The revolt of the Deccan amirs and the founding of the Bahmani kingdom

01The revolt

The amiran-i-sada, officers each set over a hundred villages, held the Deccan for Delhi. When Muhammad bin Tughluq ordered several of them arrested and sent north, they rebelled, seized Daulatabad and its treasury, and proclaimed Ismail Mukh, an Afghan officer, as sultan. The imperial army besieged Daulatabad, but news of risings elsewhere drew the sultan away to Gujarat. Hasan, called Zafar Khan, defeated the remaining royal forces near Gulbarga.

02The Bahmani kingdom

Ismail Mukh, old and unambitious, stepped down, and on 3 August 1347 Hasan was crowned at Daulatabad as Ala al-Din Bahman Shah, making Gulbarga his capital. The new kingdom was born at almost the same moment as Vijayanagara, founded about a decade earlier by Harihara and Bukka on the Tungabhadra. For the next century and a half, the two would fight over the Raichur doab in a series of wars recorded by Firishta.

Person · reigned 1336–1356 CEHarihara IThe eldest of the five Sangama brothers, Harihara founded Vijayanagara on the Tungabhadra in 1336 with the blessing of the sage Vidyaranya, and by his death in 1356 held most of the land between the Krishna and the Kaveri.Read →