Golconda Sultanate

The Golconda Sultanate was a Muslim kingdom in the south-eastern Deccan of India, ruled by the Qutb Shahi dynasty from 1518 until 1687. One of the five sultanates that emerged from the break-up of the Bahmani Sultanate, it covered much of today's Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, with parts of neighbouring states. It grew famously rich on diamonds and textiles, built the city of Hyderabad, and was finally annexed by the Mughals.

The founder, Sultan Quli, was a Shia Muslim born in Hamadan in Persia around 1485, a descendant of the Qara Qoyunlu Turkoman ruler Qara Yusuf. Early in the sixteenth century he travelled to Delhi with relatives, among them his uncle Allah Quli, and then south to the Deccan, where he served the Bahmani sultan and won the title Qutb-ul-Mulk, "pillar of the realm", for his military service. As Bahmani authority dissolved he made himself master of Golconda; his reign is usually dated from 1518. His own tomb inscription still calls him Qutb-ul-Mulk rather than king, and some historians doubt that he ever formally proclaimed himself sultan. He extended his lands eastwards, forcing the ruler of Jeypore to give up the country between the mouths of the Krishna and Godavari rivers.

In 1543 Sultan Quli was assassinated while at prayer by his second son, Jamsheed, who also blinded the heir and killed another brother. Another son, Ibrahim, fled to the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara. After Jamsheed's death in 1550 and the brief reign of his young son, the nobles brought Ibrahim back as sultan. Ibrahim ruled until 1580 and joined the alliance of Deccan sultanates that crushed Vijayanagara at the Battle of Talikota on 23 January 1565. His son Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah (1580–1612) founded Hyderabad, which in 1591 replaced the fortress of Golconda as capital, and the Char Minar rose at its centre.

The state drew its main revenue from a land tax, but it held a monopoly on the diamond mines of its southern districts, especially Kollur, and the stones were cut and sold in Hyderabad. The weaving villages of the river deltas produced muslins and printed calicoes, shipped from the port of Masulipatnam to Persia, Europe and Southeast Asia, and the kingdom traded with Ayutthaya in Siam. Prosperity peaked in the 1620s and 1630s. The sultan held absolute power, aided by a chief minister and officials for finance, police and the treasury. Revenue was long farmed out to the highest bidder; in 1670 the realm was divided into 21 provinces and 355 districts.

For roughly its first ninety years the court was Persian in language and taste. Muhammad Quli, who wrote poetry in Dakhini, Persian and Telugu, began to favour Telugu, and by the end of the dynasty edicts were mainly in Telugu with Persian summaries. The historian Richard Eaton notes that the court came to see its rulers as "Telugu Sultans". Early sultans restricted open Hindu worship, but Muhammad Quli reversed that policy, and the last sultan relied on two Brahmin ministers, Madanna and Akkanna. Qutb Shahi monuments include Golconda Fort, the royal tombs and the Mecca Masjid.

Golconda fought repeatedly with its neighbours Bijapur and Ahmadnagar. In 1636 the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan forced it to accept Mughal overlordship and pay tribute. Under its last ruler, Abul Hasan, known as Tana Shah, the emperor Aurangzeb besieged and took Golconda in 1687. Abul Hasan died a prisoner at Daulatabad, and his kingdom became the Mughal province of Hyderabad.

Our maps label the kingdom "Golkonda" in 1530, 1600 and 1650; by 1700 the Mughal Empire has absorbed the region.