been reserved solely for them, based on their ethnic origin and their sense of pride of having launched the Bahmanid dynasty. Eaton also cites a linguistic divide where the Dakhanis spoke the Dakhni dialect of the Urdu language while the Afaqis favored the Persian language. In 1481, the Dakhanis poisoned the ears of the Sultan, leading to the execution of Mahmud Gawan. What followed was a wholescale massacre of the Iranian Georgian and Turkmen population in the urban centres by Nizam-ul-Mulk Bahri, who lead the Deccani faction. Factional strife between the Afaqis and Dakhanis resulted in pitched battles with the Afaqis usually being victims of violence due to the Deccanis' greater ties to local military networks. This frequently resulted in indiscriminate violence towards people of Iranian origin including learned men, pilgrims, petty merchants, nobles and servants, such the massacres of foreigners of Chakan in 1450, Bidar in 1481, and Ahmadnagar in 1591 by the Deccan Muslims. According to Eaton, the Dakhanis and Afaqis represented more than just two competing factions jostling for influence in the court; they stood for differing conceptions of state and society. If the Dakhanis manifested a colonial idea, namely, a society composed of transplanted settler-founders and their descendants, the Afaqis or Cosmopolitans represented a cultural idea, a refined style of comportment, an eminent tradition of statescraft, a prestigious language. Since each class was legitimate in its own way, neither could be fully disloged from the Bahmanid political system or the Deccan Sultanates. However, the activity of the Afaqis, unlike the Dakhani Muslim nobles, were solely dependent on the patronization of their host Dakhani Sultans, so that whenever there was a change or instability in the court, the Afaqis would leave altogether. Sebouh Aslanian described this mobile community as a "circulation society". According to Roy Fischel, more than any other group, the Dakhani Muslims were the social group that were most associated with the Deccan Sultanates, and the most dominant political group when it comes to determining the direction of the Sultanates. According to Richard Eaton, even the Hindu Vijayanagara empire from the same period was highly Persianised in its culture. The royal quarters of the capital had many Persian architectural elements such as domes and vaulted arches. The Bahmani Sultanate disintegrated into five Deccan Sultanates, similar in culture. Hyderabad, built by the Golconda Sultanate in the 16th century, was inspired by Isfahan. The use of Persian