Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/227

215 his determined enemy was seated on the throne of Delhi he would again turn his attention to the two remaining kingdoms of the Deccan. Abdullah placed upon his seal and his coinage the pathetic legend:—

"It has come to a good and auspicious conclusion."

The motto is usually referred to his prescience of the fall of Golconda, but it appears probable that he was comforting himself with the idea that the kingdom would fall into the hands of the Mughals by peaceful succession, and not by conquest. This hope was not destined to be fulfilled, for Muhammad Sultan predeceased Abdullah.

When Abdullah Qutb Shah died in 1672 without a male heir the competitors for the kingdom were his two surviving sons-in-law, Sayyid Mir Ahmad and Abul Hasan. The choice fell on the latter, who, besides being Abdullah's son-in-law, was descended from the royal family, and Sayyid Mir Ahmad was imprisoned and put to death.

Nothing noteworthy occurred during Abul Hasan's reign until near its conclusion. The king, who had been a darvish, now gave himself up to sensual pleasures, and left the affairs of the kingdom in the hands of two Brahmans, Madanna and Venkanna, who governed the country in accordance with Hindu principles and went so far as to insult the religion of Islam and its professors. Reports of the manner in which the administration of Golconda was conducted reached the ears of Aurangzib and confirmed him in his intention of extinguishing the Qutb Shahi dynasty. How this was effected is described elsewhere. Golconda fell in 1687, Abul Hasan was taken and sent to Daulatabad, where he ended his days in captivity twelve years later, and Haidarabad became the headquarters of a province of the empire of Delhi.

Aurangzib, as we have seen, found the great mosque of Haidarabad incomplete when he captured Golconda, and one of his first acts was to complete it. It was finished in A.H. 1104 (A.D. 1692) as is recorded over its principal gateway. The mosque is a huge rectangular building of stone, standing in a spacious courtyard. Its façade is composed of five simple Pathan arches, the central arch being slightly larger than the rest, and above the arches runs a deep cornice, above which the building is completed by a range of ornamental kanguras or crenellations. At either end of the façade and adjoining the building stands a squat minaret, surrounded at the level of the parapet of the mosque by a gallery,