Category Archives: Arts, Culture & Entertainment

The Bahmani remains

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Karnataka (under research project), Royal Families, PreIndependence -Descendants (wef. Jan 02nd,2022), Travel & Tourism, Uniquely Indian Muslim HISTORICAL RECORDS - Sufi Shrines, Dargahs, Tombs, Mughal Mausoleums (wef. December 07th, 2024), , , ,

KARNATAKA :

A short excursion through the towns of Bijapur, Gulbarga, Bidar and Yadgir in north-eastern Karnataka can turn into a marathon heritage walk with serendipitous sightings of monuments from the medieval era.

The Gulbarga fort and the Jama Masjid inside it.

SARMAST is said to have been the first Sufi to have come to the Deccan. He settled down in what is now the outskirts of Sagar village in Yadgir district of Karnataka. His grave is now venerated as a dargah. Rocky hillocks with generous splashes of greenery run along the road leading to Sagar from Gulbarga, a distance of 90 kilometres, belying the strong notion that all of the Hyderabad-Karnataka region is dry and dusty.

Tajuddin Dervish, the keeper of the holy grave, sat outside the arched entrance smoking a beedi. As we entered the dargah, we struck up a conversation with him about Sarmast. He recalled the legend, which must have got corroded by retellings over generation. In this tale, the necromancer Karmatgaar, who was up to mischief all the time, flew across the skies and disturbed the Sufi’s meditation. Enraged, Sarmast flung him across the Deccan plateau. In this fantastic tale, the goddess Yellamma (who is worshipped in the northern parts of Karnataka) also makes an appearance; her role is one of heroism. A temple supposedly dating back to the time of the incident is dedicated to her at Sagar.

If we link these hagiographical stories to actual events as the historian Richard M. Eaton has done in Sufis of Bijapur, 1300-1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India , it is certain that Sarmast was part of the raiding parties from the north sent by Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296-1316), who made forays into the Deccan and further south. The Deccan later became a part of the expanding Delhi Sultanate under the rule of the Tughlaqs. A bloody battle is supposed to have taken place at the site of Sarmast’s dargah, and many warriors were buried where they fell. The large circular area around the open grave of the saint is a medieval graveyard.

Unnamed tombs, locally called gumbad s, in various states of decrepitude and portions of walls with vestiges of fine carvings lie scattered around the area. Tomb raiders, probably lured by stories of treasures, have broken the graves inside these sepulchres. In the town of Sagar, there is a single-arched gateway so broad that an elephant can pass through it. A magnificent and well-maintained tomb on an imposing platform lies on the path a little ahead, next to a baoli (stepwell). None of these historical structures come under the purview of national or State-level archaeological conservation authorities.

The Bahmani sultanate

A few decades after the rulers from the north made forays into the Deccan, another Sufi saint, Sheikh Sirajuddin Junaydi (d. 1380), gained prominence. He blessed Alauddin Bahman Shah (r. 1347-1358), who broke away from the Tughlaq empire to establish the first independent Bahmani Sultanate in 1347, thereby inaugurating the rule of Muslim kings in the Deccan. While Junaydi’s tomb, marked by two imposing minarets, has flourished and is venerated to this day in Gulbarga, the tomb of Alauddin Bahman Shah is empty and the small compound in which it is situated is surrounded by illegal constructions.

Basavanappa, employed by the State Archaeological Department, guards the four Bahmani-era monuments. He said: “This is the man whose descendants built so many grand monuments. Guarding these gives us our daily bread and I have the responsibility of safeguarding his tomb.”

Alauddin Bahman Shah’s rule was brief. The moving of the capital from Daulatabad to Gulbarga, after severing links with the Delhi Sultanate, marked his reign. He also set up a dynasty that lasted two centuries (between 1347 and 1527) which, along with its legatee kingdoms, matched the Delhi Sultanate and later the Mughals in the splendour of their courts. At the centre of Gulbarga is the fort from where the Bahmanis ruled their vast empire which at its peak extended from Gujarat to Goa, all the way across modern-day Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. While the Bahmanis constantly went to war with the Vijayanagara Empire, they also had deep cultural encounters with their neighbours.

The Bahmani kings ruled over a multi-ethnic and linguistically diverse empire whose citizens included indigenous residents, who spoke Marathi, Kannada and Telugu and other local languages, and migrants from north India. There was a regular stream of immigrants coming from Iran and Turkey to the royal cities via the sea route. African slaves, who rose up in the ranks, also played important roles in the matters of the Bahmani court.

The Bahmani Empire shifted its capital to Bidar in the 15th century, but an implosion was imminent because of differences between its ruling nobles. The waning empire gave birth to five independent sultanates that shone brilliantly in their maverick existences. They subsumed their differences and combined forces to defeat the Vijayanagara king at the Battle of Talikota (1565), but the sultanates were annexed by the Mughal Empire during the reign of Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707), whose campaigns in the Deccan were to keep him occupied for half of his regnal period.

The Bahmani Sultanate and its splinter kingdoms have had a long impact on the culture and society of the Deccan. Magnificent architectural specimens of their reign can be seen in the entire region. Tombs, mosques, idgah s (prayer grounds), palaces and forts stud the entire area. These structures have a distinct style, which the architectural historian Helen Philon calls a “unique Deccan architectural vocabulary” in her book Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur . She says that this style is augmented by “building forms and decorative motifs introduced from Arabia and Persia, as well as from Turkey and Central Asia”.

A short excursion through Bijapur, Gulbarga and Bidar can turn into a heritage walk, marked by serendipitous sightings of monuments. While some of these edifices, such as the Gol Gumbaz, are fairly well known, there are others such as the royal necropolis of Ferozabad, around 30 kilometres from Gulbarga, which are known only to heritage enthusiasts.

One the most significant public works of the Bahmani kings was the karez system, in which water was supplied through tunnels from stepwells and other underground sources. Such tunnels supplied water to civilian settlements and the garrison inside the Bidar fort. The karez system is now being revived by Team Yuva, a Bidar-based non-governmental organisation led by Vinay Malge.

The Muslim kings also gave importance to landscape gardening and decorations. Local material such as basalt, granite and laterite have been used for buildings; lush gardens dominate the landscape around larger monuments. Vestiges of decorative motifs, murals and tile work can be seen in the monuments in Bidar.

A grand Jama Masjid is at the centre of the Gulbarga fort. It is a simple but imposing structure made even more stately because of the vacant space around it. There is a watchtower inside the fort on which a 29-foot cannon, said to be the longest in the world, is mounted.

Visitors are told that the Jama Masjid was the original congregational mosque of the Bahmani capital; actually, a large rectangular mosque in the crowded Shah Bazaar area of the city was the original Jama Masjid of Gulbarga. Prayers are held every Friday at this mosque, which is now known as the Shah Bazaar mosque. Visitors are allowed to go to the terrace, which is crowned with cupolas. This architectural style of domes on the terrace, mirroring the arches on the ceiling, can be found in prominent mosques from this era in the Deccan. Another historical site in Gulbarga that is worth seeing is the funerary complex, called the Haft Gumbad, of the Bahmani kings. Five rulers of the Bahmani dynasty until Feroz Shah Bahmani (r. 1397-1422) are buried at this site. The tombs, constructed over a period of a few decades, help one see the evolution of the architectural style. The early tombs have slightly sloping walls and are less distinguished, while the later tombs such as that of Feroz Shah, are larger, have a cleaner finish and are embellished with fine carvings.

Feroz Shah’s tomb reflects the king’s aesthetic sense as he was said to be a man of refined taste, was interested in local culture, and was also a polyglot who married the daughter of a Vijayanagara king. He built the city of Ferozabad. If one is visiting Ferozabad for the first time, one will get the feeling of discovering new things. The necropolis, which was inhabited briefly, can now be accessed only after passing through a village off the main road. The main entrance, which is through an arched gateway, is visible, although blocked. One must enter through an agricultural field. Ferozabad reveals itself little by little. It is a complete city with a fort, a palace, a mosque and royal residences, all of which are in ruins now. The apathy towards the upkeep of the architectural splendour of the region is evident from the poor maintenance of Ferozabad. Stone walls that formed part of the ramparts of the fort stand precariously on the ground. A tur dal field is being ploughed inside the premises of what was once the main mosque. The Bhima river glints some distance away. The city was abandoned towards the end of the 15th century after a deluge caused by the overflowing Bhima.

Shifting the capital to Bidar

A strange aspect of Feroz Shah’s tomb is that it has twin domes and separate chambers although only one of these was used for burial with the other lying vacant. Local legend has it that the second chamber was the designated burial space of Feroz Shah’s brother, Ahmed Shah (r. 1422-1436), who was not buried there. During the reign of Ahmed Shah, in 1432, the Bahmani capital shifted to Bidar, and Khwaja Hazrat Bandenawaz (d. 1422), the most well-known Sufi of the Deccan, is supposed to have been one of the causes for this. The Bahmani kings had close ties with Sufi saints, and Ahmed Shah continued the tradition but he was also considered a saint; the only king to be treated as such by his followers. His tomb in the funerary complex of Ashtur, just outside Bidar, is venerated by Muslims, who consider him to be a wali (friend of God), as well as by Hindus, who consider him to be an avatar of Allama Prabhu, a Vachana poet who lived before Basava. Ahmed Shah’s tomb has well-preserved murals and verses from the Quran. The resident caretaker at the tomb used a mirror to ingeniously cast splotches of reflected sunlight on the interior of the dome, which gave us an idea of the bright hues that are still intact.

The funerary complex of Ashtur is far more majestic than the Haft Gumbad. The tombs are bigger and more imposing and the well-maintained lawns add to the beauty of the location. Since the tombs must have been built at different times over a period spanning a century, each tomb has a different architectural style. One tomb that stands out is that of Humayun Shah (r. 1458-61). Lightning has damaged its dome, leaving only a portion of it intact. Visitors are told an apocryphal story of divine justice. Humayun Shah was such a cruel ruler that the word zaalim (tyrant) was affixed to his name. When this tyrant died, God in his infinite wisdom struck his tomb so that he would be exposed to sun and rain for eternity. As the influence of the dynasty waned and independent sultanates began to emerge, the tombs of its rulers also lost their magnificence. The tombs of the last two rulers remain poor cousins of the larger tombs at Ashtur, both in size and form.

From Ashtur, one can see the ramparts of the fort of Bidar, along the short drive to Bidar. This grand Bahmani era fort is surrounded by three moats and impressive bastions. The monuments of Bidar are in much better shape than those in Gulbarga. In the precincts of the fort, which has a massive gateway, are palaces and a mosque, an austere building with 16 arches crowned with a dome. Pathways run through gardens in the royal enclosure. Some of the best examples of exquisite woodwork (a hallmark of Hindu architecture) and mother-of-pearl inlays can be seen in Rangin Mahal, the palace inside the fort. Mahmud Gawan, a powerful prime minister in the Bahmani court, built a madrasa (theological school) bearing his name in 1472. The madrasa is located some distance away from the fort. There are remnants of turquoise tile work of Central Asian design on the tall minaret.

Adil Shahi dynasty

As the Bahmani Sultanate began to fall, it split into separate sultanates, the strongest of which was the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur under Yusuf Adil Khan (r. 1490-1510).

“The period between accessions of Sultan Ali I (1558) to the death of Sultan Muhammad (1656) can be called the Golden Age of the Adil Shahis, as the kingdom flourished in all walks of life,” writes Abdul Gani Imaratwale, a historian based in Bijapur, in his book Studies in Medieval Bijapur . This is reflected by the grandeur of the monuments during this period.

Mohammed Adil Shah’s tomb, the Gol Gumbaz, is often featured on tourism brochures of the Karnataka Tourism Department. It would not be wrong to say that it is the grandest edifice in the modern State of Karnataka. The Gol Gumbaz is visible from many places in Bijapur and is overwhelming at close quarters because of its sheer size. Inside the large tomb, the cenotaph of Mohammed Adil Shah and his close family members can be seen, but these are replicas, with the original graves lying in an underground crypt. At the four corners of the room, steep and winding stairs that test the climber’s stamina lead up to the gallery. The vastness of this free-standing dome accentuates the acoustics within it. Schoolchildren can be seen clapping and yelling to hear the echo. Each burst of sound echoes several times making it difficult to stay there long enough to appreciate the engineering marvel.

The Ibrahim Rauza complex consisting of the tomb of Ibrahim II and a mosque is a delicately built structure and looks as if it has been laid out in front of visitors as they approach it from the garden. Bijapur has many other gems, such as the main congregational mosque, the Jama Masjid, which is an incomplete structure but is remarkable for its large and decorated mihrab (the prayer niche). The largest cannon in the world, the Malik-e-Maidan (lord of the field), which was truly a weapon of mass destruction in the medieval age, can also be found in Bijapur. A palace associated with the early Adil Shahis, the Chini Mahal, is now converted into a government office, and the throne room is now the treasury officer’s cabin.

The towns situated near Bijapur also have historical monuments. There is a 17th century mosque in Afzalpur built by Afzal Khan, a general who was killed by Chhatrapati Shivaji. This smart structure, ignored by archaeological authorities, is being maintained through the personal initiative of Maqsood Afzal, a descendant of the general.

This overview hardly does justice to the extensive architectural heritage in this part of Karnataka. These spectacular monuments do not figure in the itinerary of most tourists.

A wonderful monument like Ibrahim Rauza has only around 500 visitors in a day. In fact, some of the conservation authorities are not even aware of the necropolis of Ferozabad or the Afzal Khan mosque. Infrastructure essential for the growth of tourism is poor in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region. Information on the architectural sites in the region is limited. Efforts to get this heritage corridor recognised as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Site have failed. Ayazuddin Patel, a Lalit Kala Akademi awardee based in Gulbarga, who has photographed the architecture of the region, laments: “We have been completely ignored and forgotten.” The Hyderabad-Karnataka region has been ignored by successive governments since Independence.

The Bahmani kingdom has receded into history although its rulers governed the Deccan for several centuries. This is partly due to the peripheral status of the Deccan and southern India in history writing in India. The long reign of the Bahmani Sultanate and its descendant sultanates has left behind another kind of legacy: a syncretic culture that is visible in harmonious communal relations, the participation of all communities at the shrines of various Sufi saints, and even during events that mark Muharram. The lingua franca of the region, Dakhni Urdu, is also a legacy of the Bahmanis. Many of these medieval rulers openly embraced non-Muslim practices and patronised local cultures, but a communal reading of history pits these kingdoms against the “Hindu” empire of Vijayanagara in a biased understanding of history.

Historians have often disproved this and have stressed aspects of mutual interpenetration and a fusion of cultures and practices (most recently in Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau, 1300-1600 by Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner), but the religious reading of history continues in popular discourse. In February, a small attempt was made to celebrate the legacy of this regional history, with the district administration of Gulbarga deciding to hold a Bahmani and Rashtrakuta Utsav simultaneously. (The Rashtrakuta dynasty ruled this region between the eighth and 10th centuries.)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) instantly opposed this, with its Member of Parliament from Karnataka, Shobha Karandlaje, even tweeting: “Who is Bahamani Sulthans? Who killed lakhs of hindus, who burnt thousands of villages, who raped hindu women, who destroyed temples…. now congress celebrating thier festival… more dangerous” (sic). Considering that this was just a few months before elections to the Karnataka Assembly were to take place, the ruling Congress government quietly withdrew permission for the event. Needless to say, the inaugural edition of the Rashtrakuta Utsav was held in all its splendour. The BJP’s move of selectively opposing events on communal lines is part of its agenda. The partisan reading of history, where the history of Muslim rulers is ignored, will affect inter-religious relations.

Surreal experience

While Sarmast was the first Sufi of the Deccan, Bandenawaz, who was not averse to taking part occasionally in courtly intrigues, was the most well known. At his 15th century tomb in Gulbarga, the interiors of which have been garishly redecorated without any consideration to its architectural significance, Hindus and Muslims arrive in droves and bow in reverence before his grave.

Behind the tomb are a number of unmarked graves. A supplicant, his eyes closed, was ardently praying, with his head bent towards the direction of Bandenawaz’s tomb. Some things must not have changed at this place since the death of Bandenawaz in 1422. Walking through these lands where Sufis lived and kings ruled, where the detritus of empty tombs and unknown crypts can be found all over, one finds myth and fable combining with fact to create a surreal experience.

(In 2014, the names of Gulbarga and Bijapur were officially changed to Kalaburagi and Vijayapura respectively by the government of Karnataka. Yadgir, which was part of Gulbarga district, attained separate district status in 2009.)

source: http://www.frontline.thehindu.com / Frontline / Home> Arts & Culture> Heritage> Architecture / by Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed / Photographs Mohammed Ayazuddin Patel / October 20th, 2018

The artist and his muse

Arts & Crafts / CraftsPersons (wef. January 14th, 2025), Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Events, Exhibitions, Conferences (wef. Nov 18th, 2021), , , , , , , ,

Thrissur, KERALA / Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

Zoya talks about life with artist Riyas Komu, secretary of the Kochi Biennale Foundation

Zoya met Riyas Komu when they were both in the same class at the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai in the 1990s. “What I noticed immediately was that he had a zest and an infectious energy,” says Zoya. “Since he was from Kerala, there was an element of rawness – a kind of innocence – about him, unlike most of my other classmates.”

They were drawn to each other, because of their mutual interest in world cinema. “We attended a lot of film festivals together, and admired the films of Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Andrei Tarkovsky,” she says.

And they gradually fell in love even though they belonged to different backgrounds. Zoya’s parents are from Uttar Pradesh, but they have been settled in Mumbai for a long time, while Riyas is the son of politician M M Komu in Thrissur.

The fact that Zoya did not know Malayalam was not a hindrance for Riyas. Whenever he would come across an interesting article in a Malayalam magazine, he would translate it so that Zoya could also enjoy it. “Thanks to Riyas, I have read [Vaikom Mohammed] Basheer in an English translation,” says Zoya. “He is one of my favourite authors. I loved ‘Poovan Banana (Poovanpazham)’.”

The couple got married on April 7, 2001. And for their honeymoon, they came to visit Riya’s large family, of seven brothers and two sisters. “I am an only child, so it was an interesting experience to become part of a large family,” she says. “The language and culture were so different. You are into and still not into the family. Sometimes, it was difficult to comprehend things, but at the same time, it was quite engaging.”

What ensured Zoya’s assimilation was because she loved Riyas intensely. “He is not obsessed about art only,” she says. “Riyas has an open mind and is interested in all subjects, be it football, theatre, films, literature, and about people and happenings in his village and the world.”

And unusually, for a Malayali, Riyas gives Zoya the mental and physical space to be herself. “Riyas wants me to have my own views and feel free,” she says. “That is the case with the people who work with him. As a result, everybody feels at ease with Riyas.”

In Mumbai, on an ordinary day, Riyas gets up at 8 a m. Following breakfast, he goes to his studio: it could be the one where his sculpting works are done, or his painting studio, both of which are in the suburb of Dahisar. “If he starts work on a painting, he will spend hours on it, and continues labouring on it through the night,” says Zoya. “That is how he likes to work.”

Of course, an artist leads a different life, as compared to a banker or a businessman. “Every day is fluid,” says Zoya. “You have discipline, but you don’t have rigidity. The advantage is that you can do whatever you like, but there are different responsibilities, as compared to a person working in an office. You have to manage your own life.”

In effect, Riyas is the star of his own show. “But the only time he feels pressure is when there is a show coming up, and the works are not ready,” says Zoya.

Not surprisingly, Zoya has a few favourites, among Riyas’ works. One of them, which was displayed at the 2007 Venice Biennale, is a set of paintings called, ‘Petro Angel’. This was inspired by the plight of Iranian women, as shown in the film, ‘The Circle’ (2000). “He has been able to portray the different emotions of women very well,” says Zoya.

Riyas, himself, has gone through an emotional roller-coaster because he, along with Bose Krishnamchari, struggled to set up the landmark art event, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. “He was asked to take the responsibility, and did so,” says Zoya. “Riyas knew that it was important not only for him or Kerala, but for establishing an art culture in India.”

Incidentally, because of Riyas’s preoccupation with the Biennale, Zoya has moved to Kochi with their four-year-old daughter Mariyam. “I am happy to be here and am proud of what Riyas has achieved,” she says.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Kochi / by Shevlin Sebastian / December 24th, 2012

Sarangi maestro Ustaad Sultan Khan is no more

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri Award (since January 01st, 2024), Leaders, World Opinion, , , , , , , , , ,

Jodhpur, RAJASTHAN :

The Padma Bhushan awardee, who hailed from Jodhpur, died of kidney failure in Mumbai.

Sarangi maestro and classical singer Ustad Sultan Khan, the soulful voice behind hits such as Piya basanti re and Albela sajan, passed away in Mumbai on Sunday after kidney failure.

The Padma Bhushan awardee, 71, who hailed from a family of sarangi players in Jodhpur, was on dialysis for the past three months and died on his way to the hospital, family sources said.

Khan is survived by his second wife Bano, son Sabir – also a well-known sarangi player – and two daughters. His funeral will take place in Jodhpur on Monday.

Credited for reviving the sarangi, Khan is famous for his extraordinary control over the instrument and his husky voice. He started performing at the age of 11, and later collaborated at the international level with sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, on George Harrison’s 1974 Dark Horse World Tour.

Khan’s was a family of sarangi masters from Rajasthan. He was initially tutored by his father, Ustad Gulab Khan. Later, he trained under Ustad Amir Khan, a classical vocalist of the Indore gharana. After establishing himself as a sarangi player, Khan worked with Bollywood musicians, such as Lata Mangeshkar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, apart from collaborating with western musicians, such as Ornette Coleman, George Harrison and Duran Duran.

Apart from the Padma Bhushan, Khan won numerous musical awards, including the Sangeet Natak Academy Award (twice), the Gold Medallist Award of Maharashtra and the American Academy of Artists Award in 1998.

Khan was also a member of the Indian fusion group Tabla Beat Science with Zakir Hussain and American bassist Bill Laswell.

The news of Khan’s death came through a post by music composer Salim Merchant (of Salim-Sulaiman fame) on Twitter.

“I lost my ustad – Ustad Sultan Khan, my guru my friend my idol. He passed away this afternoon. We will never have a sarangi maestro like him,” he tweeted.

Eminent sarod player Amjad Ali Khan also condoled his death, saying it was a great loss to the music world. “I am deeply saddened at his demise. He gave a different meaning and dimension to the sarangi ,” he said.

Among the other musicians who expressed grief were music director Vishal Dadlani, and singers Shreya Ghoshal, Abhijeet Sawant and Shaan. “Just heard about the loss of our dear ustad sa’ab :(I had the gr8 fortune and honour of working with him. Too saddened,” Ghoshal tweeted.

Actors Akshay Kumar, Rahul Bose and Dia Mirza also wrote on Twitter. “This has not been a good year what with so many great personalities leaving us. My thoughts and prayers with his (Khan’s) family,” Akshay said.

“He played on the soundtrack of my directorial feature, Everybody Says I’m Fine! Ustad Sultan Khan saab had a huge heart and an impish sense of humour,” Bose recalled.

source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today / Home> News> West / by India Today Online, Mumbai / November 28th, 2011

Deccan architecture

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KARNATAKA / MAHARASHTRA :

Architectural exploration in the sultanate of Ahmednagar can provide deep insights into the political history of the Deccan.

B Y the late 15th century, the Bahmani kingdom that had ruled much of the Deccan since its establishment in 1347 was imploding because of internecine differences among its nobility. Westerners, or the “Afaqis”—immigrants from Persia and Central Asia—had differences with the natives, or the “Deccanis”, an eclectic group of nobles that consisted of descendants of the early Delhi sultanate migrants, local converts to Islam, Habshis (Africans) and Marathas. The weakening of the kingdom was accompanied by ambitious provincial governors declaring independence one after the other, leading to the emergence of five separate principalities, or sultanates.

The earliest to break away and proclaim himself sultan was Ahmed Nizam Shah I, who was the governor of the north-west province of the Deccan, later to be known as Ahmednagar, after the name of the city he would build and designate as capital of the sultanate. Of the four other sultanates that would cleave away chunks of the Bahmani kingdom, Bijapur and Golconda were the large and important ones to emerge.

Ahmednagar survived as a robust Shiite polity for more than a century, until 1600, and then in a feebler form until 1636 before the Mughals, with their unceasing imperial ambitions, completely swamped the city. It took 50 more years for the Mughals to subjugate all the kingdoms of the Deccan when Aurangzeb finally defeated the sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda in 1686 and 1687 respectively. Even though it was the first sultanate to fall to the Mughals because of its location, Ahmednagar survived as an independent state for more than 100 years.

During this time, it carved out a distinct identity in statecraft apart from leaving behind a fairly rich architectural legacy, which is the subject of study of the book under review. With this clearly defined ambition, Pushkar Sohoni, who is an architectural historian, has turned the spotlight on the sultanate of Ahmednagar and presented a method by which architectural exploration can provide deep insights into the political history of a geographical region.

The art and architecture of the Deccan sultanates was the focus of many scholars in the past. In pre-independent India, the region’s architecture was studied as an addendum to the Islamic architecture of northern India (for example, the second volume of Percy Brown’s seminal work on Indian architecture, 1942). More recently, the study of the Deccan as an independent area has come into its own, with scholars such as George Michell and Mark Zebrowski ( Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates , 1999) publishing detailed studies.

Among exhaustively edited volumes on the same theme, a few stand out in recent times, including Silent Splendour: Palaces of the Deccan, 14th–19th Centuries edited by Helen Philon (2010) and Sultans of the South: Art of India’s Deccan Courts, 1323-1687 edited by Navina Najat Haidar and Marika Sardar (2011).

Richard Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner have published a book titled Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau, 1300-1600 (2014) that looks in detail at secondary urban centres of the Bahmani and Deccan Sultanate era such as Kalyana, Raichur and Warangal.

Coming to the scholarship on individual sultanates: Pramod B. Gadre has studied Ahmednagar in some detail ( The Cultural Archaeology of Ahmadnagar during Nizam Shahi Period, 1494-1632 , 1986); Deborah Hutton has looked carefully at the art of Bijapur ( Art at the Court of Bijapur , 2006); Marika Sardar has extensively studied the fortifications of Golconda (“Golconda Through Time: A Mirror of the Evolving Deccan”, unpublished PhD thesis, 2007). The book under review adds to this burgeoning bibliography on the art and architecture of the Deccan sultanates.

In his prefatory chapter, Sohoni makes a forceful case for the independent study of the Deccan, which had a distinct identity from “Hindustan”, or northern India, for most of the past. He writes: “The deep connections of the Deccan with West Asia, completely independent of Northern India, along with the autonomous cultural and historical developments in the south have shaped the Deccan very uniquely. Detailed studies of the polities of the Deccan, therefore, of architecture and statecraft, need to be undertaken in order to explain how, in moments of disengagement with the north, unique formations were created independent of developments in North India.”

This disconnectedness from north India led to the emergence of a distinctive architecture as the Nizam Shahis developed their own style. Sohoni’s argument is that the “…architecture of the Nizam Shahs does not follow a linear development from its Persian origins to the creation of a regional style. The buildings are variously of broadly Persianate and Indic characteristics, at times both, but to call them derivative is unfair, as the kingdom of the Nizam Shahs was trying to create a new architectural language as a regional claim.”

This study of architecture and the politics of Ahmednagar also leads Sohoni to argue ingeniously that the Deccani kingdoms saw themselves as “regionalists” who were resisting the “Hindustani” expansion led by the Mughals. This is an interesting perspective of medieval India.

Thus, the Deccan kingdoms were resisting the cultural expressions of the north by forging links with Persianate lands, which led to autonomous architectural representations. Chaul, Dabhol, Bhatkal and Goa were the principal ports through which connections with the wider Persianate world were forged independently, bypassing north India. In their architecture and in other aspects such as coinage, literature and painting, the Deccan sultans intended to bolster their independent claims as Deccan potentates. At the time, the Deccan was a multi-ethnic society with strong and independent connections to Persia.

There was also a great deal of cultural interaction and churning in the region involving ethnicities as diverse as African, Arab, Central Asian and South Asian. Thus, Sohoni provides ample evidence to back his argument that the Deccan has to be studied independently from “Hindustan”.

Sohoni’s intervention is valuable for the much-needed nuance it provides to the story of medieval India. In the reductive nationalist and colonialist versions of the time, Muslim rulers are seen as invaders “…upsetting indigenous practices until the ‘Hindu revival’ under the Marathas in the seventeenth century which is a simplistic and naive model of regional history”. Through Sohoni’s work, we see that the Nizam Shahi’s forbears were Brahmins who converted to Islam. Sohoni goes on to demonstrate, through his close reading of visual architecture, that the Nizam Shahi state “…formed the basis of the nascent Maratha state that emerged in the mid-seventeenth century under Shivaji Bhonsale”.

Sohoni delineates his method of studying architecture: “In this book, art-historical methods of visual inspection and formal analysis, along with documentation of architecture and construction, expand on earlier attempts to overcome the limited interpretations of previous text-based histories.” His book has a detailed historiographical note on the Nizam Shahis combined with the study of other aspects, such as the role of guilds and the material used in buildings of the time, providing a fulsome interpretation of architecture.

Sohoni also looks briefly at the literature, visual culture and coins of the Nizam Shahs. It is interesting to note that Ahmednagar started minting its own coins only in the second half of the 16th century, and this was done only when it realised the implications of Mughal expansion and had to symbolically demonstrate its independent status.

Commencing his detailed look at the architecture of Ahmednagar, Sohoni dedicates a chapter to urban patterns in six settlements of Ahmednagar: Junnar (the first capital of the Nizam Shahis), Daulatabad (the older capital of the northern Deccan), Ahmednagar (the capital built from scratch by the Nizam Shahis), Chaul (a major seaport), Parenda (a fortified military centre built by the Bahmanis) and Sindkhed Raja (the hereditary fief of the Jadhavs, Maratha nobles at the court of the Nizam Shahs). He also looks at the water technology and the fortifications in these settlements.

In the next chapter, Sohoni looks at the palaces and mansions of Ahmednagar such as Farah Baksh Bagh, a large building originally set on a raised platform in a pool of water. Sohoni spends some time on this monument before moving on to detailed discussions of other monuments such as the Hasht Bihisht Bagh, Manzarsumbah and Kalawantinicha Mahal.

In a subsequent chapter, Sohoni discusses the architecture of 12 mosques spread across various settlements in erstwhile Ahmednagar. Interestingly, Sohoni points out that there was no main congregational mosque in Ahmednagar where proclamations of sovereignty could be made on Friday, which is something unique and can be attributed to the Shiite orientation of its rulers. In the next chapter, Sohoni looks at tombs. One would imagine that like their royal forbears and peers among the Deccan sultanates the Nizam Shahis would also have grand tombs, but barring the first king of the dynasty, none of the other kings are buried here as their bodies were embalmed and sent off to Karbala (Iraq) in homage to their Shiite belief.

Thus, the 14 tombs that have been discussed are of the higher nobles who were buried in the region and memorials that are attributed to Maratha nobles, such as the ancestors of Shivaji in Verul and that of Lakhuji Jadhav in Sindkhed Raja. Another chapter is dedicated to the discussion of miscellaneous buildings, including royal hamam s.

Sohoni does not claim to have catalogued all the extant buildings from the Ahmednagar era, but his list is fairly thorough and includes all the prominent monuments in the region.

Through his work, the author sounds an urgent note of caution as many of these buildings are in a poor state of preservation with a few even slated for demolition. Several noteworthy monuments are not even protected by archaeological authorities. Sohoni has provided accompanying photographs and architectural plans for many of the monuments in his work. His detailed appendix is also useful as it provides an annotated listing of inscriptions on several monuments.

Sohoni concludes by providing an overview of what the Nizam Shahis represented. They were the last medieval state that the early modern Mughal state encountered as it swept across the Deccan.

He writes: “This study locates the Nizam Shahs as a critical component of the architectural and political history of the sixteenth-century Deccan, and hopefully can restore to them some of the status that they once commanded in their own time.” Drawing a direct link from the Nizam Shahis to the incipient Marathi state that emerged, Sohoni contradicts reductive scholarship that sees the Marathas as breaking from an Islamicate past. He writes that “…it is possible to conclude that there was no nationhood or polity based on an ethnic identity, and that their ethnic identity was a marker of social rise through military service. The cultural forms of the greater Islamicate world, as expressed in the Deccan by the Bahmanis, the Vijayanagar kings, and the later sultanates, were also adopted by the Maratha courts. In conception, execution, and ornament, the architecture of the early Marathas was exactly the same as that of their sultanate overlords and peers. The structural forms, decorative details, and planning logic conform to the Islamicate architecture of the Deccan sultanates.”

This book is valuable to architectural historians and historians of medieval India. A logical expectation would be for similar research to be done on the other Deccan sultanates, each of which represented robust regional resistance to the imperial policy of the Mughals.

source: http://www.frontline.thehindu.com / Frontline / Home>Books / by Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed / July 17th, 2019

The medieval Deccan

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Karnataka (under research project), , , ,

KARNATAKA :

A reading of three books throws light on the culture and politics of the Persianate world of the medieval Deccan.

Through fierce forays into southern India, rulers of the Delhi Sultanate like Alauddin Khilji (reign 1296-1316) extended the boundaries of their empire to its furthest extent at the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th centuries by dismantling the existing Yadava, Kakatiya, Hoysala and Pandya kingdoms. Khilji’s forces even reached Madurai in the deep south, where they established a base. Mohammed bin Tughlaq (reign 1325-1351), the eccentric genius of the Tughlaq dynasty that followed the Khiljis, moved the capital of his vast empire from Delhi to Devagiri or Daulatabad, located in what is now the central part of Maharashtra, in order to have his court more centrally located. The Delhi Sultans’ rule in these far-flung domains of their realm was always tenuous, and when Tughlaq’s rule, beset by internal crises and external challenges, withdrew to north India, many provincial governors rebelled, forming independent kingdoms or sultanates.

In the Deccan, an amorphous geographical region extending from the south of the Vindhya Range to the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers, the Bahmani Sultanate was established by rebel Tughlaq nobles in 1347 with its initial base in Daulatabad. Across the Krishna, the vacuum that had set in after the Tughlaq withdrawal had led to the founding of the Vijayanagara kingdom sometime between 1336 and 1346.

The Bahmanis would shift their capital to Gulbarga (now Kalaburagi) in 1350 and in the early 15th century, to Bidar. At its height during the reign of Muhammad III (reign 1463 to 1482), when Mahmud Gavan was the prime minister, the Bahmani Empire extended from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, helmed in by the Khandesh Sultanate in the north and the Vijayanagara empire in the south. While the Bahmani empire was a powerful state, ethnic affiliations overlaid with sectarian differences among the ruling nobility led to its implosion at the end of the 15th century. The provincial governors of Bijapur, Ahmednagar, Golconda, Bidar and Berar established their own Sultanates, snuffing out the Bahmani dynasty. Collectively referred to as the Deccan Sultanates, the 16th century would see these legatee states frequently fight with one another. The mighty Vijayanagara to their south usually sided with one or the other sultan in these conflicts.

Recognising the threat that the powerful Vijayanagarans perennially posed to them, the Deccan Sultanates came together in a temporary alliance in 1565 to defeat Vijayanagara, leaving it to totter to its eventual demise over the next century (See “Beyond the Hindu-Muslim Binary” in Frontline , January 18, 2019). This brief friendship was soon forgotten, and the Deccan Sultanates continued to fight with one another. Berar and Bidar were gobbled up by Ahmednagar and Bijapur respectively, leaving these two states, along with Golconda, as the unchallenged rulers of the Deccan for some time until their wealth attracted the attention of the Mughals. The expansionist policy of the Mughals led to the weakening and eventual subjugation of these regional powers as first Ahmednagar (1636) and then Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687) succumbed to Mughal might, ending the glorious epoch of the Deccan Sultans.

In popular understanding, medieval India is usually equated with the Mughal empire, but this is not to say that the Deccan was deprived of serious explorations of its medieval history. H.K. Sherwani and P.M. Joshi were early modern historians who looked at the Bahmanis and their descendants closely ( History of the Medieval Deccan: 1295-1724 , 1973). One of the books being reviewed in this essay, T.S. Devare’s A Short History of Persian Literature: At the Bahmani, the Adilshahi and the Qutbshahi Courts—Deccan (1961) is also from an earlier era. The work of these scholars has been followed by other prominent historians such as Richard Eaton and Phillip. B. Wagoner, who have closely looked at various facets of medieval Deccan. Manu Pillai ( Rebel Sultans , 2018) has attempted to tell the political history of the Deccan (for a review of this book, see “The Deccan Chronicles”, in Frontline , May 10, 2019). The architecture of the Deccan Sultanates has also been closely studied by architectural historians like George Michell and Helen Philon (the two scholars’ new book is being reviewed here). A new generation of scholars like Deborah Hutton, Marika Sardar, Pushkar Sohoni (for a review of Sohoni’s book, see “Deccan Architecture” in Frontline , August 2, 2019) and Emma J. Flatt (whose book is being reviewed in this essay) have begun to use innovative methods to explore other dimensions of the Deccan states, moving beyond political history.

Magnificent architecture

George Michell and Helen Philon are recognised scholars of the architecture of medieval Deccan. Early in his career, Michell co-founded the Vijayanagara Research Project, which continues to have a vast scope and consists of leading researchers on the history of this grand empire. Since the 1990s, Michell has moved on to study the architecture of Vijayanagara’s traditional rivals, the Bahmanis and their legatee sultanates. That makes him the only architectural historian whose expertise spans peninsular India. His many publications attest to his reputation as the foremost authority on medieval Indian architecture south of the Vindhyas. Helen Philon has published on Sultanate architecture in the past and her guidebook on Gulbarga, Bijapur and Bidar has become classic reference material for travellers to these Sultanate-era towns.

These two historical and architectural experts have combined forces with the photographer Antonio Martinelli, leading to the publication of the gorgeous coffee-table book under review. There are 290 photographs in the book capturing various monuments and their details in a fantastic display of exquisite photography. A significant number of architectural drawings adds to the value of this book.

While it excels as a coffee-table book, Islamic Architecture of Deccan India is also a handy academic work that collates existing literature on the theme in its introductory essay. This essay is a thorough summary of the medieval history of the Deccan, displays impressive historical and architectural awareness and serves as a perfect prologue to the book whose pages are otherwise filled with photographs of monuments. There are nine chapters that follow, each focussing on a Sultanate-era town. Towns gained prominence in a linear fashion in medieval Deccan and the chapters follow that development, with the photographs and captions highlighting the evolution of architecture.

Daulatabad and its neighbour, Khuldabad, attained early importance as the peninsular headquarters of the Delhi Sultanate and later as the first capital of the Bahmanis. After this, the capital of the Bahmanis was moved to Gulbarga and briefly Ferozabad (which is a necropolis now) before being shifted permanently to Bidar. The Bahmani empire eventually broke up into five separate sultanates. Ahmednagar, Bijapur and Golconda were the headquarters of these provincial kingdoms and boasted majestic architecture that saw a boost after the 1565 “Battle of Talikota” with Vijayanagara. These extensive chapter-long surveys end with Aurangabad, which was the Mughal bridgehead for conquering the Deccan. Interestingly, Michell and Helen Philon choose to include Burhanpur, the capital of the Khandesh Sultanate which separated the Deccan from “Hindustan”, in their examination of the Deccan. This is unusual, provoking the question as to what truly constitutes the Deccan.

Seeing the photographs in the book, each of which has immortalised a monument, one cannot help but recall Susan Sontag’s thoughts from her must-read book On Photography . She writes: “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” Martinelli’s alluring and breathtaking photographs, accompanied by Michell’s and Helen Philon’s notes, not only make the reader aware of the magnificence of these monuments but also the relentless passage of time.

Persian in the Deccan

The second book under review is a reprint of a classic on Persian literature in medieval Deccan by T.N. Devare. A Short History of Persian Literature: At the Bahmani, the Adilshahi and the Qutbshahi Courts—Deccan was first published in 1961 and was the PhD thesis of the author, who died in 1957 when he was only 43 years old. It continues to remain relevant because it is the only book in English that exhaustively studies the vast corpus of Persian literature produced in the courts of the Bahmanis and the Deccan Sultanates. Devare’s contemporaries had made substantial progress in the study of medieval Indian Persian literature but their main focus was on the works produced under the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals. Thus, Devare’s intention was to correct this academic anomaly and to show that great Persian literature was also produced in the Deccan.

Considering the demand in academic circles for a reprint, the author’s family took the initiative in reprinting this valuable book last year. Methods of historical and language research have changed substantially in the six decades since Devare did his research. Thus, the book’s conceptual approach and style may seem outdated if seen from the perspective of current scholarship, but its value lies in its wide scope and its ambitious attempt at collating texts and then critically discussing them. Merely locating all of these texts in the 1950s, when they were spread across several libraries and personal collections, must have been a tedious task.

By discussing the major works produced in the Deccan, Devare has also put together what could be read as an extended annotated bibliography of the literature produced at these courts, making the book both a useful primary and secondary source for historical research on Persian literature in India and the history of the Deccan Sultanates. Devare also reads all the Persian texts directly and interprets them for his readers. His work is foundational as he does not rely or build on the work of other scholars. It is rare, or almost impossible nowadays, to find a scholar with such advanced competence in medieval Persian. Devare also frequently translates passages of Persian poetry and prose, enriching the book.

Devare’s book is divided into seven chapters, not including an introductory chapter that looks at the historical connections between Persia (now Iran) and India. Reading these chapters, one becomes aware of the easy mobility of a vast number of Persian speakers who migrated to the Deccan. Five of the seven chapters have a clear focus on different kinds of personages and their contributions to Persian literature in the Deccan. In each chapter, Devare chronologically lists the writers, thematically linking them before discussing their work, devoting several pages to noteworthy contributors.

For example, in the chapter on saints of Islam and their contribution to the development of Persian literature, the longest discussion is on the literary contributions of Khwaja Bandenawaz, the Sufi saint buried in Kalaburagi, whose enduring spiritual legacy has established him as the most prominent Sufi of the Deccan. Bandenawaz wrote a number of treatises and pamphlets on religion and Sufism apart from the poetry that has been discussed by Devare.

Discussing the Persian literature produced by the rulers of the Deccan Sultanates, Devare devotes several pages to Ibrahim Adil Shah II (reign 1580-1627) of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur. Like the Mughal emperor Akbar (reign 1556-1605), his elder contemporary in northern India, Ibrahim Adil Shah II also had an eclectic spiritual curiosity that defined his world view. He was addressed as “jagat guru” because of his love for music and veneration of the goddess Saraswati. Devare’s exhaustive survey goes on to include discussions of the works of the prominent litterateurs, architects, calligraphists and other prominent nobles in the Bahmani, the Adilshahi and the Qutbshahi courts.

In the chapter on poets, the prominent poets discussed by Devare include Isami, the composer of the Futuh-us-Salatin , a masnawi (poem in rhyming couplets) on Muslim rule in India, who was at the Bahmani court, and Zuhuri, the master of ghazal writing who was employed by the Ahmednagar and Bijapur Sultanates.

In a chapter on historians, Devare discusses the craft of history writing as practised by Muslim historians before moving on to discuss the works of individual historians. He makes a rare accusation of plagiarism against Ferishta, the historian whose works provide the maximum primary material for writing the histories of those times. The last chapter of the book looks at the influence of Persian on Marathi and Dakhni languages.

A flaw, or rather, a handicap of the book is that most of the dates are mentioned in the Islamic or Hijri calendar, which makes it tedious for the reader to correlate them with the dates of the common Gregorian calendar.

Emma J. Flatt’s fabulous book adds tremendous new knowledge to the history of the medieval Deccan. Borrowing methodological tools from anthropology and seeped in a robust reading of original Persian texts, Emma Flatt’s book is a rigorously researched work that opens up the courts of the Deccan Sultanates in exquisite detail. Emma Flatt’s main intention is to investigate the “idea of courtliness in the political, social and cultural worlds of the late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Deccan Sultanates”. The book studies a wide set of practices among the elite of the Deccan courts and will certainly become a landmark of historical research as Emma Flatt has demonstrated how a finite set of primary sources can be interrogated to wring out new kinds of knowledge and add to our understanding of a historical period. This work is also academically exciting as there are hardly any historical works that analyse South Asian “courts” as a category apart from Daud Ali’s pioneering work on courts in early medieval India ( Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India , 2011).

Through the book, Emma Flatt reiterates the point made by the historians Richard Eaton and Phillip Wagoner in the past that it is erroneous to view the various Deccan Sultanates and the Vijayanagara Empire as having fixed geographical boundaries and that, as the movement of the courtiers showed, there was a fluidity in these boundaries. Emma Flatt writes: “During this period, individuals of different backgrounds and cultures moved from across the Persian-speaking world to take up service at the courts of the Deccan Sultanates, and between the Deccani courts with a felicity that belies modern assumptions about the fixity of political and geographical boundaries on the one hand, and the incompatibility of Indic and Islamicate religio-cultural systems on the other.”

Emma Flatt relies on three key theoretical terms—the court, ethics and the Persian Cosmopolis—to take her argument forward. By virtue of the easy movement between a variety of courts, the courtiers acquired a certain courtly disposition that was widely shared across the “Persian Cosmopolis”, a phrase that has recently acquired tremendous heft in its expression of the shared set of cosmopolitan training in Persian texts that informed the subsequent world view of the elite across a vast swathe of land from Persia to Bengal. Emma Flatt’s book looks at facets of these courtly societies and examines certain courtly skills that were necessary for courtiers in order to become part of this courtly culture.

The book is broadly divided into two parts containing three chapters each, “Courtly Society” and “Courtly Skills”. Emma Flatt argues that there was a shared cosmopolitanism that the courtiers acquired through a shared foundational education of key Persian texts whose aim was not merely the acquisition of knowledge but the development of a “specific type of disposition within each individual”. This helped them move easily across the Persianate Cosmopolis, allowing them to find employment in various Deccani courts, as evinced in the careers of two individuals discussed in the next chapter.

By examining the careers of two elite noblemen, Muhammad Nimdihi and Hajji Abarquhi, Emma Flatt demonstrates how individuals used familial, scholarly, mercantile, religious and friendly networks in order to move across the Persian Cosmopolis.

The court society of the Sultanates was heavily influenced by “…the practices, the commodities and the vocabulary of long-distance trade”. She looks at the biographies of three powerful individuals, Khalaf Hasan, Mahmud Gavan and Asad Khan Lahri, in some detail to argue this point.

In the second half of her book, Emma Flatt looks at the courtly skills that were required for “worldly success and ethical refinement”. She writes: “By disciplined repetitive practice, the participant honed his ability at a particular skill, and simultaneously refined his soul, rendering the pursuit of skills an ethical endeavour.” Emma Flatt looks at scribal, esoteric and martial skills as part of the training for worldly success and the development of a courtly disposition.

The importance of scribal skills in the development of a refined courtier is examined through the epistolatory skills of Mahmud Gavan (1411-1481), the dynamic merchant-scholar who rose to become a vizier of the Bahmani rulers.

In a fantastic chapter that looks at the esoteric skills that courtiers could acquire to rise in the eyes of the rulers, Emma Flatt does a meticulous reading of the “Nujum al-Ulum”, the esoteric text composed in the Bijapuri court of Ali Adil Shah I (reign 1558-1580). In its divergent sourcing from both Islamicate and Indic cosmologies, she sees “conceptual commensurabilities” for a courtly society made up of a people belonging to a plurality of religious and cultural beliefs.

In the last chapter, Emma Flatt looks at “…how the acquisition of martial skills was associated with an ethical ideal known as javanmardi or young-manliness, an ideal structuring the daily lives of courtly and urban men in the medieval Persianate world”.

This brief review hardly does justice to the wide scope of Emma Flatt’s work which will be valuable for anyone interested in the history of the medieval Deccan. As this review essay shows, there is a substantial amount of ongoing research in the history of the medieval Deccan, but compared with the large body of work on the Mughals, much remains to be done for historical research of the medieval Deccan.

source: http://www.frontline.thehindu.com / Frontline / Home>Books / by Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed / December 04th, 2019

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, My Awe-Inspiring Friend and Father

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri Award (since January 01st, 2024), Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , , , , , , , ,

Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad), UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi with Baran Farooqi. Photos courtesy: Baran Farooqi

Abba was the magician who introduced me to the wide and varied wonders of the world, taught me everything about life and its customs and kept me enamoured of his extraordinary personality. I was awe- struck by his learning, his cool, confident air and the way and adulation he commanded sat comfortably on his shoulders.

And may there be no sadness of farewell 

When I embark;

Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Yeh meri akhiri bimari hai (this is my last illness),” spoke Abba with a wry smile on his face. He was addressing Dr Nandani Sharma, a homeopath in Shivalik, Malviya Nagar (New Delhi), whom we were all very fond of and trusted. That evening we had taken him there since he had expressed a desire to actually see her and not consult her over a video call to ask about the chances of curing the fungal infection which had invaded his eye during his stint at Fortis Escorts hospital where he had been hospitalised after having tested Covid positive. None of us had imagined that it was a matter of just a few days before he would be gone, transited peacefully and in full preparation of “seeing his pilot face to face.” Dr Nandani assured him that he still had long to live and accomplish some more as she was confident her medicines would be able to control the fungus. This conversation had taken place in her driveway as Abba was not able to walk since he had returned from hospital and so it was decided that instead of him having to go into her clinic, he would be seated on his wheelchair near the car and she would examine him. We returned upbeat from Dr Nandani’s place but it was as if Abba knew better than Dr Nandani this time. He had been sent the summons and he had answered them with acceptance and great sporting spirit. So, he laughed at our jokes in his weak strength and held out his hands or arms to embrace whenever he saw me or my sister or my daughters enter the room. He would kiss my hands and softly caress my head if he happened to be sitting, bolstered by the electrically operated bed we had arranged, half a dozen pillows and bolsters around him.

Of late, in fact, right from the time he would send voice notes from the hospital, he would often repeat, “I love you” or “know that I love you.” Of course, we had never had any doubts about this ever because Abba was the master of expression. A vocal person, he taught me how I need to say “thank you” even to my own parents if they got me something and to house helps and friends for services rendered or acts of kindness. I once overheard him reproaching my mother for never doing salam to him first when he got home from office or smilingly extending her hand of welcome. Always cheerful and smiling when he came home from office, he expected everyone else at home to be as smiling and welcoming as he was. Each time any of us would enter his room for something, he would beam aaiye aaiye (do come in) and show his pleasure. He used to call me “funny face” sometimes, which didn’t seem very amusing to me but I knew I was supposed to show a sense of humour and not sulk over little things. I finally asked him one day, “Why do you call me funny?” He answered that funny faces are those who are delightful and make him feel happy and full of mirth. Once, when I made him fill out my columns of questions like, who is your best friend, what’s your favourite colour, what are you scared of and so on, (this was a raging activity in my school those days that you took autographs of people in your autograph book for no reason and also made them fill columns which were made in a double page of a register.) I remember almost all his answers to this day but I’ll speak of only a couple, to the question, “If you had a wishing wand, what would you wish me to be?” he had answered “Queen of Sheba.” I immediately understood this is something divinely great and luminous and so on, since I didn’t really know who queen of Sheba was at that time. In the answer to the question, “what are you scared of?” he had answered “centipedes,” making me aware that he was human and vulnerable in his own way.

I have wandered far from what I was initially talking about — his illness and his demeanour during those days. After stretching out his hands and making me sit close, he told me one day that the time for him to leave this world had come and that I should allow him to go. That the ceaseless struggle that we were putting up to withhold him was futile and he was convinced about his departure. He needed to go back to his spacious and open house where his favourite pet dog Bholi and others were, and he wanted the birds to sing near his window before he ceased to breathe. On those nights when he was awake and not faint with weakness, I would sit by him and read out his WhatsApp messages to him and also make him listen to the voice notes people had sent. He chose to respond to one or two voice notes or emails and messages every day. He would speak the voice notes himself and dictate the written messages or emails. He once made me write a mail to CM Naim sahib though there wasn’t one from him that day and also to Frances Pritchett, informing them about his health. One of the voice notes that he sent to Amin Akhtar (a relative of ours who has been assisting him in his library-cum-office and miscellaneous affairs for many years) was about the local graveyard which Abba’s efforts had helped restore and put in order after his return to Allahabad after retirement. He asked Amin to go to my mother’s grave and convey his salam there. He also asked Amin to see if it was still possible if he could be laid to rest right next to her, but in case anyone objected, he reminded Amin, he had chosen a remote corner of the graveyard for himself as a second choice. Amin responded next day tearfully that he had carried out his instructions and that there was no question of anyone objecting to his burial next to his wife. He had written the ayat he would like to be written on his tombstone and given it to Amin many years back already. I felt heart-broken at these conversations but I, too, knew that they must happen and not be left unfinished, for the day of parting may come if it had to, and there was nothing anyone would be able to do about it. 

I marvel at Faruqi’s (as he would like to refer to himself, sometimes  even calling himself “saala Faruqi” or “Fraudie”), courage and foresight for the way he bore his illness. He was also very kind and forbearing towards us, always succumbing to our pleas for making him eat or drink something despite being terribly averse to both ideas. Every time he would ask when we were planning to go back to Allahabad with him, and my sister or I would give a date a week or two away, he would nod patiently and agree. Ever since Ammi passed away, Abba had been careful to hand over all that she had left behind as money or property to both of us, saying this belongs to you both as she was your mother. But when it came to caring for us and endowing us with gifts or maintaining the large house, he acted as the perfect father. Never once did he ask us to bear any financial burden of any kind, be it the property Ammi left behind — he continued to pay property tax for it — or other charities that she was used to doing at her native village. 

Unselfish by nature, and generous towards the world and its people, he once told me that he had spent his life with the aim to be of help to any number of human beings he came across in the journey of his life, particularly during his career in civil service. I have never known or seen, nor do I ever hope to see, another more good-hearted person who is also competent, capable and one of the greatest literary minds of the century. Abba loved exploring new things and enjoy them if the children so wanted. Any new joke, and we wanted to share it with him, a new piece of machinery or a gadget and he would be curious to know about it, any adventurous outing, and he would want to be a part of it. In fact, most of the interesting outings in my and my daughters’ lives were either planned by him or planned for him. It was just last winter that we all went to Kochi together to explore the backwaters of Kerala and spend some part of winter there to avoid the low temperatures up North. As he grew older, he had begun dreading the winters, as they confined him to his room and restricted his hours in the study. There were arrangements to keep his room, his study, and even his bathroom warm, but the cold got to him since he was finicky about wearing “inners” and heavy quilts bothered his frail body with their weight.

Apart from travelling to new places and exploring places of historical interest or natural beauty, Abba had a penchant for stylish and tasteful clothes and good food (which he always ate very little of, but wanted to be served in good quantity). However, he had this little thing in his head about what are supposedly “manly” dishes and which foods are meant to be consumed only by women. Consequently, I never saw him relishing anything even slightly sour. He was supremely dismissive of achar and chutneys or chaat of any kind. Even remotely foul-smelling vegetables were banned in our house, not to speak of home-made sirka or ghee being extracted from malai. I once witnessed a bitter exchange he had with my mother for having gotten mooli achar prepared in the courtyard of our house. This was even worse than cooking sabzi out of the mooli! Like any other subversive spouse, Ammi would sneak such things into the house and eat them secretly when he was in office. 

Abba was a great animal lover, too. As children, having animals and birds around us was as natural as breathing and it must never have occurred to us that in the eyes of the world, we qualified as “animal lovers.” At any given time in our lives, there were always dogs, cats, turtles, mynahs, peacock chicks or grown peacocks, pigeons, partridges, quails and finches and other singing birds. Abba would often send a tid-bit or two to his pets (I said “send” because the house was really so huge in area that things had to be delivered from one place to another) and tell the person he had chosen for the task, “greet him with my salam and say that Faruqi sahib has sent this. We knew a lot about birds, which ones could be tamed or caged and which couldn’t be bred in captivity. He also had a collection of coffee-table type books on birds and animals and some of the exciting times of my childhood were certainly made of browsing through those books. Sea creatures like starfish, octopus or dolphins intrigued me greatly and I was enamoured by pictures of the mighty ocean. I longed for a trip to a coastal town but my wish was deferred for quite some time as my parents had already been to places like Bombay and Calcutta many times and were more focussed on the hills or animal and bird sanctuaries. 

Abba played his favourite musical records of ghazals and classical ragas in the mornings which were spent enjoying three to four cups of bed tea. The tea, which would be brewed in an elegant tea pot and had a bitter aroma, would cool gradually as he read the morning papers. The music would continue to play up until he was almost ready for breakfast. Gradually though, I, too, developed a taste for singers like Farida Khanum, Iqbal Bano, Mehdi Hassan, Kishori Amonkar, and artists like Hari Prasad Chaurasiya, Ustad Bismillah Khan and other such maestros. My sister and I were also subjected to regular doses of mushairas and seminars which we had to duly attend along with our parents; I was still wearing frocks at that time. By the time I grew up, I had sat on the laps of many a great Urdu writer, poet or artist. I grew particularly familiar with Naiyer chacha (Naiyer Masud), Shamim chacha (Shamim Hanfi), Shahryar chacha and Balraj Komal uncle. The critic Khalil-ur-Rahman Azmi was someone I don’t clearly remember but I recall Abba grieving over him so much that Ammi had to chide him about moping a couple of times.

Abba was the magician who introduced me to the wide and varied wonders of the world, taught me everything about life and its customs and kept me enamoured of his extraordinary personality. I was awe- struck by his learning, his cool, confident air and the way and adulation he commanded sat comfortably on his shoulders. He lived a life of grace and élan. Once, when on one of our usual summer holiday road trips, when we were touring Uttar Pradesh and Himachal, there was an incident which impacted me for the rest of my life. It so happened that the road we were on was broken severely, blocked, you may say, so Abba decided to take a detour through another path, which was on the lower side of the road, beside the fields. It was a water-logged path but he estimated that our Ambassador car would be able to successfully wade through it. But to our chagrin, the car got stuck in the slush beneath and water began to enter the car at a high speed! The car seemed to be floating in the water, I began to bawl loudly saying, “Hum doob jayenge, hum doob jayenge, (I’m going to drown, I’m going to drown).” I got one of the most unexpected and loud scoldings of my life from him at that time, “Abey tu apne liye ro rahi hai sirf! Aur baqi tere ma baap aur behen? (Stop crying and saying such a selfish thing! Why are you worried about only yourself drowning and not your parents and your sister?)”. I wiped my eyes and looked at him, bewildered. It was a lesson I have remembered to this day — unselfishness and courage. 

So close, so friendly and participative and yet so distinguished and awe-inspiring! They don’t make men like you any longer, Abba. I conclude my piece again from the poem quoted above. Abba would sometimes teach us English poetry, too, apart from Urdu and Persian. Abba had read out the poem to me many, many years ago and explained it to me. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar” was one of his top favourite poems of the English language. I remember his voice almost choking at the sombre grandeur and sonority of the poem:

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

Perhaps, the very same lines were echoing in his mind when he breathed his last, in full control of his senses, aware and courageously ready for the journey across.

source: http://www.thepunchmagazine.com / The Punch Magazine / Home> Non fiction – Essay / by Baran Farooqi / February 28th, 2021

Padshah of Urdu; People mourn death of Shemsur Rehman Faruqi

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri Award (since January 01st, 2024), Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), , , , , , , , , , ,

Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad), UTTAR PRADESH :

Legendary Urdu poet and critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi passed away on Friday at his Allahabad home, a month after recovering from COVID-19.

His daughter Mehr Farooqi tweeted about her father’s demise: “We reached Allahabad and father transitioned peacefully,” she wrote.

“It’s not just the world of Urdu, I feel I’ve been orphaned again,” historian Rana Safvi sent her condolences.

Writer and historian William Dalrymple took to Twitter to mourn the demise of Faruqi, calling him “one of the last great Padshahs of the Urdu literary world.”

Sanjiv Saraf, the founder of Urdu festival Jashn-e-Rekhta, also condoled the death of “the century’s most iconic figure in the realm of Urdu literature”.

“His demise has left us bereaved as an entire generation of literature lovers mourn this loss. I extend heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones,” Saraf said.

“Shamsur Rehman Farooqui’s demise is a big loss to the world of scholarship, and adab. His work built many bridges across India’s diverse traditions. He was immensely valuable to us in so many ways and will be sorely missed, ” said CPIM general secretary Sitaram Yechury.

“Am just gutted. Shamsur Rehman Faaroqui saheb has passed away. Innalillahi wa inna ilayhi rajeeon. May allah grant him jannat..aameen,” wrote journalist Rana Ayyub.

“His modernist style had irked the traditionalists and contemporaries in the sixties, seventies. But he wasn’t just a critic and theorist, whenever he took to fiction, he created magic. And, his Allahabad home had been the nucleus of Urdu literary world, for over half-a-century,” wrote journalist Shamsur Rehman Alavi in a condolence note.

Legendary

A profile of his on Caravan Magazine alluded to his immense and immeasurable contribution to Urdu literature.

Shemsur Rehman began writing in 1960. Initially he worked for the Indian postal service (1960–1968), and then as a chief postmaster-general and member of the Postal Services Board, New Delhi until 1994. He was also editor of his literary magazine Shabkhoon and part-time professor at the South Asia Regional Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

An expert in classical prosody and ‘ilm-e bayan (the science of poetic discourse), he has contributed to modern literary discourse with a profundity rarely seen in contemporary Urdu critics. His most recent books, The Mirror of Beauty (translated into English from the Urdu Kai Chaand The Sar-e-Aasmaan in 2006), and The Sun That Rose From The Earth (Penguin India, 2014), have been highly critically acclaimed. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. Most recently he was awarded the prestigious Saraswati Samman for his work She`r-e Shor-Angez, a four-volume study of the eighteenth-century poet Mir Taqi Mir.

He was awarded the Saraswati Samman, an Indian literary award, in 1996. The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of Padma Shri in 2009.

source: http://www.maktoobmedia.com / Maktoob Media / Home> India / by Maktoob Staff / September 25th, 2020

Rakhshanda Jalil Defends Urdu as a Shared Indian Heritage in her new Anthology

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , ,

NEW DELHI :

New Delhi:

Literary historian Dr Rakhshanda Jalil has once again reminded Indians that Urdu is deeply rooted in the country’s soil and belongs to all communities, not only Muslims. In a detailed interview with the Indian Express about her new anthology Whose Urdu Is It Anyway?, Jalil traced the rise, decline, and contested identity of Urdu in modern India.

She explained that Urdu developed through centuries of cultural exchange, drawing from Persian, Arabic, Turkic, and local dialects, and eventually became the lingua franca of North India. From courtrooms to markets, it was a language spoken across caste and creed. Yet, political movements in the early twentieth century began to link Hindi with Hindu nationalism, sidelining Urdu and associating it exclusively with Muslims.

Jalil underlined how Partition worsened this perception. With Pakistan adopting Urdu as its national language in 1947, Urdu was treated as “enemy property” in India. This shift, she argued, accelerated the decline of Urdu and restricted its public identity. Today, while the government occasionally honours Urdu writers, stereotypes and misinformation continue to reduce Urdu to a religious marker rather than a shared cultural heritage.

Her anthology features sixteen short stories by non-Muslim Urdu writers such as Krishan Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi, and Gulzar. The collection challenges the misconception that Urdu belongs only to Muslims. Jalil believes that Urdu is “as Indian as anybody or anything can be regarded as Indian” and insists that the language is willing to belong to anyone who values it.

Despite fears about its future, she remains optimistic. Urdu continues to thrive in poetry, Bollywood lyrics, and growing digital platforms. While fewer people read its script, its cultural resonance persists. Echoing Manto, Jalil recalled his words that no human effort can kill a language. Urdu, she said, will remain part of India’s consciousness for years to come.

Dr Rakhshanda Jalil is a noted literary historian, translator, and cultural commentator with over 25 books to her credit. She is widely recognized for her work on Urdu literature and the Progressive Writers’ Movement.

source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Arts & Culture> Focus> Report / by Radiance News Bureau / August 29th, 2025

Writer Banu Mushtaq Inaugurates Dasara Festival In Mysuru

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Events, Exhibitions, Conferences (wef. Nov 18th, 2021), Karnataka (under research project), Travel & Tourism, Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , , , , , ,

KARNATAKA :

BanuMushtaq was accompanied by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, several ministers in the state cabinet, among others.

Banu Mushtaq inaugurated the Mysuru Dasara festival.

Mysuru :

The famous Mysuru Dasara festival commenced in the city and palaces on Monday with religious and traditional fervour, with International Booker Prize-winning writer Banu Mushtaq inaugurating the festivities.

Banu Mushtaq inaugurated the festivities during the auspicious “Vrushchika Lagna” by showering flowers on the idol of goddess Chamundeshwari, the presiding deity of Mysuru and its royals, amid chanting of Vedic hymns by priests, at the premises of Chamundeshwari temple atop the Chamundi Hills here.

Celebrated as ‘Nada Habba’ (state festival), the 11-day Dasara or ‘Sharan Navaratri’ festivities are expected to be a grand affair this year, showcasing Karnataka’s rich culture and traditions, coupled with reminiscence of royal pomp and glory.

In the inaugural event, Banu Mushtaq was accompanied by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, several ministers in the state cabinet, among others.

Earlier, Banu Mushtaq, along with Chief Minister and other dignitaries, visited the Chamundeshwari temple and offered prayers to the goddess, referred to as the “Naada Devate” (state deity), ahead of the inaugural. 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

source: http://www.ndtv.com / NDTV / Home> News> India News / by Press Trust of India / September 22nd, 2025

Fikrokhabar launches Online Naat Competition 2025 for children

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Karnataka (under research project), Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bhatkal (Uttara Kannada District), KARNATAKA :

Bhatkal: 

Fikrokhabar, a news portal based in Bhatkal, has announced its Online Naat Competition 2025, inviting children from coastal Karnataka to take part in the programme during the holy month of Rabi al-Awwal.

The initiative is aimed at celebrating the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad by encouraging children to express their devotion through Naat recitation.

According to the organisers, the contest has been designed to nurture both the spiritual and creative growth of children by giving them a platform to present Naats in a digital format. The online mode ensures easy access and wider participation across the region.

The competition is open to boys up to the age of 13 years and girls up to the age of 8 years.

Participants are required to record a video of their recital, which should not exceed three minutes, and submit it through the Google Form link shared by the organisers. 

The event has been divided into categories based on age and gender to ensure fair participation.

The organisers said that the programme is not merely a contest but also an opportunity for children to learn more about the life of the Prophet, strengthen their faith, and showcase their talent before a larger audience. It also encourages memorisation and thoughtful reflection on poetic tributes dedicated to the Prophet, fostering deeper appreciation of Islamic teachings.

Parents and guardians interested in registering their children have been asked to get in touch with the coordinators for more details regarding deadlines, judging process and prizes.

Further information can be obtained by contacting +91 9916131111, +91 9620573395 or +91 9108080800.

source: http://www.english.varthabharati.in / Vartha Bharati / Home> Karavali / by Vartha Bharati / September 05th, 2025