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Mahmud Gawan
Mahmud Gawan (born Imadu'd-din Mahmud; 1411 – 5 April 1481) was a Persian statesman who served as the chief minister, or Peshwa of the Bahmani Sultanate in India from 1458 and de facto ruler as prime minister from 1466 until his death in 1481. Mahmud Gawan, from the village of Gawan in Persia, was well-versed in Islamic theology, Persian, and the sciences and was a poet and prose writer of repute.
After emigrating from a small kingdom in Persia in 1453, Mahmud was appointed a high-ranking noble by Alau'd-din Ahmad Shah, the Sultan of the Bahmani Sultanate, and given an officer position. Upon his accession to the throne, Mahmud was made chief minister (Walik-us-Sultanat) with the title Prince of Merchants (Malik-ut-Tujjar) by Humayun Shah. He would rule as chief minister until the breakup of the five-year triumvirate regency council, himself a part of, which oversaw Sultans Nizam Shah and Muhammad Shah III Lashkari in 1466. Following the triumvirate's breakup, in which his power had been throttled by its other members, he would exercise a great deal of authority over the Bahmani kingdom in his supreme rule. During his reign, Mahmud enjoyed the trust and confidence of rulers, locals as well as that of foreign kingdoms, who had great respect for him. Amongst a factional conflict between the local (Deccanis) and foreign nobility (Afaqis), Mahmud was executed on 5 April 1481 on Sultan Muhammad III's orders over a forged treasonous document by the Afaqis faction, headed by Malik Hasan Bahri, the chief orchestrator of the plot and Mahmud's successor as prime minister.
Mahmud Gawan led many campaigns against and defended against the Sultanate's neighbors, including the Vijayanagara Empire, the Gajapati Empire, and the Malwa Sultanate, which resulted in the Bahmani Sultanate reaching its greatest territorial extent under his reign. Mahmud is notable for his construction of the Mahmud Gawan Madrasa, a large centre of religious learning (madrasa) built in Bidar in 1472 which emulated another college in Persia.
Mahmud Gawan was born in 1411, in the village of Gawan to a family of imperial ministers of a kingdom in Gilan, in northern Persia. His name at birth was Imadu'd-din Mahmud, according to the Persian historian Firishta, and his father's name was Jalalu'd-din Muhammad. Mahmud's family was of high rank, and according to his own account had included viziers in the city of Rasht. Political intrigues against Mahmud's family, instigated by a minister, Hajji Muhammad, and the commander of the Gilani forces, Syed Ali, succeeded in undermining the family's status, and at some point before 1440, both Mahmud and his brother, Shihabu'd-din Ahmad, left Gilan on the advice of their mother. Mahmud had three sons, Abdullah, Alaf Khan, Ali, and a brother who went to Mecca; the last of his three sons, Ali, was as well in the service of the Bahmani Sultanate and participated in a campaign against Vijayanagara, likely after Mahmud's death.
Over the next decade and more Mahmud travelled through Southwest Asia and as far west as Anatolia and Egypt, becoming a successful merchant, in horses as well as other goods, and taking opportunities for study in Cairo and Damascus. He was offered ministerial positions in the courts of Khurasan and Iraq during these years, but declined them. In 1453, aged 42, he came to the port of Dabhol, hoping to sell horses to the Bahmani Sultanate, and also planning to meet Shah Muhibbu’llah, a holy man living in Bidar, the Bahmani capital, and then to travel to Delhi. He met first with the governor of Dabhol, and then traveled to Bidar. The Bahmani sultans of the era actively recruited Persians both as scholars and administrators, and Sultan Ahmad Shah II received Mahmud favourably.
After introducing himself to the Bahmani court of Ahmad Shah II, Mahmud Gawan was made a noble and given charge of 1,000 calvalrymen. and gave up his plans to travel onwards. In 1457, he was given charge of an elite formation of cavalry, and led the suppression of a minor rebellion of two family members of the sultan. Impressed with his military aptitude, Sultan Humayun Shah took him into his service upon Ahmad Shah II's death in 1459 and appointed him as Wakil-us-Sultanat, or chief minister following Ahmad Shah II's death. In Humayun Shah's accession speech, he states he appointed Mahmud as he fit the role of "one who should be clothed with the outward attributes of truth and good faith and who should inwardly be free from vices and vanity". In addition to his main role, he was given control of military affairs and was made tarafdar of Bijapur and "Prince of Merchants" (Malik-ut-Tujjar). After Humayun's death, he became one of the guardians of the underage Sultan Nizam Shah until his majority. This regency council consisted of Mahmud, the mother of Nizam Shah, and a noble named Jahan Turk. It worked well in depoliticizing the conflict between the two noble factions, the Deccanis — those native to the Deccan — and the foreigners, through the triumvirate's policy of appeasing these factions. It also deterred foreign invasions through its "unity of action" policy, which saw the regents consistently in agreement on the best course of action. This latter policy lasted until the death of Nizam Shah in 1463, and the cessation of it was the catalyst for increased factional strife.
The triumvirate continued to rule after the accession of Muhammad III, as he too was a minor. When he was fourteen years of age, the triumvirate regency came to a forced end when Jahan Turk was ordered murdered by the queen mother herself. Jahan Turk had been a disturbing force in the Sultanate by giving the new nobility positions in place of the old aristocracy, thus favouring the former and alienating the latter, and had been disliked for his rumoured embezzling of funds from the royal treasury and abuse of power. Through his influence and insistence on having his way, Jahan Turk sent Mahmud to administer the frontier provinces of the kingdom, and as he was, according to historian Haroon Khan Sherwani, "the moderating element in the Triumvirate", the stability of the state quickly collapsed. Jahan Turk was able to greatly increase his power with the absence of Mahmud, becoming the de facto ruler, and the queen mother, who took issue with this, had him killed then in 1466.
The queen mother retired from political affairs with the dissolution of the triumvirate, furthering Mahmud Gawan's lack of diplomatic and intellectual competition. A ceremony was held soon after the triumvirate's dissolution, where he was entrusted with the general supervision of all provinces (tarafs) of the Sultanate and given the title of prime minister by the queen mother in 1466, a title formerly held by Jahan Turk, ensuing Mahmud's supreme rule as the de facto ruler of the Sultanate. He was given the formal title of “Lord of the habitors of the Globe, Secretary of the Royal Mansion, Deputy of the Realm", which he was addressed as in court documents.
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Mahmud Gawan
Mahmud Gawan (born Imadu'd-din Mahmud; 1411 – 5 April 1481) was a Persian statesman who served as the chief minister, or Peshwa of the Bahmani Sultanate in India from 1458 and de facto ruler as prime minister from 1466 until his death in 1481. Mahmud Gawan, from the village of Gawan in Persia, was well-versed in Islamic theology, Persian, and the sciences and was a poet and prose writer of repute.
After emigrating from a small kingdom in Persia in 1453, Mahmud was appointed a high-ranking noble by Alau'd-din Ahmad Shah, the Sultan of the Bahmani Sultanate, and given an officer position. Upon his accession to the throne, Mahmud was made chief minister (Walik-us-Sultanat) with the title Prince of Merchants (Malik-ut-Tujjar) by Humayun Shah. He would rule as chief minister until the breakup of the five-year triumvirate regency council, himself a part of, which oversaw Sultans Nizam Shah and Muhammad Shah III Lashkari in 1466. Following the triumvirate's breakup, in which his power had been throttled by its other members, he would exercise a great deal of authority over the Bahmani kingdom in his supreme rule. During his reign, Mahmud enjoyed the trust and confidence of rulers, locals as well as that of foreign kingdoms, who had great respect for him. Amongst a factional conflict between the local (Deccanis) and foreign nobility (Afaqis), Mahmud was executed on 5 April 1481 on Sultan Muhammad III's orders over a forged treasonous document by the Afaqis faction, headed by Malik Hasan Bahri, the chief orchestrator of the plot and Mahmud's successor as prime minister.
Mahmud Gawan led many campaigns against and defended against the Sultanate's neighbors, including the Vijayanagara Empire, the Gajapati Empire, and the Malwa Sultanate, which resulted in the Bahmani Sultanate reaching its greatest territorial extent under his reign. Mahmud is notable for his construction of the Mahmud Gawan Madrasa, a large centre of religious learning (madrasa) built in Bidar in 1472 which emulated another college in Persia.
Mahmud Gawan was born in 1411, in the village of Gawan to a family of imperial ministers of a kingdom in Gilan, in northern Persia. His name at birth was Imadu'd-din Mahmud, according to the Persian historian Firishta, and his father's name was Jalalu'd-din Muhammad. Mahmud's family was of high rank, and according to his own account had included viziers in the city of Rasht. Political intrigues against Mahmud's family, instigated by a minister, Hajji Muhammad, and the commander of the Gilani forces, Syed Ali, succeeded in undermining the family's status, and at some point before 1440, both Mahmud and his brother, Shihabu'd-din Ahmad, left Gilan on the advice of their mother. Mahmud had three sons, Abdullah, Alaf Khan, Ali, and a brother who went to Mecca; the last of his three sons, Ali, was as well in the service of the Bahmani Sultanate and participated in a campaign against Vijayanagara, likely after Mahmud's death.
Over the next decade and more Mahmud travelled through Southwest Asia and as far west as Anatolia and Egypt, becoming a successful merchant, in horses as well as other goods, and taking opportunities for study in Cairo and Damascus. He was offered ministerial positions in the courts of Khurasan and Iraq during these years, but declined them. In 1453, aged 42, he came to the port of Dabhol, hoping to sell horses to the Bahmani Sultanate, and also planning to meet Shah Muhibbu’llah, a holy man living in Bidar, the Bahmani capital, and then to travel to Delhi. He met first with the governor of Dabhol, and then traveled to Bidar. The Bahmani sultans of the era actively recruited Persians both as scholars and administrators, and Sultan Ahmad Shah II received Mahmud favourably.
After introducing himself to the Bahmani court of Ahmad Shah II, Mahmud Gawan was made a noble and given charge of 1,000 calvalrymen. and gave up his plans to travel onwards. In 1457, he was given charge of an elite formation of cavalry, and led the suppression of a minor rebellion of two family members of the sultan. Impressed with his military aptitude, Sultan Humayun Shah took him into his service upon Ahmad Shah II's death in 1459 and appointed him as Wakil-us-Sultanat, or chief minister following Ahmad Shah II's death. In Humayun Shah's accession speech, he states he appointed Mahmud as he fit the role of "one who should be clothed with the outward attributes of truth and good faith and who should inwardly be free from vices and vanity". In addition to his main role, he was given control of military affairs and was made tarafdar of Bijapur and "Prince of Merchants" (Malik-ut-Tujjar). After Humayun's death, he became one of the guardians of the underage Sultan Nizam Shah until his majority. This regency council consisted of Mahmud, the mother of Nizam Shah, and a noble named Jahan Turk. It worked well in depoliticizing the conflict between the two noble factions, the Deccanis — those native to the Deccan — and the foreigners, through the triumvirate's policy of appeasing these factions. It also deterred foreign invasions through its "unity of action" policy, which saw the regents consistently in agreement on the best course of action. This latter policy lasted until the death of Nizam Shah in 1463, and the cessation of it was the catalyst for increased factional strife.
The triumvirate continued to rule after the accession of Muhammad III, as he too was a minor. When he was fourteen years of age, the triumvirate regency came to a forced end when Jahan Turk was ordered murdered by the queen mother herself. Jahan Turk had been a disturbing force in the Sultanate by giving the new nobility positions in place of the old aristocracy, thus favouring the former and alienating the latter, and had been disliked for his rumoured embezzling of funds from the royal treasury and abuse of power. Through his influence and insistence on having his way, Jahan Turk sent Mahmud to administer the frontier provinces of the kingdom, and as he was, according to historian Haroon Khan Sherwani, "the moderating element in the Triumvirate", the stability of the state quickly collapsed. Jahan Turk was able to greatly increase his power with the absence of Mahmud, becoming the de facto ruler, and the queen mother, who took issue with this, had him killed then in 1466.
The queen mother retired from political affairs with the dissolution of the triumvirate, furthering Mahmud Gawan's lack of diplomatic and intellectual competition. A ceremony was held soon after the triumvirate's dissolution, where he was entrusted with the general supervision of all provinces (tarafs) of the Sultanate and given the title of prime minister by the queen mother in 1466, a title formerly held by Jahan Turk, ensuing Mahmud's supreme rule as the de facto ruler of the Sultanate. He was given the formal title of “Lord of the habitors of the Globe, Secretary of the Royal Mansion, Deputy of the Realm", which he was addressed as in court documents.