Hussain Nizam Shah I
Hussain Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar built the coalition that destroyed Vijayanagara at Talikota in January 1565 and, by the account of the Deccan's own historian, had its ruler beheaded in front of him on the field. He succeeded his father Burhan in 1553 as sultan of the middle one of the five states that had divided the Bahmani kingdom, with Bijapur to his south and Berar and Golconda to his east, and spent his first years losing. Rama Raya of Vijayanagara had learned to play the sultanates against each other: in 1559 he marched with Bijapur against Ahmadnagar, besieged the capital, and let his troops sack mosques and the countryside in a way the Muslim chroniclers did not forget, and Hussain was forced to terms. The lesson he took from it was that the five could not fight Vijayanagara separately. He gave his daughter Chand Bibi to Ali Adil Shah of Bijapur in 1564 and took Ali's sister for his son, which turned his oldest enemy into an ally, and brought in Golconda and Bidar behind them; Berar stayed out. The combined armies met Rama Raya's at the Krishna in January 1565, and the battle turned on the sultanates' artillery, which was chained together and fired grapeshot into the Vijayanagara centre, and on the defection of two Muslim commanders in Rama Raya's own service. Rama Raya, in his seventies and carried in a litter, was captured and brought to Hussain, who ordered him killed on the spot; Ferishta says the sultan did it with his own hand, and the head was shown on a spear to end the fighting. The city of Vijayanagara was sacked for months afterwards and never recovered. Hussain did not enjoy the victory long: he died in June of the same year, and his son Murtaza succeeded under Chand Bibi's family's shadow. His daughter, defending Ahmadnagar against the Mughals in 1595, would become the more famous of the two.
- Nationality: Indian
- Roles: sultan, head_of_state, military
