Deccanis

The Deccanis or Deccani people are an ethnoreligious community of Deccani-speaking Muslims who inhabit or are from the Deccan region of Central and Southern India, and speak the Deccani dialect of Urdu. The community traces its origins to the shifting of the Delhi Sultanate's capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in 1327 during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Further ancestry can also be traced from immigrant Muslims referred to as Afaqis, also known as Pardesis who came from Central Asia, Iraq and Iran and had settled in the Deccan region during the Bahmani Sultanate (1347). The migration of Muslim Hindavi-speaking people to the Deccan and intermarriage with the local Hindus whom converted to Islam, led to the creation of a new community of Urdu-speaking Muslims, known as the Deccani, who would come to play an important role in the politics of the Deccan. Their language, Deccani Urdu, emerged as a language of linguistic prestige and culture during the Bahmani Sultanate, further evolving in the Deccan Sultanates.

Following the demise of the Bahmanis, the Deccan Sultanate period marked a golden age for Deccani culture, notably in the arts, language, and architecture. The Deccani people form significant minority in the Deccan states of Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka, and form a majority in the old cities of Hyderabad and Aurangabad. After the Partition of India and the annexation of Hyderabad, large diaspora communities formed outside the Deccan, especially in Pakistan, where they make up a significant portion of the Urdu speaking minority, the Muhajirs.

The Deccani People are further divided into various groups, most notably the Hyderabadis (from Hyderabad Deccan), Mysoris (from Mysore state), and Madrasis (from Madras state) (including Kurnool, Nellore, Guntur, Chennai Muslims). Deccani Urdu is the mother-tongue of most Muslims in the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and it is spoken by a section of Muslims from Tamil Nadu.