Bahmani Kingdom
Bahmani Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||
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| 1347–1527 | |||||||||||||||||
The Bahmani Sultanate at its greatest extent in 1473 under regent Mahmud Gawan | |||||||||||||||||
| Status | Sultanate | ||||||||||||||||
| Capital | |||||||||||||||||
| Official languages | Persian | ||||||||||||||||
| Common languages | Kannada Deccani Marathi Telugu | ||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Sunni Islam Shia Islam Sufism | ||||||||||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||||||||
| Sultan | |||||||||||||||||
• 1347–1358 | Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah | ||||||||||||||||
• 1525–1527 | Kalim-Allah Shah | ||||||||||||||||
| Historical era | Late Medieval | ||||||||||||||||
• Established | 3 August 1347 | ||||||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1527 | ||||||||||||||||
| Currency | Taka | ||||||||||||||||
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| Today part of | India | ||||||||||||||||
The Bahmani Kingdom or the Bahmani Sultanate was a late medieval Persianate kingdom that ruled the Deccan plateau in India. The first independent Muslim sultanate of the Deccan, the Bahmani Kingdom came to power in 1347 during the rebellion of Ismail Mukh against Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the Sultan of Delhi. Ismail Mukh then abdicated in favour of Zafar Khan, who established the Bahmani Sultanate.
The Bahmani Kingdom was perpetually at war with its neighbours, including its rival to the south, the Vijayanagara Empire, which outlasted the sultanate. The Mahmud Gawan Madrasa was created by Mahmud Gawan, the vizier regent who was prime minister of the sultanate from 1466 until his execution in 1481 during a conflict between the foreign (Afaqis) and local (Deccanis) nobility. Bidar Fort was built by Ahmad Shah I (r. 1422–36), who relocated the capital to the city of Bidar. Ahmad Shah led campaigns against Vijayanagara and the sultanates of Malwa and Gujarat. His campaign against Vijayanagara in 1423 included a siege of the capital, ending in the expansion of the Sultanate. Mahmud Gawan would later lead campaigns against Malwa, Vijayanagara, and the Gajapatis, and extended the sultanate to its maximum extent.
The sultanate began to decline under Mahmood Shah. Through a combination of factional strife and the revolt of five provincial governors (tarafdars), the Bahmani Sultanate split up into five states, known as the Deccan sultanates. The initial revolts of Yusuf Adil Shah, Malik Ahmad Nizam Shah I, and Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk in 1490 and Qasim Barid I in 1492 saw the end of any real Bahmani power, and the last independent sultanate, Golkonda, in 1518, ended the Bahmanis' 180-year rule over the Deccan. The last four Bahmani rulers were puppet monarchs under Amir Barid I of the Bidar Sultanate, and the kingdom formally dissolved in 1527.