Abdullah Qutb Shah

Abdullah, son of Muhammad Qutb Shah, came to the throne of Golconda in 1626 into a rapidly changing situation: Malik Ambar, the Deccan's defender, had just died, and a year later Shah Jahan became emperor and within three years took Daulatabad, the Ahmadnagar capital. ¹

Returning to the Deccan in 1635, Shah Jahan forced Abdullah to accept the Inqiyad-nama, which made Golconda a Mughal protectorate. Mark Zebrowski lists among its terms that Sunnism was to replace Shiism as the official creed, that the Mughal emperor's name replace the Safavid shah's in the Friday khutba, and that the annual tribute be sharply raised; afterwards the two rulers exchanged portraits. The Mughal resident at Golconda grew ever more influential, and Abdullah wrote secretly to Dara Shikoh asking him to calm his father and check his brother Aurangzeb, who urged conquest. ^{3 1}

From about 1630 Golconda portraitists set their subjects against empty backgrounds in the Mughal manner, giving the first reliable likenesses of the sultans, though the author finds these the least exciting Deccani paintings of the century. ¹ The Procession of Sultan Abdullah Qutb Shah on an elephant in Leningrad — deep blue sky streaked with orange cloud, the sultan in gold on a saffron elephant — proves for him that Golconda painting was reaching new heights about 1650. ² His Divan was bound with the Kulliyat of Muhammad Quli. ⁴