Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah (4 April 156511 January 1612) was the fifth sultan of the

Qutb Shahi dynasty The Qutb Shahi dynasty also called as Golconda Sultanate ( Persian: ''Qutb Shāhiyān'' or ''Sultanat-e Golkonde'') was a Persianate Shia Islam dynasty of Turkoman origin that ruled the sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. After the col ...

Golkonda Fort (Telugu: గోల్కొండ, romanized: ''Gōlkōnḍa'') is a historic fortress and ruined city located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It was originally called Mankal. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparu ...

and founded the city of

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

, in South-central

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

and built its architectural centerpiece, the

Charminar The Charminar () is a mosque and monument located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Constructed in 1591, the landmark is a symbol of Hyderabad and officially incorporated in the emblem of Telangana The Charminar's long history includes the exist ...

. He was an able administrator and his reign is considered one of the high points of the Qutb Shahi dynasty. He ascended to the throne in 1580 at the age of 15 and ruled for 31 years.

Birth, early life and personal life

Muhammad Quli Qutub Shah was the third son of

Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah Wali Ibrahim Qutb Shah Wali (1518 – 5 June 1580), also known by his Telugu names Malki BhaRama and Ibharama Cakravarti, was the fourth ruler of the kingdom of Golconda in southern India. He was the first of the Qutb Shahi dynasty to use the ...

and Hindu Mother Bhagirathi. He was an accomplished poet and wrote his poetry in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

.Annemarie Schimmel, ''Classical Urdu Literature from the Beginning to Iqbāl'', (Otto Harrassowitz, 1975), 143. As the first author in the Urdu language, he composed his verses in the Persian ''diwan'' style, and his poems consisted of verses relating to a single topic, ''gazal-i musalsal''. Muhammad Quli's ''Kulliyat'' comprised 1800 pages, over half were ''gazals'', ''qasidas'' on one hundred pages, while the rest contained over 300 pages of ''matnawi'' and ''marsiyas.'' Charminar-Pride of Hyderabad

City of Hyderabad

Muhammad Quli built the city of Hyderabad on the southern bank of the

Musi River Musi may refer to: * Musi River (Indonesia) * Musi River (India), Telangana * Moosy River, Andhra Pradesh, India * Musi language, a Malay language spoken in Indonesia * Angelo Musi (1918–2009), American basketball player * Agostino de' Musi, real ...

in 1591. He called architects from all around the world to lay out the city, which was built on a grid plan. He constructed Char Minar.

Patronage of literature

Quli Qutb Shah was a scholar of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

and

languages. He wrote

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

, Persian, and Telugu. His poetry has been compiled into a volume entitled "Kulliyat-e-Quli Qutub Shah." He had the distinction of being the first ''Saheb-e-dewan'' Urdu poet and is credited with introducing a new sensibility into prevailing genres of Persian/Urdu poetry. Several notable physicians wrote

Persian language Persian (), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision of th ...

books on

Unani medicine Unani or Yunani medicine (Urdu: ''tibb yūnānī'') is Perso-Arabic traditional medicine as practiced in Muslim culture in South Asia and modern day Central Asia. Unani medicine is pseudoscientific. The Indian Medical Association describes Un ...

during the reign of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah. These included Mir Momin (''Ikhtiyarat-i Qutub Shahi''), Shamsuddin Ali Husain al-Jurjani (''Tazkirat-i Kahhalin''), Hakim Shamsuddin bin Nuruddin (''Zubdat-ul Hukama''),

Abdullah Tabib Abdullah Tabib, also known as Abdullah Yazdi, was a Unani physician and writer from the Golconda Sultanate of present-day southern India. He is best known for writing the medical book ''Farid'', also known as ''Tibb-i Faridi''. Biography Abdull ...

(''Tibb-i Farid''), Taqiuddin Muhammad bin Sadruddin Ali (''Mizan-ul Tabai), Nizamuddin Ahmad Gilani (''Majmu'a-i Hakim-ul mulk''), and Ismai'l bin Ibrahim Tabrezi (''Tazkirat-ul Hukama'').

Notes

References

* Sangaychay Mala by Gajanan Pole * Prime Ministers of Qutubshhs by Sri Bhopal Rao * Luther, Narendra. ''Prince, Poet, Lover, Builder: Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, The Founder of Hyderabad''
Books on Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah
* Chopra, R.M., The Rise, Growth And Decline of Indo-Persian Literature, Iran Culture House, New Delhi, 2012.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah 1565 births 1612 deaths People from Hyderabad district, India Kings of Golconda Telugu people Qutb Shahi dynasty Urdu-language poets Year of birth uncertain 1611 in India 1580 in India Urdu-language writers from Mughal India