Person · r. 1672 – 1687

Abul Hasan Qutb Shah (Tana Shah)

ابوالحسن قطب شاہ

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Came to the throne out of a Sufi lodge rather than a court, ruled fifteen years through a ministry of Brahmin bookkeepers, and lost the last Deccan sultanate to an eight-month siege.

A bearded man in a plain white jama seated cross-legged on a bolster on an open terrace, one hand extended toward a tray of food, fruit and vessels laid on the floor before him; women attend him on both sides — one fanning him, one offering a flower, others playing a long-necked stringed instrument and drum — with a multi-domed pavilion and garden trees painted in the background, a zenana/terrace gathering scene — a court painting of the period, not a likeness.
A bearded man in a plain white jama seated cross-legged on a bolster on an open terrace, one hand extended toward a tray of food, fruit and vessels laid on the floor before him; women attend him on both sides — one fanning him, one offering a flower, others playing a long-necked stringed instrument and drum — with a multi-domed pavilion and garden trees painted in the background, a zenana/terrace gathering scene — a court painting of the period, not a likeness.https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O433702/abul-hasan-qutb-shah-painting-unknown/ (artist: unknown, circa 1680) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Draft. This entry is an unreviewed first draft. It has not yet been checked by a subject reviewer — see sources and method.

Made king, and then unmaking his maker

His accession was settled by force inside the palace. Abdullah died with no son and three sons-in-law; Sayyid Ahmad, husband of the eldest daughter and the long-serving wazir, claimed the throne, and Ma Sahib armed her slave-girls and stood within the palace sword in hand. Abul Hasan was raised up by Sayyid Muzaffar.

What he did next is the reign in miniature, and it was self-defence rather than tolerance: Muzaffar, having made the king, set out to reduce him to a cypher, and the king answered by buying Muzaffar’s own factotum — the Brahmin Madanna — and through him most of the establishment. The ministry of Madanna and Akkanna follows from that manoeuvre, not from a policy.

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