The occurrence of two political events is very significant in the
development of urdu literature in India. The
first is in 13th century when Ala-Uddeen Khilji's army invaded the southern
region. In the train of armies, came suffices, Fakirs, merchants and artisans.
Along with them came urdu language into Deccan
which was much classic and lymphatic.
The second occurrence was that of Mohammad Bin Tuglak’s choice of
Devagiri (named Daulathabad) as a capital of the south. Mohammad Bin Tuglak
ordered that the population of Delhi,
in which all sorts of people were included, to be transferred to Daulatabad,
the new capital. His order had to be obeyed by the people of Delhi rich and poor, traders and fakirs
professional and artisans etc. This event helped in propagation of urdu that was still in a formative
stage.the migrant language took no time to adjust itself to the new
surroundings.
In the fifties of the 14th century when tuglaks became week, so
they seceded from its center gradually. In 1350 a new sultanate named as Bahmani
Sultanate was established independent of the north. The Sultan who laid the
foundation of this southern principality naturally alienated himself from
north and associating himself with the south and they were proud to be called
Deccanis though they were Turks by origin.as a matter of principle the rulers
of Bahmani kingdom encouraged local languages, customs and practices which were
quite different from the north and encouraged native festivals.
Linguist experts are uniformly of opinion that urdu started from north India,
sometimes from 1000 CE. The earliest traces of it are to be found in the
sayings of Sufis and fakirs, religious men and their short pronouncements, phrases and sayings. But in north India
there was no regular tradition of writing in urdu, but when urdu
reached Deccan in the fluid state, in broken
sentences sayings and proverbs there started the tradition of writing and
pulishing collective works regularly. The earliest of urdu belongs to the bahmani period Nizami Bedari's Mathnavi' Kadam
Rao Padam Rao' has the distinction of the days of the 9th Bahmani Sultan,
Sultan Ahmad Shah wali Bahmani(1421-1434). Though we come across references to urdu writing from some Sufis and other
writers among whom Sheik Ainuddin Ganjul Ulum and Hazrath Khwaja Band-e-Nawaz
are very significant, but as doubts have arisen about the authenticity of the
work alluded to them, the Mathnavi mentioned above holds its primary
place.
During the Bamani period urdu
has spread to all directions and became the single common language of Deccan and in the favorable atmosphere of this period it
opened the way for further literary works. But Bahmani sultanate ended by the
end of 15th century and there arose 5 states out of its ashes
(1) The Adilshahis of Bijapur,
(2) The Khutb Shahis of Golkunda
(3) The nizam Shahis of Ahmadnagar
(4) The Barid Shahis of Bidar
(5) The imad shahis of berar
Of these the Bijapuri and the Qutab Shahis contributed much to the
development of the urdu language.
They were like counterparts of Delhi school (Dabisthan)
and Lucknow School (dabisthan). For the next two centuries,
urdu developed well and its progress
was remarkable one during their regime. Such progress is not seen in any regime
later. There was a great spurt of Mathnavis during this period. They covered
different subjects and they spread out in several Libraries of India, Pakistan, Europe and America in manuscript forms of
which some are still preserved in good condition.
