Deccan

alternative Decan · alternative Dekkan · alternative Dekhan

1. A geographic region, large plateau, and peninsula in southern India; southern or peninsular India.

   Dekkan, or the ſouthern diviſion of “Hindooſtan, called by European geographers, The Peninſula, has varied in boundary, at different periods, with the poſſeſſions of its rulers in adjacent provinces.

   1794, Jonathan Scott, “Introduction”, in Ferishta's History of Dekkan, from the First Mahummedan Conquests […] , volume I, page ix

   3 more examples

   So counſel'd hee, and both together went / Into the thickeſt Wood, there ſoon they choſe / The Figtree, not that kind for Fruit renown'd, / But ſuch as at this day to Indians known / In Malabar or Decan ſpreds her Armes / Braunching ſo broad and long, that in the ground / The bended Twigs take root, and Daughters grow / About the Mother Tree, […]

   1667, John Milton, “Book XIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC, signatures Ii2, verso – [Ii3], recto; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 1099–1106

   The spies affirmed, that busy fame, / Declared aloud the gallant name, / Of Hussein Khan, the Sooltan’s son, / Whose brand in battle oft had shone, / And spread his youthful glory wide, / Till stood he forth the Dekhan's pride,— / Now called the Moslem force to lead, / And fire their souls to vengeance dread.

   1822, “Canto V”, in Heera. The Maid of the Dekhan. A poem. In Five Cantos., pages 109–10

   In India, it is generally considered that the earliest Muslims to settle in the Deccan were the Arabs of the Navayat clan, who had made the Konkan their permanent home about the year a.d. 701 when they fled from the Kufah (in the Euphrates valley) to escape the cruelties of the governor, Hajjaj bin Yusuf. Even prior to the Muslim conquest of the Deccan, the Rashtrakutas had Arabs and Abyssinians in their armies.

   1996, Shanti Sadiq Ali, The African Dispersal in the Deccan: From Medieval to Modern Times, pages 27–28