Sultanate of Golconda

Sultanate of Golconda
قطب شاهیان
1518[1]–1687[2]
Flag of Sultanate of Golconda
Flag of the Qutb Shahis
Golconda map published in 1733 Germany[3]
Golconda map published in 1733 Germany[3]
CapitalGolconda (1519–1591)
Hyderabad (1591–1687)
Common languagesPersian (official)[4]
Telugu (official after 1600)[5]
Deccani Urdu
Religion
Shia Islam
GovernmentMonarchy
Sultan 
• 1518–1543
Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk
• 1543–1550
Jamsheed Quli Qutb Shah
• 1550–1550
Subhan Quli Qutb Shah
• 1550–1580
Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah
• 1580–1612
Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah
• 1612–1626
Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah
• 1626–1672
Abdullah Qutb Shah
• 1672–1687
Abul Hasan Qutb Shah
History 
• Established
7 December 1518[1]
• Disestablished
22 September 1687[2]
CurrencyMohur, Tanka
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Bahmani Kingdom
Gajapati Empire
Vijayanagara Empire
Hyderabad Subah
Today part ofIndia

The Sultanate of Golconda (Persian: سلطنت گلکنده; Urdu: سلطنت گولکنڈه) was an early modern kingdom in southern India, ruled by the Persianate,[6] Shia Islamic Qutb Shahi dynasty[a] of Turkoman origin.[7][8] After the decline of the Bahmani Sultanate, the Sultanate of Golconda was established in 1518[9] by Quli Qutb Shah, as one of the five Deccan sultanates.

The kingdom extended from parts of the modern-day Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Telangana.[10] The Golconda sultanate was constantly in conflict with the Adil Shahis and Nizam Shahis, which it shared borders with in the seventeenth century to the west and northwest.[11] In 1636, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan forced the Qutb Shahis to recognize Mughal suzerainty and pay periodic tributes. The dynasty came to an end in 1687 during the reign of its seventh sultan Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, when the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb arrested and jailed Abul Hasan for the rest of his life in Daulatabad, incorporating Golconda into the Mughal empire.[12][13][11]

The Qutb Shahis were patrons of Persianate Shia culture.[13][14] The official and court language of the Golconda sultanate during the first 90 years of its existence (c. 1518 – 1600) was also Persian. In the early 17th century, however, the Telugu language was elevated to the status of the Persian language, while towards the end of the Qut Shahis' rule, it was the primary court language with Persian used occasionally in official documents. According to Indologist Richard Eaton, as Qutb Shahis adopted Telugu, they started seeing their polity as the Telugu-speaking state, with the elites of the sultanate viewing their rulers as "Telugu Sultans".[15]

  1. ^ Sherwani, Haroon Khan (1946). The Bahmanis of the Deccan – An Objective Study. Krishnavas International Printers, Hyderabad Deccan. p. 386. OCLC 3971780.
  2. ^ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 3 . Vol. 3. Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 – via Wikisource.
  3. ^ For a map of their territory see: Schwartzberg, Joseph E. (1978). A Historical atlas of South Asia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 147, map XIV.4 (l). ISBN 0226742210.
  4. ^ Brian Spooner and William L. Hanaway, Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 317.
  5. ^ Alam, Muzaffar (1998). "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics". Modern Asian Studies. 32 (2): 317–349. doi:10.1017/s0026749x98002947. S2CID 146630389. Ibrahim Qutb Shah encouraged the growth of Telugu and his successor Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah patronized and himself wrote poetry in Telugu and Dakhni. Abdullah Qutb Shah instituted a special office to prepare the royal edicts in Telugu (dabiri-ye foramina-i Hindavi). While administrative and revenue papers at local levels in the Qutb Shahi Sultanate were prepared largely in Telugu, the royal edicts were often bilingual. '06 The last Qutb Shahi Sultan, Abul Hasan Tana Shah, sometimes issued his orders only in Telugu, with a Persian summary given on the back of the farmans.
  6. ^ Christoph Marcinkowski, Shi'ite Identities: Community and Culture in Changing Social Contexts, 169-170; "The Qutb-Shahi kingdom could be considered 'highly Persianate' with a large number of Persian-speaking merchants, scholars, and artisans present at the royal capital."
  7. ^ Syed, Muzaffar Husain (2011). Concise History of Islam. Vij Books India Private Limited. p. 258. ISBN 978-9-382-57347-0. The Qutb Shahi dynasty was the ruling family of the sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. They were Shia Muslims and belonged to a Turkmen tribe.
  8. ^ Siddiq, Mohd Suleman. "The Da’irat-ul-Ma’arif: A Unique Language Institute of Hyderabad." In Languages and Literary Cultures in Hyderabad, pp. 203-216. Routledge, 2017.
  9. ^ Firouzeh, Pevyand (2018). "Maḥmūd Shihāb al-Dīn Bahmanī". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_36029. ISSN 1873-9830.
  10. ^ Sen, Sailendra (2013). A Textbook of Medieval Indian History. Primus Books. p. 118. ISBN 978-9-38060-734-4.
  11. ^ a b C.E. Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, (Columbia University Press, 1996), 328.
  12. ^ Keelan Overton (2020). Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400–1700. Indiana University Press. p. 82. ISBN 9780253048943. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  13. ^ a b Farooqui Salma Ahmed (2011). A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India. pp. 177–179. ISBN 9788131732021.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference Chandra was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference Eaton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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