The buildings erected in the Deccan region of India belonged to a number of pre-Mughal kingdoms that reigned in the Deccan from the middle of the 14th century onwards [to the 18th century]. The monuments testify to a culture where local and imported ideas, vernacular and pan-Islamic traditions fused and re-interpreted, to create a majestic architectural heritage with exceptional buildings on the edge of the Islamic world. Many are still standing - yet outside this region of peninsular India, they remain largely unknown.General publications on Indian Islamic architecture usually devote a single chapter to the Deccan. Even specialist monographs can only cover a portion of the region, due to the sheer number of sites. While it is impossible to encompass the full breadth of the subject in a single volume, this book aims to embrace the visual diversity of the Deccan without sacrificing the rigour of academic study. Structures of historical or architectural significance are placed in their context, as the authors discuss building typologies, civic facilities and ornamental techniques, from plaster and carved stone to glazed tiles and mural painting. A chapter is dedicated to each principal Deccan site, interweaving the rise and fall of these cities with a pictorial journey through their ruins, and each building is accompanied by an overhead plan view.

The Social And Artistic Ingenuities Of The Adil Shahis, Qutb Shahis And Mughals Brought A Fresh Breeze Into This Region And Gave A New Life To Islamic Art In Deccan Specially Rayalaseema Region And Revitalized It Into Fresh Activities, Which Were Undreamed Of In The Preceding Ages. The Most Outstanding Examples Are Siddhi Masood Khan Mosque At Adoni And Baqshi Chabumiya Mosque At Amarapuram, Each One Is Unique In Itself, True To The Architectural Tradition Of The Past. The First Part Of The Book Scans The Geographical, Historical And Religious Background In Which The Islamic Monuments And Its Architecture Progressed In Deccan And Later In The Rayalaseema Region. The Second Part Brings The Monuments (Mosques, Tombs And Dargahs) Into Focus With A Rich Examination Of Its Architectural And Geometrical Patterns With Their Esoteric And Philosophical Values, Analyzing It In Relation To The Adil Shahi, Qutb Shahi And Mughal Tradition Within Which It Was Created. Copiously Illustrated With Colour Plates, Plans And Maps, This Is An Essential Book For Anyone Interested In Islamic Art And Architecture And Is The Perfect Guide To The Enthralling Monuments Of Rayalaseema.

The vast Deccan plateau of south-central India stretches from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the region was home to several major Muslim kingdoms and became a nexus of international trade — most notably in diamonds and textiles, through which the sultanates attained remarkable wealth. The opulent art of the Deccan courts, invigorated by cultural connections to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, developed an otherworldly character distinct from that of the contemporary Mughal north: in painting, a poetic lyricism and audacious use of color; in the decorative arts, lively creations of inlaid metalware and painted and dyed textiles; and in architecture, a somber grandeur still visible today in breathtaking monuments throughout the plateau. The first book to fully explore the history and legacy of these kingdoms, Sultans of Deccan India elucidates the predominant themes in Deccani art—the region’s diverse spiritual traditions, its exchanges with the outside world, and the powerful styles of expression that evolved under court patronage—with fresh insights and new scholarship. Alongside the discussion of the art, lively, engaging essays by some of the field’s leading scholars offer perspectives on the cycles of victory and conquest as dynasties competed with one another, vied with Vijayanagara, a great empire to the south, and finally succumbed to the Mughals from the north. Featuring some 200 of the finest works from the Deccan sultanates, as well as spectacular site photographs and informative maps, this magnificently illustrated catalogue provides the most comprehensive examination of this world to date and constitutes a pioneering resource for specialists and general readers alike.

The Deccan sultans left a grand architectural and artistic legacy. They commissioned palaces, mosques, gardens and tombs as well as decorative paintings and coins. Of these sultanates, the Nizam Shahs (r. 1490-1636) were particularly significant, being one of the first to emerge from the crumbling edifice of the Bahmani Empire (c. 1347-1527). Yet their rich material record remains largely unstudied in the scholarly literature, obscuring their cultural and historical importance. This book provides the first analysis of the architecture of the Nizam Shahs. Pushkar Sohoni examines the critical relationship between architectural production, courtly practice and royal authority in a period when the aspirations and politics of the kingdom were articulated through architectural expression. Based on new primary research from key sites including the urban settlements of Ahmadnagar, Daulatabad, Aurangabad, Junnar and the port city of Chaul, Sohoni sheds light on broader Islamicate ideas of kingship and shows how this was embodied by material artefacts such as buildings and sites, paintings, gardens, guns and coins. As well as offering a vivid depiction of sixteenth-century South Asia, this book revises understanding of the cultural importance of the Nizam Shahs and their place in the Indian Ocean world. It will be a vital primary resource for scholars researching the history of the medieval and early modern Deccan and relevant for those working in Art History, Islamic Studies, South Asian Studies and Archaeology.

This book reinterprets the Muslim architecture and urban planning of South India, looking beyond the Deccan to the regions of Tamil Nadu and Kerala - the historic coasts of Coromandel and Malabar. For the first time a detailed survey of the Muslim monuments of the historic ports and towns demonstrates a rich and diverse architectural tradition entirely independent from the better known architecture of North India and the Deccan sultanates. The book, extensively illustrated with photographs and architectural drawings, widens the horizons of our understanding of Muslim India and will no doubt pave new paths for future studies in the field.

In the early 1400s, Iranian elites began migrating to the Deccan plateau of southern India. Lured to the region for many reasons, these poets, traders, statesmen, and artists of all kinds left an indelible mark on the Islamic sultanates that ruled the Deccan until the late seventeenth century. The result was the creation of a robust transregional Persianate network linking such distant cities as Bidar and Shiraz, Bijapur and Isfahan, and Golconda and Mashhad. Iran and the Deccan explores the circulation of art, culture, and talent between Iran and the Deccan over a three-hundred-year period. Its interdisciplinary contributions consider the factors that prompted migration, the physical and intellectual poles of connectivity between the two regions, and processes of adaptation and response. Placing the Deccan at the center of Indo-Persian and early modern global history, Iran and the Deccan reveals how mobility, liminality, and cultural translation nuance the traditional methods and boundaries of the humanities.

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)