, inter alia, banned the public celebration of Shī’ī practices and festivals. Some fifty years later, Awrangzīb ended the Shāhs’semi-independent status completely and incorporated their lands into his empire.

Justi, 471; Lane-Poole, 318, 321; Zambaur, 298–9.

EI² ‘Golkond́ā’ (H. K. Sherwani), ‘Haydarābād. a. City’ (J. Burton-Page), ‘Hind. IV. History’ (idem), ‘Kuṭb Shāhī‘’ (R. M. Eaton).

H. K. Sherwani and P. M. Joshi (eds), History of Medieval Deccan (1295–1724), I, 411–90, with a genealogical table at p. 413, II, 446–7.

Haroon Khan Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shāhī Dynasty, New Delhi 1974, with a genealogical table at the end.

R. C. Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People. VII. The Mughul Empire, ch. 14 IV.