A Khurasani gift to the Deccan: The story of malik Mahmud Gawan: Part II

The Part-1 of this article gave the historical and geographical background of Bahmani State, as a prelude to narrating the tale a pioneer of reforms and education not only in Deccan but in the whole of sub-continent. The story being told today is of a 15th century trader from Gilan, who made his adaptive home in the Bahmani Sultanate of the Deccan. He rose to serve as one of the most powerful and enlightened Prime Ministers in the entire sub continent. He did pioneering work in land reforms, public administration and military reorganization, and established a large, well staffed modern school in Bidar -in modern Karnataka- the capital of Bahmani State. This medieval jewel was Khawaja Mahmud Gawan who came to India from Iran. His life story has been recorded in Tarikh-e-Farishta. Mahmud himself compiled his 150 letters, written to friends and world leaders, as Riyadu'l Insha. Haroon Khan Sherwani has compiled his life from various sources and published as 'Mahmud Gawan: The Great Bahmani Wazir'. Afanasij Nikitin, a Russian traveller who visited Deccan in 1470, too mentioned the glory of Mahmud in his travelogue. Besides these, the author has benefitted plenty of information is available on the internet about Mahmud and his madrasah. Gilan province is spread over the lands hugging the south west coast of the Caspian sea. It lies within the greater Khurasan that produced a galaxy of luminaries in the Islamic Golden Age. Abdul Qadir Gilani, the 12th century saint, much revered in the sub-continent, belonged to this area. By mid15th century, in the aftermath of murderous campaigns of Mongols in the mid 13th century and of Amir Taimur in late 14th century, Gilan, along with the rest of Transoxania, Persia, Iraq and Syria was devastated, and divided into often hostile multiple principalities. In 1411, a boy named Imad-ud-Din Mahmud was born in a politically successful family of Qawan or Gawan in the Resht principality. Members of his family were in his own words 'wazirs of kings'. Due to petty intrigues in Resht, Mahmud decided to migrate. His elder brother went to Mecca while he himself went to Cairo. He was offered ministries by kings of Khurasan and Iraq but he declined due to uncertain environment. He then decided to travel to India. Mahmud arrived in 1453 at the important port of Dabol, now in Maharashtra. He then travelled to Bidar, where Alauddin Ahmad II was the King. He intended to travel later to Delhi. However, he was received with great consideration by the Bahmani King and decided to settle down at Bidar. Within four years, he was made a mansabdar -commander- of a 1000 men and charged with suppressing a rebellion headed by King's son and brother-in-law. The next King Humayun Shah took the throne in 1458. He was called Zalim or cruel due to his cruel and capricious nature. He appointed Mahmud as his minister. We don't know what other functions Mahmud was performing at the court but he had certainly gained the trust of the royal court. Under the next two Sultans, Mahmud's star rose rapidly. The ruler Muhammad Shah III (1463-82) ascended throne at the age of eleven and was jointly supervised by his mother the Queen Dowager and Mahmud for three years before the former retired leaving the entire administration of the state in the hands of Mahmud. This period was the pinnacle of his career. In 1566, he was elevated as the Prime Minister in a formal ceremony. He was made in-charge of all the provinces. He was now called 'Khawaja-e-Jahan, Malik-ut-Tujjar, Mahmud Gawan, Lord of the habitants of the Globe, Secretary of the Royal Mansion, Asaf of the marks of Jem, Amir of Amirs, Deputy of the Realm”. He was allowed to have a 1000 Turkish troops as his personnel body-guard. At this time, the relations of Bahmani Sultanate were hostile with all its neighbours. The sagacious Mahmud signed a peace treaty with his northern neighbour the State of Malwa. The result was that as long as the Bahmani Sultanate lasted, i.e 1518, the peace between the two states held. Now Mahmud turned to pacify the irksome coastal area along the Indian Ocean in the present day province of Karnataka. The local rulers were indulging in sea piracy and looting of Hajj pilgrimages. According to two letters written by Mahmud, "The Raya of Sangameshwar alone sent nearly 130 vessels to rob the Mecca pilgrims annually" and "many thousands of Muslims were sacrificed at the altar of the greed of these people.” Commanding the Bahmani forces, Mahmud decided to rectify this lawlessness. He captured Bagalkot, Hubli, Sangameshwar, Bulwara, Miriad and Nagar fors. In 1472, he finally captured Goa, the main port city of Vijaynagar. It was a great campaign that won Mahmud great laurels. Tarikh-e-Farishta notes that Mahmud returned to Bidar with large spoils of war and received with great honour. Kettledrums were beaten for a whole week. The Queen Dowager called him her own brother. The King gave him further titles of 'Lord of the Benign Council, Great Leader, Great Lord, Wielder of the Pen and the Sword'. The forts of Goa, Londa, and Kolhapur were added to his jurisdiction. Farishta notes that when the Sultan departed having honoured Mahmud, the later retired and praised the Almighty for all His Kindness. He wept in humility, put on the robes of a derwish and distributed clothes, eatables, jewels etc. to the Syeds of Bidar. During this time, Mahmud carried out a great many reforms in the administration, military and revenue. He was the first minister in the medieval India to have ordered a systematic measurement of land, fix the boundaries of villages and towns, and assess their revenue. He, in fact, anticipated the administrative reforms of Sher Shah Suri and Raja Todar Mal by a century. Since its inception, the Bahmani Sultanate had maintained four provinces, which were large and difficult to monitor by the centre; giving rise to corruption, nepotism and rebellions. Mahmud Gawan divided each province into two, creating eight provinces. In addition, he designated certain forts as under the crown, which ensured that the central court had its own representatives in each province. This provided greater transparency in the affairs of the province. It had been a custom in the Kingdom that the Subedar -or tarafdar as they were called under the Bahmanis- were given complete freedom to appointment all the officials in their territory. This meant that the officials were beholden to the subedars and not to the King. The governors could also surreptitiously sell these appointments to make illicit money. Mahmud revolutionized the system by leaving only one fort under the subedar, while the commandants of all other forts were appointed by the court. All these reforms angered the court officials who felt that Mahmud was intruding on their turf and depriving them of their privileges. They started a campaign of vilification that ultimately proved fatal for Mahmud. One evening, when the King was drunk, the detractors produced a fake letter implicating Mahmud in an intrigue. In his drunken state, the King ordered execution of Mahmud. The order was duly carried out and one of finest men of Deccan was executed in 1481 at the age of seventy. Before his death, Mahmud foretold the end of the Kingdom for this wanton act. True to these words, the King, full of remorse, died within one year of this murder. The military commanders too grew suspicious, fearful that if a loyalist like Mahmud could be executed in innocence then no one was safe. During the reign of next king, the Kingdom was divided by the military commanders into five independent Deccan States and the Bahmani dynasty ceased to exist. One of the unique achievements of Mahdmud Gawan was the establishment in 1472 of a college -madrasah- in Bidar. It was the first institution of higher education in the whole of the sub-continent at that time. It was a great centre of learning. The madrasah, it architecture and operation will be described in the part III of this article in the next issue. This article was published in The Friday Times dated 22 Feb 2019. Parvez Mahmood retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on historical and social issues. He can be reached at parvezmahmood53@gmail.com