Golconda Sultanate

Muslim kingdom of the Deccan in India, founded in 1518 by Khawas Khan Hamadani, a Baharlu Turk who governed the region of Telangana under the Bahmani Sultanate (1347–1518), and ascended the throne as Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk. One of the five successor kingdoms of the Bahmani Sultanate, it spanned present-day Telangana and parts of Andhra Pradesh, with its capital in Golconda and later in the city of Hyderabad, built in 1591. Under the Qutb Shahi dynasty, who were Shia Muslims, the Golconda Sultanate flourished as a diverse centre for art, culture and commerce, resisting attacks from neighbouring sultanates, and later allying with Bidar, Bijapur and Ahmadnagar in overthrowing the Vijayanagara kingdom in the battle of Talikota (1565). Mughal pressure on the sultanate increased steadily from the early seventeenth century onwards, and the kingdom was annexed through treason by Aurangzeb in 1687.