Indo-Persian culture

[3] The Delhi Sultanate developed their own cultural and political identity which built upon Persian and Indic languages, literature and arts, which formed the basis of an Indo-Muslim civilization.

The Mughals were also culturally Persianised Central Asians (of Turko-Mongol origin on their paternal side), but spoke Chagatai Turkic as their first language at the beginning, before eventually adopting Persian.

[6] With the presence of Islamic culture in the region in the Ghaznavid period, Lahore and Uch were established as centres of Persian literature.

Thereafter, with the decline of the Mughal empire, the 1739 invasion of Delhi by Nader Shah and the gradual growth initially of the Hindu Marathas[7] and later the European power within the Indian subcontinent, Persian or Persian culture commenced a period of decline although it nevertheless enjoyed patronage and may even have flourished within the many regional empires or kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent including that of the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1799–1837).

[9][10] In the middle of the 14th century, the Urdu-speaking immigrant population of Daulatabad staged a revolt breaking off from the Delhi Sultanate, but Indo-Persian culture lived on in the region.

[12] The Bahmani Sultans actively recruited Persian or Persianised men in their administration, and such foreigners were in fact favoured over Indians who were known as the Dakhani.

Sultan Firuz Shah (1397–1422) sent ships from his ports in Goa and Chaul to the Persian Gulf to bring back talented men of letters, administrators, jurists, soldiers and artisans.

[14] This led to factional strife between the Dakhanis, the ruling indigenous Muslim elite of the Bahmanid dynasty, being descendants of Sunni immigrants from Northern India,[15] and the foreign newcomers like Mahmud Gawan who were called the Afaqis(Cosmopolitans or Travellers).

[16][17] According to Richard Eaton, Dakhanis believed that the privileges, patronage and positions of power in the Sultanate should have been reserved solely for them, based on their ethnic origin and their sense of pride of having launched the Bahmanid dynasty.

[22] What followed was a wholescale massacre of the Iranian Georgian and Turkmen population in the urban centres by Nizam-ul-Mulk Bahri, who lead the Deccani faction.

[25] This frequently resulted in indiscriminate violence towards people of Iranian origin including learned men, pilgrims, petty merchants, nobles and servants, such the massacres of foreigners of Chakan in 1450, Bidar in 1481, and Ahmadnagar in 1591 by the Deccan Muslims.

[26][27][28] According to Eaton, the Dakhanis and Afaqis represented more than just two competing factions jostling for influence in the court; they stood for differing conceptions of state and society.

[37] The Persian influence continues to this day with many Persian derived words used in everyday speech such as bāg (Garden), kārkhānā (factory), shahar (city), bāzār (market), dukān (shop), hushār (clever), kāgad (paper), khurchi (chair), zamīn (land), zāhirāt (advertisement), and hazār (thousand).

[41] Given that the Mughals had historically symbolised Indo-Persian culture to one degree or another, the dethroning of Bahadur Shah Zafar and the institution of the direct control of the British Crown in 1858 may be considered as marking the end of the Indo-Persian era, even if, after the Indian Rebellion, Persian would still retain an audience and even produce commendable literature such as the philosophical poetry of Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938).

[43][44][45] The Indo-Persian synthesis led to the development of cuisine that combined indigenous foods and ingredients with the tastes and methods of the Turko-Persians.

[46] Due to this synthesis, the Indian subcontinent shares Central and West Asian food, such as naan and kebab, and is home to unique dishes such as biryani.

The Indian subcontinent's Islamic period produced architecture that drew stylistically from Persianate culture, using features such as domes, iwans, minars, and baghs.

Early Islamic rulers tended to use spolia from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain buildings, resulting in an Indianised style which would be refined by later kingdoms.