Malik Ambar (1548–1626) was a military leader and statesman who served as the Peshwa (Prime Minister) of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate and its de facto ruler from 1600 until his death in 1626.

"[13] Between the 14th and 17th centuries, the Orthodox Christian Ethiopian Empire (led by the Solomonic dynasty) and adjacent Muslim states gathered many of their slaves from non-Abrahamic communities inhabiting regions like Kambata, Damot and Hadya, which were located to the south of their territory.

Qasim converted Chapu to Islam from his traditional religion, educated him, and gave him the name Ambar, after recognizing his superior intellectual qualities.

He was described by the Dutch merchant, Pieter van den Broecke as "a black kafir from Abyssinia with a stern Roman face.

"[16][17] Ambar was then purchased by Changiz Khan, a former Habshi slave himself who served as the peshwa or chief minister of the Sultanate of Ahmadnagar.

Slaves were generally recruited where hereditary authority was weak, such as in the case of the Deccan, where a deadly and violent struggle between the two dominant and antagonistic factions within the Bahmani Sultanate, the Deccanis (Indian Muslims) and the Westerners (Persian migrants from the Gulf), caused a chronically unstable environment which created a market for culturally alien military labor.

This explained why high ranking army commanders were willing to entrust their most important official duties to their Habshi slaves.

[21][22] Malik Ambar changed the capital of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate from Paranda to Junnar and founded a new city, Khadki, which was later on renamed to Aurangabad by Aurangzeb in the 1650s.

One of his daughters was married to a prince of the Ahmednagar royal family, who through Malik Ambar's aid was crowned as Sultan Murtaza Nizam Shah II.

[31] Malik Ambar's tomb lies in Khuldabad, near the shrine of the famous Sufi saint Zar Zari Baksh.

He cites Ambar's military prowess as the reason he rose to such influence during his life, but claims that a string of decisive defeats at the end of his career instigated distrust and resentment amongst those in his close administration.

Eaton and his proponents claim Ambar's journey is an impressive story of success, and gave Africans representation in India for a short while, but also believe his lack of positive leadership in the final years of his tenure prevented him from solidifying his influence, as his successors quickly worked to reverse many of Ambar's policies.

[34] Regardless of his posthumous impact on the Deccan, and Indian states generally, it cannot be disputed Ambar was an avid supporter of education and a patron of the arts.

Historians Joseph E. Harris and Chand cite Ambar's patronship of the arts and learning as a shining achievement of his tenure as Malik of Deccan.

Malik Ambar completed the Neher within fifteen months, spending a nominal sum of two and a half lakh Rupiyahs.

The blades of the Panchakki used to rotate by the water falling on them from that stream and with the aid of a wooden valve turn the flow into that canal for the city.

[39] The canal was an impressive engineering feat as it consisted of a 7 feet (2.1 m) deep tunnel large enough for a man to walk through.

[41] After its construction in 1567, the fort was key to the Sidis withstanding various invasion attempts by the Marathas, Mughals, and Portuguese to capture Janjira.