Firuzabad: Palace City of the Deccan

102 Pages·1992·9.626 MB·English

by  George Michell, Richard Eaton, Richard M. Eaton

0
OXFORD STUDIES IN ISLAMIC ART
VIII
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FIRUZABAD
Palace City of the Deccan
George Michell & Richard Eaton
-:::?
Published by Oxford University Press
for
the Board of the Faculty of Oriental Studies,
University of Oxford
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SERIES EDITOR
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Julian Raby,
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uctunr in bllllnic A rt & A rclril«turt,
Univnsity ofO xford
EDITORIAL BOARD
'. 1 r 7 r. 11 James Allan,
I . ,._;_, J Kuf><r, D,pt. ofE asum Art,
,, ,, Ashmokan M usnmo, Oxford
I I-'\ Rohen Hillenbrand,
~. , ..• .I Professor ofl silllnic Art, D,pt. ofF iru Art,
Univnsity of Edinburgh
Oliver Watson,
Kuf><r, D,pt. ofC eramics,
Victoria & All>m Musnun, London
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Brituh Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Michell, George
Firuzabad: palace city of the Dcccan.
- (Oxford studies in Islamic an).
I. India. Firuzabad. Islamic buildings.
Architectural features, history
I. Title II. Eaton, Richard III. University of
Oxford. Faeulty of Oriental Studits
722.H09
ISBN 0-19-728015-3
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CONTENTS
Preface
Historical Introduction
9-20
Architectural Description
Urban and Architectural Context
Conclusions: The King and the City
Appendix 9 1-99
Bi bliogra ph y
101-102
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Preface
·rhis study is the first detailed description of the historical and architectural
context of Firiizabad, the palace city of the early fifteenth-century Deccan
ruler, Sul1an Firiiz Shah Bahmani (r. 1397-1422). Not unlike the better
known but later palace city of Fatel.1piir Sikri, Firiizabad was almost entirely
bound up \vith the destiny of a single ruler. At the beginning of the fifteenth
century, Firiiz had his palace city designed and rapidly laid out on the bank
of the Bhima river. Here he resided occasionally throughout his career, but
afier his death the city ceased to be a place of importance, and was eventually
abandoned.
Today Firiiziibiid survives in a ruined state, pillaged by villagers and
ignored by scholars; it is not even listed officially as an ancient site by the
archaeological authorities. Yet there is a modern village on the outskirts of the
ancient zone, conveniently reached by a regular bus service from Gulbarga.
A nearby shrine (dargiih) of a Muslim holy man attracts pious visitors who
maintain the building in reasonable condition. While we cannot claim,
therefore, that Firiizabad is totally unknown, it is certainly unfamiliar beyond
the immediate vicinity. The aim of presenting the available historical data
about Firiizabad together \vith newly prepared maps of the site, and
measured plans and photographs of the monuments, is to awaken interest in
these fascinating ruins. As the earliest planned palace city of the Deccan,
Firiizabad is an important landmark in the history of ~1uslim rule in
peninsular India, a witness to the vision and resources of one of India's most
remarkable royal patrons.
~lost scholars writing about Firiiz Shah and his period have been content
to quote from the early seventeenth-century Indian historian, Firishta, who
had included in his history of medieval India a brief notice of Sul!iin Firiiz
Shah and his palace city at Firiizabiid.1 'fhe first modern description of the
site is that of L. Munn, a geologist who in 1914-15 published a brief,
unillustrated notice of his visit to the ruins as a letter in an archaeological
rcport.2 l'his letter \\'as then cited by other authorities who, apparently, never
took the opportunity to visit the site themselves.l H.K. Sherwani, one of this
century's most eminent historians of the medieval Deccan, bemoaned the fact
that local archaeological authorities had never undertaken a photographic or
architectural survey of the ruins, as recommended by Munn.•
Despite the quickened pace of interest in Indian archaeology after
I. For an rarly publication of the rl'l('\'ant 3. For rxamplt-. Shrrwani ( '!l4:1·44). 7!1;
passag<· sr·t· Briggs C1 96f)), ii, ~i69•70. and (19_1:Jl. 1~0-;,1.
'2. Annual Rt·p<>rl< ( 1914-1° App,·ndixJ, 4. Shrrwani ( 1953}. 173, foo1no1r 17.
1).
44-41i.
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F.aton & '.\1 ichell
Independence, post-194 7 scholarship on Firiiziibiid has remained sketchy and
piecemeal. In 1954 Klaus Fischer visited the site and, for the first time,
published some photographs of the monuments.5 Particularly concerned to
describe the structural features of the monuments, Fischer was the first to note
many outlying buildings, including the dargiih. On the other hand, his site
map was not at all accurate, and he did not even attempt to provide
Firiiziibiid with a complete archaeological description. In 19T2 Akbiiruddin
~iddiqi published several inscriptions from the dargiih near Firiizabiid.6
Though invaluable for establishing the chronology of some of the local
monuments, this information, too, was only fragmentary. Two years later,
Z.A. Desai published an important article on Bahmani architecture, but
made only passing reference to the use of pyramidal vaults in Firiizabiid.7
More recently, in 1981, Elizabeth Schotten-Merklinger published a mono
graph on Islamic architecture of the Deccan, but unfortunately, this included
very little additional information about Firiiziibiid, apart from a part-plan of
the Jami' Mosque.8 In general, then, even after Independence, Firiiziibiid was
ignored.
In December 1980, and again in February 1984, George J\1ichell briefly
visited Firiiziibiid. As a result of these reconnaissances it was decided to
mount a small surveying expedition. At the end ofJ anuary 1985, seven young
architects and architecture students from India, Britain and Australia spent
ten days at the site. Under Michell's supervision they completed a preliminary
survey of the ruins, including measured plans of the principal monuments.
Photographs were also taken. On returning the United States late that
10
year, J\,fichell persuaded Richard Eaton to investigate the Persian sources that
might throw light on the historical context of Firiizabad, there being so little
information available in English. Much to his delight, Eaton was able to
discover sufficient details to reconstruct the historical outlines of this palace
city. The results of these investigations form the basis (or this study.
Because of the lack of historical records and the rapidity of the site survey,
much of the information here presented remains incomplete. Nonethdcss, we
hope that this first attempt to examine Firiiziibiid's historical and archaeo
logical context may awaken interest in this truly fascinating site.
Richard ~f. Eaton & George J\1ichell
5. Fischer l 1!1.i~I. 24li•:,:i· 7. D<"sai (1974). 'l'.14, ·141.
6. $iddiqi 1197·, J. Sr<· 1h,· 8. Sdu,11,·n-!'.krklin~cr i 1(1!11 ), plan 4.
Appe11dix hdow.
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Historical Introduction
On the north bank of the Shima river and to the south ofGulbarga on India's
Deccan plateau lies the ruined city of Firuzabad, one of the most historically
important yet unknown architectural legacies of medieval India. This city
served as a royal palace and second capital for monarchs of the Bahmani
kingdom (1347-1537), and in particular for its builder, Sul1an Firuz Shah
Bahmani (r. 1397-1422). Constructed between 1399 and 14o6, Firiizabad
remained in sporadic use by several of Firuz's successors until the end of the
fifteenth century, and then it quietly slipped into oblivion. By way of
introducing the reader to the city's rich architectural remains, which are
analyzed in depth for the first time in the present monograph, we examine the
reasons for the establishment of 1he city, its fundamental character, the court
life and activities that took place there, the significance of a contemporary
~ufi shrine a short distance outside its massive walls, and the reasons for the
city's abandonment.
In order to explore the city's fundamental character and 1he circum
stances under which it was built, we may begin by referring to the earliest
surviving histories of Sul1an Firuz Shah Bahmani's twenty-five-year reign.
l"hese include the Burhii.n-i Ma'ii.lhir, composed between 1592 and 1596 by
Sayyid 'Ali Taba1abai, the Tadh/cirii.l al-Muliik, wri11en between 1608 and
161 1 by Rafi' al-Din Ibrahim Shirazi, and the Tarfkh-i Firishla, wri11en
between 1606 and 1611 by Mu(:iammad Qasim Firishta. Though these
histories were not wrillen until a century after the collapse of the Bahmani
dynasty and the abandonment of Firuzabad, all three authors knew the
medieval Deccani cultural milieu that had breathed spirit and life into the
city. Like many of the builders, patrons, and inhabitants of Firuzabad, they
were immigrants from the Persian-speaking Middle East who had senled in
the Deccan plateau. All three were eminent scholars patronized by the
I ndo-r.1 uslim kings of the Deccan. They based their work on oral traditions
current in their own day, and on earlier histories, some of which are now losl.1
These sources ditrer, however, in their explanations why Firuzabad was
built and how it was used. Since Firishta's is the most complete statement of
I. Tabii!abii"i confined his study to th,· work than the other two historians.
history ofth,· Rahmani Kingdom and tht· ,·ndcavouring to chronicle all I ndo-1'.1uslim
rarly history of one of its five successor history down to his own time. Concerning
states, that of the Nizam Shi\hi sultans of Firuziibiid, f"irishta relied upon SC\'eral
Al,tmadnagar, under whose patronage he important d1ronidc-s 1hat arc now lc.l5t, in
wrote. Shir3.zi. an Iranian adventurer and partkular the T u!J[at al-Sa/ii/in hy ~·1u lla
diplomat, confined his Tadlikirdt al-Mu/we to Oa 'ud Bidri. the Siriij al-Tawiirikh hy l'.h,llii
the 'Adil Shahi dynasty ofBijapur. Firishta. l\,lul,tammad Lari. and thr Tiirikh of Hiiiji
who was patronised by the lungs of the same 11,ful,tammad Qandahari. Sec Firishta
dynasty. undertook a far more ambitious ( 1864-65), i. 307. :l<>!l·
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Eaton
the city's origins, we may begin by quoting in full the relevant extract from
the Tiirfkh-i Firishta: "Because Sul,an Firiiz Shah wished to possess the
facility of language as lovely as fairies and as adorned as peacocks, he built on
the banks of the Bhima river a city named Firiizabad, and made this place his
royal residence [takhtgiih). Its markets and shops achieved the acme of
cleanliness and excellence, while its streets were both wide and straight. The
city's citadel, constructed of plaster and stone, opened out onto the river on
one side and canals carried water from the river into its interior.
Separate villas as lovely as moons were also built, and each one was
1·onferrcd upon one of the women of the sultan's harem. Having reAccted
upon the problem of throngs of women jostling in his palace, the sultan
established rules that were never violated during his lifetime. The essence of
these rules was that there would be no more than three maidservants for each
apartn1ent in which each one of his favourite women resided, and these
servants would speak the same language as their mistress. Accordingly, when
he wanted to speak in Arabic he would go to the 'Arabic Mal_ial', located
next to the 'Deccani ~lal.1al' where Sultan l\1al_imiid Shah Bahmani's
daughter was kept. In the 'Arabic Mal.1al' he would find nine Arab women
who, having been raised in the Hijaz, in l\,fecca, or in other regions in Arabia,
possessed perfect linguistic eloquence. ·rhe maidservants of these mistresses
,vere either Abyssinians or born of Abyssinians, and were Auent in Arabic.
\Vomen who did not speak Arabic were not permitted to frequent that
apartment, lest its inhabitants lose their Arabic proficiency or allow their
tongue to become mixed with other languages. l\,foreover, the sultan
constantly ordered deputies to be sent to Arabia to procure women in order
fill vacancit·s created by the deaths of the mistresses or their maidservants.
10
Similarly, he also· kept nine women from non-Arab lands ['Ajam), and their
maidservants were Persian-speaking Caucasians, Turks, Russians or Georg
ians. In the same manner, the sultan kept Turkish, European, Afghan,
Rajput, Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu, Kanarese, and Marathi women in his
harem, and knew the native language of each of them. Each day he would
visit one of these apartments and comport himself in such a way that ca1·h
woman considered herself the sultan's most beloved. "2
1\ ccording to Firishta, the sultan would seem to have built the city
primarily as a means of expanding his linguistir skills, and secondarily as a
means of indulging his appetite for female companionship. On this latter
point, Firishta elsewhere noted that the sultan was so addicted to women that
he was rven compelled to tnodify his personal theology in order to le11:itimizc
his d1·sircs in the eves of Islamic law.3 C:IC'arl.v . Firiiziibiid functionc-d as a
,
2. Firi,hta '. 1!1fi4,li,·,,. i. :108-09. ~fy 3. The su1t,111·s d,i,-f minisicr. ~fir Fa<)I
translalion of this pa."'-a~c follows the Allah Anjf,. n,unsl'il<·d him that. althou~h
origi11al Prrsian somc:wha1 m<Jrc: doscly 1ha11 polyiitamy was forhicldrn in the traditions of
durs that of Briggs i l!J(if-i,. ii. t·.?7-18. Su1111i hlam. ttw SfTl to whirh tlw suhan
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