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Shah Jahan

Shah Jahan was the Mughal emperor from 1628 to 1658. In 1636, faced with his armies in the Deccan, Abdullah Qutb Shah of Golconda accepted him as overlord, promised a yearly tribute and struck coins in his name. In 1656 Shah Jahan stopped his son Aurangzeb from annexing Golconda and made peace instead, sending Abdullah a promise of protection stamped with his own palm in vermilion. Golconda gave up the district of Ramgir under that peace.

Shah Jahan was the Mughal emperor from 1628 to 1658.12 In his reign the Mughals became the overlords of the Telugu country, at first through the Qutb Shahi king of Golconda.2 He twice decided Golconda’s fate: in 1636, when it became his vassal, and in 1656, when he held back his son Aurangzeb.23 See Mughals in the Telugu country.

Golconda becomes a vassal, 1636

On 21 February 1636 Shah Jahan arrived at Daulatabad to direct the war in the Deccan himself.2 He held three armies of 50,000 men ready to invade Bijapur and Golconda if they did not submit.2 Jadunath Sarkar wrote that “the news of this immense armament cowed Abdullah, the king of Golkonda”.2

The emperor sent a farman (royal order) asking for Abdullah’s allegiance, for the khutba (Friday sermon) to be read in the emperor’s name, and for tribute.4 Abdullah went out to meet the envoy and had the khutba read in Shah Jahan’s name.5 In April 1636 he promised a yearly tribute and struck gold and silver coins in the emperor’s name at his capital.25 A court history of the reign puts the tribute at two lakhs of huns (pagodas) a year.6 The Lahore Museum catalogue of 1914 records gold and silver coins of Shah Jahan’s period from the Golconda mint.7

The peace of 1656

In 1656 Shah Jahan’s son Aurangzeb besieged Abdullah in Golconda.3 He begged his father to order annexation of the rich kingdom.3 But Shah Jahan, Sarkar writes, “was loth to ruin a brother king”.3 The Golconda envoy at Delhi won the support of Prince Dara Shukoh, and the emperor ordered peace in return for an indemnity.38

When he learned how Aurangzeb had tricked Abdullah, Shah Jahan sent him a sharp letter of censure.9 He ordered him to raise the siege and leave Golconda’s territory at once.9 Aurangzeb raised the siege on 30 March 1656.9 Abdullah swore on the Quran to obey the emperor, and his daughter was married to Aurangzeb’s son Muhammad Sultan.9

On 13 April Abdullah received Shah Jahan’s pardon and a written agreement.9 It was written by the emperor himself and stamped with the print of his palm dipped in vermilion, promising to protect the Qutb Shah.9 Shah Jahan later reduced the indemnity by twenty lakhs, the difference in the exchange value of the tribute since 1636.9 But Golconda had to cede the district of Ramgir, which Sarkar identified with the modern Manikdrug and Chinoor.910 See Abdullah Qutb Shah and Aurangzeb.

Where the sources disagree

  • Was there war? The traveller Tavernier wrote that Shah Jahan did not make war on the king of Golconda, on condition of a yearly tribute of 200,000 pagodas.11 Sarkar describes the siege of Golconda by Shah Jahan’s son in 1656.39

Footnotes

  1. Stanley Lane-Poole, The Coins of the Moghul Emperors of Hindustan in the British Museum (1892), pp. xlvii–xlix, table of mint cities (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  2. Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, Vols. I–II (1912), p. 19 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  3. Sarkar, Aurangzib I–II (1912), p. 131 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  4. Badshah-nama of Abdul Hamid Lahori, in H. M. Elliot and John Dowson (eds.), The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, Vol. VII (1877), p. 51 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  5. Badshah-nama, in Elliot and Dowson, History of India, Vol. VII (1877), p. 53 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  6. Inayat Khan, Shah Jahan-nama, in Elliot and Dowson, History of India, Vol. VII (1877), p. 84 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  7. R. B. Whitehead, Catalogue of Coins in the Panjab Museum, Lahore, Vol. II (1914), p. xcviii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  8. Sarkar, Aurangzib I–II (1912), p. 132 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  9. Sarkar, Aurangzib I–II (1912), p. 133 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  10. Sarkar, Aurangzib I–II (1912), p. 134 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  11. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, tr. V. Ball, Travels in India, Vol. I (1889), p. 161 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

Dynasties

Mughals in the Telugu country

1636–1724 CE

The Mughal emperors were overlords of Golconda from 1636, when Abdullah Qutb Shah accepted Shah Jahan as his suzerain. They ruled the whole Telugu country from 1687, when Aurangzeb took Golconda and made the kingdom the subah of Haidarabad. The province was governed through a subahdar at Hyderabad, faujdars in the districts and the old Telugu revenue officers, the deshmukhs and deshpandes. The coast formed the Northern Sarkars and the south the Haidarabadi Karnatak. Maratha raids, a prince's rebellion at Hyderabad in 1708–09 and the rising of the toddy-seller Pap Rai marked the years of decline. In 1724 Nizam-ul-Mulk defeated and killed the subahdar Mubariz Khan at Shakar Kheda and founded the Asaf Jahi state.

References

Sources (5)
  1. Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, Vols. I and II (opens in a new tab), M. C. Sarkar and Sons, Calcutta, 1912, pp. 19, 131–134. Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, Vols. I–II. [Public domain]
  2. H. M. Elliot and John Dowson (eds.), The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, Vol. VII (opens in a new tab), Trübner and Co., London, 1877, pp. 51, 53, 84. [Public domain]
  3. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (tr. V. Ball), Travels in India, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Macmillan & Co., London, 1889, pp. 161. [Public domain]
  4. R. B. Whitehead, Catalogue of Coins in the Panjab Museum, Lahore, Vol. II: Coins of the Mughal Emperors (opens in a new tab), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1914, xcviii. [Public domain]
  5. Stanley Lane-Poole, The Coins of the Moghul Emperors of Hindustan in the British Museum (opens in a new tab), Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1892, xlvii–xlix. [Public domain]

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