Everyone loves a good underdog story, whether it be the tale of a small country’s struggle
against a great empire, or the tale of a boy, shackled into slavery and left to fend for
himself in a strange land. Welcome to our video on the life of Malik Ambar, the remarkable
story of a child of African herdsmen, who defied the odds and rose to Kingship, fighting
a defiant war against the expansion of the mighty Mughal Emperors in the heart of central
India.
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The man who would become Malik Ambar was born in 1548 in central Ethiopia, with the birth
name of Chapu. His people, the Oromo, were relative newcomers in the region, taking advantage
of the instability caused by an ongoing war to migrate into the country. Chapu’s childhood
was a traditional Oromo peaceful, pastoralist life.
16th century Ethiopia was a land defined by slavery. While it impacted all communities,
Solomonic Christians and Adal Muslims in particular targeted the largely spiritualist Oromos.
By 1555, over 12,000 slaves per year were captured and sold in Ethiopia, stripped of
their freedom and shipped out to serve elites from Cairo to the heart of Persia. Sure enough,
at only 12 years old, Chapu was captured by Arabic traders, becoming a statistic in an
epidemic slave trade that spanned across the Indian Ocean.
The young boy was put on auction in a slave market in a port on the coast of Yemen. Young,
scared, and alone, the boy likely wondered if he would ever see his home or family again,
while auctioneers peddled him as if he was no different to the coffee beans, musk, ivory
and silk on sale in the Bazaar. Chapu was quickly sold, eventually ending
up in the hands of a merchant named Mir Qasim, who took him to the restored cultural center
of Baghdad. Qasim gave his slave a new Arabic name: Ambar. He also taught him how to read,
write, and manage the finances of his master’s business.
After a decade in the heart of the Islamic world, Ambar was taken on a journey with Mir
Qasim, who sought greater business ventures in more exotic lands. In 1571, the master
and slave reached the west coast of India, a region known as the Deccan. As a young man
in his early twenties, Ambar had finally arrived in the place where he would make his mark
on history. Much like Ethiopia, the Deccan was a land
defined by war, intrigue, and a delicate balance between its various peoples and religions.
Politically, the plateau was divided into five Sultanates, which typically were comprised
of a ruling class of Muslim elites presiding over a mainly Hindu Marathi majority. Indo-Turks,
Persians, and a smattering of European merchants also added to the land’s social fabric.
The rulers of this land walked along a dangerous edge. Violent coups were the norm, as Sultans
often found themselves slain at the hands of their own soldiers, or via the work of
rival Sultanates. To compound matters, a new player had recently emerged in the game: the
Mughal Empire. Founded by one Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur, the Turkic Dynasty had swept
into the subcontinent, destroying the declining Dehli Sultanate in 1526. The Mughals established
themselves as an Imperial juggernaut in Northern India, and licked their chops at the prospect
of expanding into the small and divided Sultanates to the south.
Upon arrival in India, Ambar was once more sold. In the Deccan, Africans were known as
Habshis, and were commonplace as slave soldiers or free mercenaries. Ambar’s new master
was the chief minister to the Sultan of Ahmednagar, a man known as Chengiz Khan, a name invoking
the conqueror of old. Chengiz had much in common with Ambar; he too was of African origin,
and had once been enslaved. Since then, he had earned his freedom, and now commanded
an army in the name of his lord, Murtaza of the Nizam Shahi dynasty. In meeting Chengiz,
Ambar quickly learned that upwards mobility was possible for anyone in the Deccan, even
a slave. Ambar began this new chapter of servitude
as a soldier-in-training under his Habshi master. He was resolved to earn himself a
higher position in life through determination and grit. He soon distinguished himself from
the pack, catching Chengiz’s eye with his impressive brawn, quick wit and thorough education.
Chengiz soon decided to make him his personal aide, grooming him for leadership.
Three years later, Ambar’s sense of security was shattered once more. Courtiers jealous
of Chengiz Khan’s power had framed the minister for working against Ahmednagar, inducing the
Sultan to have him executed. It was a harsh wake-up call to the reality of Deccanese politics.
However, there was a silver lining. Following Chengiz’s death, Ambar was legally a free
man. After nearly two decades, the Oromo was in
control of his own destiny. He travelled south, to the neighbouring Sultanate of Bijapur,
and enlisted in the local army. It was during this time that he met Karima, a fellow Habshi.
Eventually, Ambar would marry Karima and have four children with her.
As the Bijapuri ruler passed away, leaving an underaged son as his heir, responsibility
for the guardianship of the realm fell to the queen mother, a woman known as Chand Bibi.
This regent proved to be incredibly competent. Well-aware of the cut-throat nature of Deccanese
politics, she introduced the concept of fidelity to the salt, which espoused loyalty to the
land itself, rather than any one Dynasty. The Sultana, as she was called, had many admirers.
Chief among them was Ambar, who saw her as a role model.
In time, Ambar had risen up in the Bijapuri ranks and built up a small but dedicated following
of mounted warriors, with whom he had likely distinguished himself in various small-scale
border skirmishes. His loyalty to Regent Sultana and his effectiveness in battle led to Chand
Bibi’s young son bestowing upon him the symbolic title of Malik, an Arabic word for
“chieftain”, or “King”. The year was now 1595, and the Mughal Empire
had finally turned their attention back onto the Deccan after suppressing rebellions in
the east. For Emperor Akbar, it was a good time to invade. Ahmednagar was racked by internal
strife; the most recent Nizam Shah had died in a border war with neighbouring Bijapur.
In the ensuing power vacuum, none other than Chand Bibi laid claim to the throne through
her nephew’s Nizam Shahi blood. This caused the reigning Ahmednagari chief minister to
make the fatal mistake of inviting the Mughals into his realm to protect his power.
Sure enough, a mighty imperial host led by Prince Murad Mirza, son of Akbar, descended
down on Ahmednagar. Realizing he’d made a deal with the devil, the minister fled the
country, and the Warrior-Sultana seized the mantle of resistance. At Fort Ahmednagar,
Chand Bibi met the Mughal army with her own. Donned in full armour and an Islamic veil,
she flung herself into battle alongside her men.
Ambar had not been idle either. He had long since left Bijapur with his contingent of
cavalrymen, and joined forces with his Sultana. He and his fighters harassed the Mughal army
during the battle, destroying provisions and disrupting supply lines.
Exhausted and demoralized after a fruitless siege, the Imperial forces soon withdrew.
For a scant few years, there was peace in Ahmednagar with Chand Bibi as Regent, but
in a climate thick with paranoia, it was not to last. In 1599, Bibi met her end in typical
Deccani fashion, slain by her own soldiers, who were fueled by a false accusation that
she was selling Ahmednagar out to the Mughals. Without the leadership of this iron-willed
woman, the Imperials fell upon Ahmednagar once more the next year, easily taking it,
and capturing Bibi’s young puppet nephew, thereby decapitating the country’s government.
It was now time for Malik Ambar to take to the main stage. In honour of his Sultana,
he pledged his fidelity to the salt. The Deccan was his home, and he would not let it fall.
With Ahmednagar’s rightful heir in captivity and its army in disarray, Ambar took up the
herculean task of piecing together the tattered scraps of a nation while fending off Mughal
expansionism. Fortunately, he had never stopped preparing for war. By 1596, his relentless
raids on Mughal territory had brought 3000 soldiers to his side. By 1600, this number
had swelled to 7000. Persians, Turks, Habshis and Marathi Hindus all joined the Abyssinian
commander for plunder and freedom. The Mughals’ conquest of Fort Ahmednagar
granted them a tenuous hold on the Sultanate’s capital city. Nevertheless, they found further
ingress into Ahmednagari lands consistently foiled. Realizing he could never take the
Empire head on, Ambar employed the tactic he called Bargi Giri. The Native Marathis
in Ambar’s army were legendary for their deadliness as light cavalry. Once his scouts
had informed him of a Mughal position, he deployed the mounted Hindu warriors to strike
like lightning, destroying food and water supplies, and harassing Mughal soldiers. The
Imperial forces, over encumbered with their heavy cannons and lumbering war elephants,
simply could not keep up, and without provisions were forced to retreat. Ambar had turned the
Mughal army’s greatest strength, its size, into its greatest weakness.
Even while fighting a guerilla war, Ambar still had a government to rebuild. Deccani
nobles could never accept an African as their king, but Malik did not need a crown to rule.
From neighbouring Bijapur, he fished out a young heir of the Nizam Shahi family, and
installed him as Sultan Murtaza Nizam Shah II. Ambar offered the new Sultan his daughter
in marriage, tying himself closer to the royal line. As expected, the Oromo was appointed
as Ahmednagar’s Regent Minister by the puppet King he had installed, making him the de facto
ruler of the revived Sultanate. From 1600 to 1610, Ambar walked on a tightrope,
balancing war with the Mughals with the inherent perfidiousness of Deccani politics. In 1603,
he put down a rebellion launched by three of his officers, all while feigning a treaty
with the Mughals so they would not take advantage of the situation. 1605 saw the death of Emperor
Akbar, who was replaced by his son Jahangir. The new Mughal sovereign launched campaigns
into the Deccan with renewed vigour, but the effectiveness of Ambar’s bargi giri kept
him at bay. Jahangir would struggle fruitlessly against the Abyssinian for decades, eventually
growing so infuriated that he ordered an Imperial portrait of himself shooting a decapitated
Ambar in the head. This painting remained forever a fantasy, for the Emperor would never
capture his cunning foe. In 1610, Ambar was subject to more court intrigue.
Up until then, the puppet on Ahmednagar’s throne had been a compliant stooge. Ambar’s
daughter was but one of Sultan Murtaza’s many wives, and one of them, a Persian woman,
had since turned him against the Regent minister with hushed words of sedition. Once he caught
wind of this, Ambar had both the Wife and the Sultan swiftly assassinated, installing
the five year old Burhan Nizam Shah III to the throne. No one would threaten the Malik’s
control, especially not the Sultans whose power came only by his accomplishments.
Later that year, Malik’s forces stormed and occupied Fort Ahmednagar, seizing it from
the Mughal garrison. Galvanized by the string of victories that followed, Ambar moved Ahmednagar’s
capital closer to the Mughal border. In 1612, a treaty was secured with the Empire, and
the Abyssinian Potentate was afforded time to build up his new city and secure stability
in his realm. Over the next decade, commerce flowed into
the new capital, which today is known as the city of Aurangabad. Ambar worked tirelessly
to improve the infrastructure of his realm, overseeing the construction of an aqueduct
system that fed clean water to his capital and its surrounding suburbs, while actively
maintaining and repairing the over forty forts in his territory, ensuring he had touchpoints
to spot the next Mughal invasion. Under his patronage, both Hindu and Muslim artists flourished,
and palaces and mosques were erected to increase the prestige of Ahmednagar.
Over the next few years, the truce with the Mughals was predictably broken, and fighting
continued once more. In 1616, Ambar suffered his first major defeat against the Imperial
host, who used a system of trenches to entrap the Ahmednagari cavalry, and devastate them
with artillery. This loss gave the Mughals a stable foothold in Ahmednagar once more,
and from there, the situation continued to snowball.
The Bijapur Sultan smelled blood in the water. Previously he had been an ally to Ambar in
the war against Imperial aggression, but by 1618 it became clear the Adil Shah intended
to collaborate with the Mughals. Seeing their conquest of the Deccan as an inevitability,
he conspired to destroy Ahmednagar for the preservation of his own realm. The noose was
tightening around Malik’s neck, and he knew he had to act swiftly, lest he be wiped from
the pages of history. A spree of Bargi Giri raiding in Bijapuri
territory forced an allied Mughal-Bijapuri army to meet Ambar on his own terms. On September
10th, 1624, Ambar chose to make his stand in a fort within the village of Bhatvadi.
The village stood on a hilly bluff overlooking the western shore of Lake Kalindi. It was
the rainy season, so as the enemy’s massive army approached, Ambar ordered the lake’s
dam struck, and the lowlands flooded, turning the ground at the Mughal’s feet into a thick,
muddy bog. As he had done his whole career, Ambar turned
his enemy’s superior numbers and heavier units against themselves. Artillery, War Elephants
and Infantry were wholly immobile in the wet hellscape that Malik had created for them.
Night after night, his Marathi cavalry sallied down the hillside while shrouded in darkness,
destroying provisions and picking off the enemy. For Mughal soldiers, the effect was
thoroughly demoralizing. Gripped by terror and starvation, large chunks of the army defected
to Ambar, who welcomed them warmly. With his army swelling, and the Mughals’ shrinking,
Ambar adjusted his doctrine, and began attacking with wholesale cavalry assaults by day, devastating
a foe that remained stuck in the mire, and psychologically broken. Thoroughly beaten,
and incredibly humiliated, the Mughals were forced to retreat after sustaining heavy losses.
Not only had Ambar once more humbled the mighty Empire, he had foiled the attempts of his
fellow Deccani Sultanate to collaborate in his destruction, and ensured the independence
of his realm. The Battle of Bhatvadi would be his greatest, and last achievement. Two
years later, Malik Ambar passed away at the ripe old age of 80. Unfortunately, Ahmednagars’
rebel spirit died with him. Ambar’s son succeeded him as Regent-minister, but lacked
his father’s military mind. In 1636, the forces of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan finally
annexed Ahmednagar, ending over thirty years of war.
Nevertheless, the legacy of Malik Ambar is still one to be admired. A military leader
of exceptional skill, he consistently outwitted an Empire he was thoroughly outnumbered and
outgunned by for decades. No Mughal overlord, no matter how many dark fantasy paintings
he commissioned, would ever get the best of Ambar.
His physical footprint still remains in the Deccan today; the modern city of Aurangabad
is in and of itself a testament to this, where the aqueducts that he built during his reign
still stand, as does the austere tomb that he was buried in. By and large, they are a
reminder of a time when an African ruled the heart of India.
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