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Some of the Historical Events in Muslim India
Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On May 20, 1378 AD, Daud Shah, who over a month earlier had usurped the throne of the Bahmani Dynasty of Iranian origin of the Deccan (South India) by treacherously assassinating his nephew King Mujahid Shah, was killed on the orders of his niece Rouh Parwar Agha (sister of the deceased Mujahid Shah) and replaced by her younger brother, Mohammad Shah II. The court language of the Bahmanis, who traced their origin to the pre-Islamic Iranian hero Bahman, was Persian, and they promoted Iranian culture, art and architecture.
On May 20, 1421, Khizr Khan, who governed Delhi, Punjab and parts of northern India, as viceroy of the Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur, and after him of his son and successor, Shahrukh, died in Delhi. Two days later he was succeeded by his son, Mubarak Shah, in whose reign the famous Persian history “Tarikh-e Mubarak Shahi” was written in India.
On May 28, 1998, Pakistan responds to a series of nuclear tests by India 17 days earlier with five of its own, codenamed Chagai-I. Pakistan celebrates this event every year as Youm-e Takbir or Day of God’s Majesty. By conducting simultaneous atomic testing of the five nuclear devices, Pakistan became the seventh nuclear-armed power. Both India and Pakistan have refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
On 21st of the Islamic month of Rajab in 799 AH, Mahmud I (also known as Mohammad II), the 5th king of the Bahmani kingdom of Iranian origin of the Deccan (southern India) passed away in his capital Gulbarga after a reign of 19 years. His son Ghiyas od-Din succeeded him, but was blinded and imprisoned by the Turkish slave Lalchin Khan, who placed the younger brother, Shams od-Din on thethrone. Five months later, Lalchin and his puppet were deposed by Mahmoud Shah’s cousin Taj od-Din Firouz Shah, the greatest ruler of the dynasty who reigned for 25 years. The Bahmanis patronized and promoted Persian language and poetry, as well as Iranian art, culture, and architecture in the Deccan by inviting from Iran thousands of qualified persons in various fields. The famous Iranian poet Hafez Shirazi was also invited, but changed his mind midway through the journey, sending an excellent piece of poetry to the Bahmani court. The famous Gnostic of Kerman, Shah Ne’matollah Wali, was also requested to come to the Deccan, and instead sent his grandson – and later son – who preached the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt in the Bahmani kingdom.
On June 3, 1502 AD, the Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama, massacred people in the port of Calicut, southern India. Calicut, which is now called Kozhikode, was the first location occupied by Vasco da Gama in 1498, after he discovered the sea route to India via the southern coast of Africa, with the help of Muslim Arab navigators, whom this treacherous Portuguese killed. Vasco da Gama was a murderous person, and on one occasion, when 800 Arab merchants landed on the southern Indian coast for buying rice, he seized them; tortured them to death by cutting their hands, ears, and noses, and burned their ships.
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