SOAS Research Online

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Abstract

The Deccan Sultanates were Muslim-ruled sultanates in central India, comprising Aḥmadnagar, Bījāpūr, Golkonda, and the short-living Berār and Bīdar. Emerging out of the disintegration of the Bahmanī Sultanate in the 1480s, the Deccan Sultanates incorporated varied Muslim (Foreigners, Deccanis) and non-Muslim (Brahmins, nāyakas, desāīs, Marathas) elites. During the sixteenth century, the sultanates expanded their territories, fostered both Islamic and local characteristics, and employed multiple languages (Persian, Dakhni, and the vernaculars Kannada, Marathi, and Telugu) and political idioms simultaneously to accommodate various elements of local society. In the seventeenth century, the Mughal Empire increased its influence in the Deccan, conquering Aḥmadnagar in 1636. The Marathas broke away from Bījāpūr in the 1650s, further destabilizing the political order by pursuing their independent agenda. Under these growing pressures, Bījāpūr and Golkonda collapsed and their territories were annexed by the Mughals in 1686-87.