KUTUB SHAM, a dynasty of kings of the 16th and 17th centuries, ruling in Golconda, and Hyderabad in the Dekhan.
Sultan Kuli, /LE.. 1512 Muhammad, . A.D. 1580 Jamshid, . . 1543 Muhammad, . 1611 Subhan Kuli, 1550 Abdullah, . . 1626 Ibrahim, . . 1550 Abdul Husain, 1673 Sultan Kuli was descended from the chiefs of the Karakonilu tribe of Kurds, and appears to have been born near Diarbikr. The tribe to which he belonged having been subdued by Mir Husain, and subjected to the Akunelu tribe of which that chief was head, Sultan Kuli, to save his life, fled from Diarbikr in company with his uncle, and, after many difficulties and dangers, found his way to Beder, at which place Sultan Muhammad Lashkari Bahmani of Beder and Gul burga then held his court. Ferishta, in his history of the Bahmani dynasty, states that Sultan Kuli in the first instance obtained employment at the BalInlaid court as one of tho Turki ghulam in personal attendance upon the king ; but this appears to be denied by the author of the Tow arikh-i-Kutub Shahi, who asserts that Sultan Kull was from the first employed in a situation befitting his rank and family, and from his talents and courage early rose to the conunand of the Beder armies and the government of the province of Telingana. On the decadence of the Bahmani dynasty, during the latter part of the reign of Muhammad tt., when the government had been virtually usurped by the minister Kasim Sultan Kuli seized the province of Telingana, and some years afterwards took the title of Kutub Shah ; this latter event occurred in A.D. 1520 or thereabouts, and the Kutub Shahi dynasty existed in Telingana, under this name for a period of nearly 200 years. The last ruler is commonly known by the name of Thannah Shah. Another account describes the founder of this dynasty, Sultan Kuli, as the son of Amir Kuli, a Turkoman chief, who claimed to be a lineal descendant of the prophet Noah, through his son Japheth. Ile was born in the town of Hamadan, and when a youth accompanied his paternal uncle to Beder, then the seat of government of the Bahmani kings, about the close of the reign of Sultan Muhammad Shah Lashkari Bahmani, and there got the title of Kutub-ul-Mulk, i.e. the Polar Star of the State ;
to it was attached as a jaghir the town of Gol conda and the surrounding villages. He was afterwards promoted to the command of all the troops in that vicinity. On the decadence of the Bahmani power, Kutub-ul-Mulk threw off its control in 1512, though, according to some histo rians, he did not assume the title of an independent sovereign for some years subsequently, probably about 1520. The limits of the territory.coutained within his dominions are described by the author of the Hadikat-ul-Alam, as extending from Chanda in the north to the Carnatie, and from the sea shore of Orissa, Vizagapatain, and Masulipatam, to Beder and the Bijapur territories on the west. After a reign of 31 years, Sultan Kuli was murdered by a Turki slave at Golconda, at the instigation of his son Jamshid, A.D. 1543, A.H. 950. He was murdered in the mosque situated inside the town, and was in the act of directing the masons to break open a door to escape assassination, when the man employed by his son stabbed him. He died at the age of 00 years, and was succeeded by his son Yar Kuli Jamshid Khan, who had murdered his elder brother Malik Kutub-ud-Din during their father's lifetime. Jamshid died of cancer, having been guilty of the assassination of his father and brother and the death of many individuals, ordered for execution in moments of passion and pain. He is said to have lost the tip of his nose and a great part of his cheek by a sabre cut in battle. lie was succeeded by his son Subhan Kuli, a boy of ten years of age, who reigned for a period of seven months. The weakness of the government, and the contentions existing between the reigning sovereign and his uncle, Daulat Kuli, whose cause had been espoused by Jagdeo Rao, raja of Waran gal, induced Ibrahim to leave the Bijanagar court for Golconda, which he reached and succeeded in establishing himself in 1557, and, after a reign of 23 years, he died in the year A.D 1580, A.II. 988, and lies buried in one of the tombs of Golconda. The two last figures of the above date only are visible. He was succeeded by his SOD, Sultan Muhammad Kuli Kutub Shah.