Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/45

33 Firuz Shah, the eighth king of the Bahmani dynasty, assembled the armies of Daulatabad and Berar in 1398-99, to assist in the expulsion of Deva Raya of Vijayanagar from the Raichur Duab, but no sooner had they joined the Sultan than news arrived that Berar had been overrun from north to south by the Gonds of Kherla, and they were despatched northwards to repel the invaders, but were unequal to the task. Ihe Gonds remained in possession of Berar until Firuz Shah had driven the Hindus from the Duab, and was left at liberty to march to the support of his northern army. In the following year Firuz Shah not only succeeded in driving the Gonds beyond his northern frontier, but sent in pursuit of them an army which defeated Narsingh, the Gond Raja, at the gates of his capital of Kherla.

During the reign of Ahmad Shah Wali, the brother and successor of Firuz Shah, Daulatabad became the base of military operations against the turbulent Rajas of the Konkan, whose depredations called for punishment, and in 1429 the Sultan appointed Khalaf Hasan Basri, the ablest of his servants, to the command of the province. Khalaf Hasan, in the course of an arduous campaign, reduced the refractory chiefs to obedience and enriched his master's treasury with the spoils which he captured from them. Unfortunately^ the lust of conquest led him to attack the island of Bombay, within the territories of Ahmad Shah of Gujarat. His conquest of the island involved the Bahmani kingdom in an unprofitable war with Gujarat, peace being ultimately concluded on the condition that each of the belligerents should retain the possessions which it had held before the capture of Bombay. Meanwhile, Hushang Shah of Malwa had taken advantage of the quarrel between his powerful neighbours, and had seized Kherla, then a recognised fief of the Bahmani kingdom, and put to death the Raja Narsingh. Ahmed Shah Wali was too exhausted by the campaign in the Konkan and the war against Gujarat to punish this act of aggression, and was compelled to leave Kherla in the hands of Hushang on the condition that he refrained from molesting Berar.

In the reigns of the tenth and twelfth kings of the Bahmani dynasty, Daulatabad was again disturbed by war's alarms. Ala-ud-din Ahmad II, the son of Ahmad I, had married Agha Zainab, entitled Malika-i-Jahan, the daughter of Nasir Khan Faruqi, Sultan of Khandesh,