"The present work originally took the form of a doctoral thesis entitled 'Relations of Golkonda with Iran, 1518-1687' submitted by Mohammed Ziauddin Ahmed Shakeb to the Department of History at Deccan College, Poona, in 1976"--Editor's introduction.

This book traces the diplomatic connections and intellectual linkages of the Golkonda sultanate with Safavid Iran and Mughal Hindustan. Complementing studies of early modern empires, it examines a breadth of Persian manuscripts, epistolary correspondence, archival documents, and European travel accounts from the Deccan. It is one of the first of its kind to explore the movement of knowledge, talent, and people in the early modern world from the perspective of a non-imperial, regional polity. Regional sultanates were not merely receivers of statecraft, religion, and politics from large empires, but also a critical site where diplomatic negotiations and new forms of intellectual exchange transpired and bore upon broader shifts in the eastern Islamic world.