Khandesh Sultanate

The Khandesh Sultanate was a small but prosperous state in the Tapti valley of central India, ruled by the Faruqi dynasty from 1382 until its annexation by the Mughal emperor Akbar in 1601. Its founder, Malik Ahmad, was an officer of Arab descent who had served the Delhi Sultanate and the Bahmanis; after a failed rebellion he settled at Thalner, received the fiefs of Thalner and Karanda from Firuz Shah Tughluq in 1370 and began ruling independently by 1382. His successor Nasir Khan took the fortress of Asirgarh and founded Burhanpur in 1399, which became the dynasty's capital and a major trading and textile town. The Faruqis balanced between the Bahmani successor states, Gujarat, Malwa and the Mughals, and Adil Khan II presided over a period of prosperity and building. Akbar's armies occupied Burhanpur in 1599 and captured Asirgarh in January 1601 after a long siege; the last ruler, Bahadur Shah, surrendered and Khandesh became a Mughal province. The dynasty's forts, tombs and mosques remain part of the landscape of the Nimar and Tapti regions.