Sultans of the South: The Bahmanis

Election of Ismail Mulk as the First Sultan of Deccan

In CE 1346, the leading nobles of the Deccan assembled at Daulatabad to decide the future of a region that had already begun slipping from Delhi's grasp. Among those present were several powerful Amirah-i-Sadah (Commanders of a hundred villages), including Ismail Mulk, Hasan Gangu, Nur-ud-Din, Nasir-ud-din Taghalchi, and others. Just days earlier, many of them had been marching towards Gujarat under orders of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq to reinforce imperial forces battling rebels. Instead, they turned back, killed the loyalists, seized the royal treasury at Daulatabad to the utter shock of Viceroy Alim-ul-Mulk and proclaimed the independence of the Deccan. What compelled these men, many of whom owed their positions to the Sultan, to take such a drastic step? The answer lies in two decades of ambitious expansion, administrative experimentation and growing tensions between the Sultan and the Dakhni nobility.

The foundations of Delhi's authority in the Deccan had been laid several decades earlier. While the Mamluk kings concentrated largely on consolidating northern and central India, Alau-ud-din Khalji's famous raid on Devagiri in 1296 opened the door for sustained Sultanate expansion into the Deccan and southern India. Subsequent campaigns, particularly those led by Malik Kafur, brought immense wealth and several southern kingdoms under Delhi's influence. Under Muhammad bin Tughluq, the Sultanate reached its greatest territorial extent, with its direct authority stretching across much of the subcontinent, including Maharashtra, Telangana and the Tamil country. Yet the very scale of this empire created administrative challenges that would eventually undermine imperial control.

Daulatabad and the Rise of the Dakhni Nobility

Portrait of the fortress at Daulatabad 

Expanding the empire was one thing; holding it was another. After savagely suppressing a rebellion led by his cousin Bahauddin Gurshasp and famously ordering him cooked in biryani, Muhammad bin Tughlaq decided in CE 1327 to transfer his capital from Delhi to Devagiri, renaming it Daulatabad. He envisioned this central stronghold as a launchpad to control the south and shield his realm from Mongol raids. The move compelled large sections of Delhi's nobility, officials and religious elites to relocate south. Many suffered greatly during the process, while those who arrived in the Deccan were incorporated into the administrative structure and appointed to influential positions such as Amiran-i-Sadah, officials who exercised fiscal, judicial and military authority over their jurisdictions. Over time, these officers developed independent power bases.

However, after logistical failures, acute water shortages, and northern revolts forced the Sultan to move the capital back to Delhi in CE 1335, the nobility was forced to march back, losing thousands more lives along the way. Those left behind were permanently disillusioned and increasingly detached from the Tughluq regime.

The Empire Begins to Fracture

With the Sultan preoccupied in the north, his southern dominions began to break away. In Madurai, Jalaluddin Ahsan Khan declared independence; even the execution of his son in Delhi failed to deter him. In Kampili, the Sangama brothers - Harihara and Bukka, former Tughlaq loyalists, broke ranks to lay the foundations of the Vijayanagara Empire, while local chieftains across Telangana defied imperial decrees.

The Deccan proper remained tethered to Delhi only through the steady hand of its Viceroy, Qutlugh Khan, who was also the Sultan's former preceptor. Qutlugh Khan quelled several early revolts, including those of Bidar’s governor, Nusrat Khan (CE 1337), and Afghan nobleman Ali Shah Natthu (CE 1340). Ali Shah and some of his brothers were captured and exiled to Ghazni; it is yet unclear if Natthu's brother - Hasan Gangu, participated in this revolt. But in CE 1345, court factionalism poisoned the Sultan's mind against Qutlugh Khan. He was abruptly recalled to Delhi, stripping the Deccan of its stabilizing force and setting the stage for total collapse.

Paranoia, Purges, and the Point of No Return

Increasingly paranoid, Muhammad bin Tughlaq convinced himself that the old Delhi nobility settled in the south were behind every regional insurrection. He increasingly relied on men of comparatively modest backgrounds and attempted to reduce the influence of the entrenched aristocracy. Several key appointments in the Deccan and neighbouring provinces including Gujarat and Kampili reflected this policy.

At the same time, harsh measures against suspected rebels heightened tensions. The old Amirah-i-Sadah viewed this as an existential threat. Their worst fears were realised when Aziz-ud-din Khammar, the new governor in Malwa, pre-emptively executed around 80 local amirs in Dhar, accusing them of harbouring secessionist tendencies. Shortly after, when the new administration ordered the Deccan amirs to march to Gujarat to suppress rebels, they knew compliance meant walking straight to the executioner's block. Choosing survival, they revolted.

Ismail Shah, the First Sultan of the Deccan

The insurgent nobles declared Abul Fath Nasiru’d-din Ismail Mulk as their first Sultan. Ismail was a respected veteran whose brother, Malik Yel Afghan was stationed in Malwa and was expected to provide vital northern reinforcement in case of a northern attack. While Ismail Shah became the symbolic head of the movement, military leadership increasingly rested in the hands of Hasan Gangu and other experienced commanders who would have to defend the fledgling state. The new Sultan promptly assigned key titles: Nur-ud-din became Khwaja-i Jahan, while Hasan Gangu was given the title of Zafar Khan and appointed as Amiru’l-Umara (Commander-in-Chief). Demonstrating tactical foresight, Ismail granted asylum to Gujarat rebels under Qazi Jalal, who was given the title of Qadr Khan.

Zafar Khan besieging the Gulbarga fort

The infant state's first task was securing its borders by reining in Kandhra, a Tughlaq loyalist holding the key fort of Gulbarga. As initial efforts by rebel commanders failed to achieve a breakthrough, Zafar Khan took charge without waiting for formal orders. Meanwhile, news arrived that Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq was marching south with a massive force and the Daulatabad leadership panicked, ordering the commander to retreat and defend the capital. Accusing the capital's nobles of cowardice, Zafar pressed the siege until Gulbarga’s defenses were crippled, and only then returned to face the main imperial army. His determination enhanced his reputation among both soldiers and nobles, reinforcing his image as the rebellion's most capable commander.

In a bid to rein in the rebels and recapture Daulatabad, the Sultan marched from Delhi and engaged the rebel army outside Daulatabad in a fiercely contested battle. The rebels were on the brink of pushing back imperial lines when disaster struck: a stray arrow killed rebel commander Khwaja-i Jahan. Despite valiant counter-charges led by Zafar Khan, panic swept through the rebel ranks, turning the fight into a total rout.

The survivors regrouped inside Daulatabad and adopted a divide-and-conquer defense: Ismail Shah would hold the nearby citadel of Dharakhera to pin down imperial siege forces, while Zafar Khan and other commanders would retreat to their regional fiefs to rally fresh troops. The Sultan dispatched victory missives to Delhi, but before he could finish off the insurgency, a massive revolt broke out in Gujarat. Forced to rush north, he left general Malik Jauhar to maintain the siege of Dharakhera and sent Imad-ul-Mulk Sartez to secure Gulbarga and counter Zafar Khan. Jauhar’s brutal treatment of both rebels and civilians only galvanized local resistance.

Zafar Khan Turns the Tide

Zafar Khan

With Dharakhera near collapse, rebel leaders met at Sagar and resolved to break the siege of Daulatabad. Learning of this move, Imad-ul-Mulk Sartez rushed his army north from Gulbarga to intercept them. Zafar Khan outmanoeuvred the imperial troops, smashing their advance guard outside Daulatabad before marching south to confront Sartez directly at Sindtan. In a decisive pitched battle, Khan decimated the imperial force; Sartez was captured and beheaded. With the main Tughlaq army shattered, he returned to Daulatabad as an undisputed liberator, receiving a royal welcome from the Sultan and the general population.

Shortly after these successes, Ismail Shah voluntarily relinquished power in favour of Zafar Khan The decision reflected political realities. While Ismail was a capable defensive figurehead, Zafar was a battlefield mastermind who led from the front. Furthermore, Ismail’s brother had sided with the Tughlaqs during the war, clouding his family’s reliability. Zafar, by contrast, carried revolutionary legitimacy as the brother of the mrebel Ali Shah and had repeatedly demonstrated the decisive leadership required of a monarch. Unanimously backed by the army and nobility, he ascended the throne in CE 1347 as Sultan Alau-ud-din Bahman Shah, marking the official birth of the Bahmani Sultanate, the Deccan's first independent Islamic empire. The crescent moon has risen in the Deccan and the remnants of Bahmani state would continue to rule parts of the region for over three centuries.

Heads up: The text in this post was embellished with a little AI polish, and the images are AI-generated.