The story being told today is of a 15th-century trader from Gilan in modern-day Iran, who made his adopted 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 history of the Subcontinent. He did pioneering work in land reforms, public administration and military reorganization, and established a large, well-staffed modern school at Bidar in modern Karnataka – the capital of the Bahmani state.
This medieval jewel was Khawaja Mahmud Gawan, who came to India from Iran.
His life’s 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 it as Mahmud Gawan: The Great Bahmani Wazir. Afanasij Nikitin, a Russian traveller who visited Deccan in 1470, also mentions the glory of Mahmud in his travelogue. Besides these, the author has benefitted from the ample information available on the internet about Mahmud and his madrassah.
Gilan province is spread over the lands hugging the south west coast of the Caspian Sea. It lies within the greater Khorasan that produced a galaxy of luminaries in the Islamic Golden Age. Abdul Qadir Gilani, the 12th-century saint, much revered in the Indian Subcontinent, belonged to this region.
Mahmud was the first minister in medieval India to have ordered a systematic measurement of land, fixed the boundaries of villages and towns and assessed their revenue. He, in fact, anticipated the administrative reforms of Sher Shah Suri and Raja Todar Mal by a century
By the mid-15th century, in the wake of highly destructive campaigns by the Mongols in the mid-13th century and Emir Timur in the late 14th century, Gilan, along with the rest of Transoxania, Persia, Iraq and Syria was devastated. The region lay divided into multiple, often hostile 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 Makkah while he himself went to Cairo. He was offered courtly positions by rulers in Khorasan and Iraq but he declined due to the uncertain environment that prevailed in these regions.
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 ruler. He intended to travel later to Delhi. However, he was received with great consideration by the Bahmani sultan and decided to settle down at Bidar. Within four years, he was made a mansabdar (commander) of 1,000 men and charged with suppressing a rebellion headed by the ruler’s son and brother-in-law.
The next king, Humayun Shah, took the throne in 1458. He was called Zalim or unjust 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 to Prime Minister in a formal ceremony. He was given authority over 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 1,000 Turkic-origin troops as his personal guard.
At this time, the relations of the 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. until 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 pilgrims. According to two letters written by Mahmud,
“The Raya of Sangameshwar alone sent nearly 130 vessels to rob the Mecca pilgrims annually” and that “many thousands of Muslims were sacrificed at the altar of the greed of these people.”
Commanding the Bahmani forces, Mahmud decided to end this lawlessness. He captured Bagalkot, Hubli, Sangameshwar, Bulwara, Miriad and Nagar forts. In 1472, he finally captured Goa, the main port city of Vijaynagar.
In his drunken state, the King ordered the execution of Mahmud
It was a great campaign that won Mahmud great laurels. Tarikh-e-Farishta notes that Mahmud returned to Bidar with much in the way of spoils of war – and was 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 dervish and distributed clothes, food, jewels etc. to the Syeds of Bidar.
During this time, Mahmud carried out a great many reforms in the fields of administration, military and revenue. He was the first minister in medieval India to have ordered a systematic measurement of land, fixed the boundaries of villages and towns and assessed 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 from 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 being 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 for appointment of all the officials in their territory. This meant that the officials were beholden to the local tarafdar 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 appointee, while the commandants of all other forts were selected by the court itself.
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 the Deccan was executed in 1481 at the age of 70. 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 Mahmud Gawan was the establishment in 1472 of a college or madrassah in Bidar. It was the first institution of higher education in the whole of the Subcontinent at that time. It was a great centre of learning. The madrassah itself, as well as its architecture and operation, will be described in the the third part of this series, in the next issue of The Friday Times.
(to be continued)
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