SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis deals with the little known but much needed history of the Adilshahi kingdom of Bijapur. Flourishing as this kingdom did with the other Deccan sultanates, its policy affords an insight into the disintegration and disunion among the Muslim states of the Deccan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The significance of this cannot be overrated. For, it was the perpetual quarrels between the sultanates and the bitter dissensions in them between Sunnis and Shias, between Deccanis and Pardesis, that invited the Mughals to the south, and enabled the Marathas to consolidate their power. The petty principalities with their petty cabals could seldom gauge the common danger or concert common measures for common safety. The only redeeming feature was the formation of the Muslim confederacy which resulted in the destruction of the Hindu Empire of Vijayanagar. The attempts to dislodge the Portuguese, however, proved utterly unavailing. And after the victory over Vijayanagar, the normal internecine warfare once more flared up in the Deccan, never to abate till the end. In this period of storm and stress general administration was completely neglected; it remained as it was under the Bahmanis save for a few incidental modifications. I have, therefore, given only a short sketch of the Adilshahi administration. I have devoted two chapters to the social and economic conditions of the kingdom, and I have also made an attempt to deal with the prominent features of the cultural aspects of Adilshani rule.