Gulbarga was selected by ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Bahman Shāh (r. 748-59/1347-58), the founder of the Bahmanī dynasty (r. 748-934/1347-1527 in the northern Deccan), as the second capital of his kingdom, after the short-lived initial choice of Dawlatābād. Gulbarga is in present-day northern Karnataka and straddles the boundary between the Indo-Aryan Marathi (Marāt'hī) and Dravidian Kannada languages. Its fertile black soils of basaltic origin, rich in crops such as sugarcane, sunflower, gram (whole pulses), and bajra (a type of millet), and