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of Muhammad Shah Lashkari, and from this time the power of the Bahmani Sultans declined rapidly.

In October, 1487, Bidar was the scene of a serious revolt. The Deccani and African amirs rose suddenly in the night against the Sultan Mahmud Shah, of whose partiality towards the " foreign," or Turki, Persian, and Mughal amirs, they had long been jealous. They attacked the royal palace, but were repulsed by the desperate valour of a few foreigners in immediate attendance on the Sultan. In the morning Mahmud Shah ordered the foreigners to retaliate on the Deccanis and Africans. The slaughter lasted for three days, and the foreigners inflicted a terrible retribution for wrongs which they had suffered years before. The tombs of the unfortunate Africans, who fell on this occaision, are still pointed out. After these events Mahmud' Shah took no further interest in business of state. He built a new palace and laid out a garden, and spared neither pains nor expense for the adornment of both. These being completed, he gave himself up entirely to luxury and pleasure, and Bidar became the resort of poets, singers, dancers, wantons, story-tellers, and wine-bibbers from all parts of India and Peisia, so that "the city was the envy of Iran and Turan." All those who had any care for public business turned to the provincial governors, who were now practically independent. Qasim Barid, the minister, managed the affairs of the capital as he chose, and when he found that the qalahdars in his jagir declined to surrender to him the forts which they held immediately from the king he rose in revolt. Meanwhile, in 1490, Malik Ahmad Bahri Nizam-ul-Mulk, Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk, and Yusuf Adil Khan proclaimed their independence in Ahmadnagar, Berar, and Bijapur, founding the Nizam Shahi, the Imad Shahi, and the Adil Shahi dynasties. Qasim Barid at the same time proclaimed his independence in Ausa and Kandhar, leaving little more than the capital to the voluptuary who sat on the throne of the Bahmanis, who, finding that he could not overpower the rebel, made terms with him, and in 1492 confirmed him as Amir-i-Jumla or prime minister. Henceforward the Bahmanis ceased in fact to be a ruling dynasty though Mahmud Shah had four nominal successors in Bidar, Ahmad, Ala-ud-din III, Wali-ullah, and Kalim-ullah, the last of whom died, a fugitive, in Ahmadnagar in 1527. Qasim Barid died in 1504, in