Siddi Masood was an unusual character in Indian history. A wealthy merchant, originally from Abysinia (modern Ethiopia), he was one of the few Indians of African descent (habshi) who made it to the very highest class of Indian society. Originally the leader of the Deccan faction in the court of Sultan Adilshahi of Bijapur, one of the numerous independent Kingdoms in central India. He was promoted to Vizier (wazir in the local language) as a result of his prowess on the battlefield and his economic importance to the Sultanate. Eventually, he was made the governor of Adoni, a strategically important city that sits about as close as one can get to the central point of the Indian subcontinent. But Siddi Masood lived at a time, the late Seventeenth Century AD, of great flux in southern India. The Mughals, a Muslim dynasty who claimed descent from the great Persian Warrior-Shah, Timur (also known as Tamerlane), had invaded the north of the country, and established their Empire around AD 1526. By the death of the Emperor Akbar, known as ‘the Great’, in AD 1605, the Empire had grown to encompass all of northern India. Only Bijapur, and its rivals in Ahmadnagar, Golconda, and the small Palaiyakkarar Kingdoms, remained. Siddi Masood saw the need to make a last stand, even as the Bijapur Sultanate was fragmenting. Rather than warring with the breakaway principalities, Masood brokered a series of alliances, notably with Shivaji and Qutub Shah, in the hope that they might stand together against Mughal aggression. But the omens were dark.

Mir Shihab-ud-Din Siddiqi, better known as the Ghaziuddin Khan, was a Mughal general, whose family had come from Central Asia, like the Mughals themselves. Siddiqi was charged with the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, with pacifying the Deccan, the large plateau which spans central India. He did this through a hard-fought campaign which hopped from fort to fort and city to city, with the aim of breaking the local resistance bit by bit. First he targeted the city of Bijapur itself. The siege of the city took some fifteen months, by far the longest battle in Mughal history. It was only when Aurangzeb, frustrated at the lack of progress, arrived with reinforcements, that the inhabitants surrendered. Next Siddiqi targeted Qutub Shah, laying siege to his fortress at Golconda, outside Hyderabad. With the defeat of his allies, Siddi Masood worked to improve the defences of Adoni, the city where he was now Governor. He decimated the forests around to give his troops a better view of the surrounding landscape, built up the walls, and expanded his arsenal. Masood died before the final showdown came along; in his absence, there was no single charismatic leader to hold together his loosely-held alliance. The Mughal armies approached, under the command of Mir Sihab-ad-Din Siddiqi, and another noted general, Anup Singh, the Maharaja of Bikaner. Singh’s ancestors had submitted to the Mughals in the preceding centuries, and parlayed a position of power, even marrying off one of their daughters to Akbar the Great. Their victory ended the resistance to Mughal rule in central India for a generation.

This remarkable chainmail coat can be linked to the battle at Adoni by a small inscription in Devanagari on the inside of one of the metal plates. This records the name of Anup Singh, and the Samvat year 1746, which translates into the Gregorian calendar as AD 1689. This enables us to trace this particular mail shirt as one of those which were looted by Anup Singh following the siege, and which were brought to the Royal Treasury of Bikaner. In the annals of Indian military history, mail shirts were a recent addition, and were highly prized by their wearers for their flexibility and breathability in the heat, as well as the protection afforded against most slashing weapons, hence the fact that these important bits of military kit were looted in the first place. Mail armour had been introduced to the East by the Romans, and was enthusiastically adopted by the Sassanians from the Third Century AD. As Persian armies expanded eastwards, mail was also transmitted, especially among heavily armed horsemen (cataphracts), who fulfilled a role as shock troops similar to that of Mediaeval European knights. In the Islamic world, chainmail was considered a gift from Allah himself, who revealed it to King David, as recorded in Qur’an 21:80: ‘It was We [Allah] who taught him the making of coats of mail for your benefit, to guard you from each other’s violence; will ye then be grateful?’ As the Abbasids expanded, they cemented the use of mail among Islamic troops; this reached an apogee under Timur, the ultimate ancestor of the Mughal Dynasty, soon becoming the armour of choice among Indians.

This mail is made in the Indian style, which consisted of alternating rows of slightly bent circular links, with plate reinforcement at the most sensitive parts, above the chest, flanks, and back. The plates on the reverse are segmented to provide maximum manoeuvrability. The great disadvantage of chainmail is its vulnerability to stabbing and penetrative weapons. While the slash of a sword or axe might be readily blocked by the links, the ability of arrows and spearpoints to separate the links out and to puncture the flesh underneath. The plate elements – kept small so as not to hinder mobility – provided added protection to the soft fleshy parts, and to those parts less easily defended with a shield. The design of the plates is derived from ancient Indian ‘mirror armour’ (char-aina), which was an adaptation of plate armour originating in China which was more suited to the oppressively hot and humid Indian climate. The reddish oxidation of the mail and plate implies a relatively high iron content in the steel, as was common in many parts of India. Indian metalworking was internationally renowned. The famous Iron Pillar of Delhi, an archaeological marvel which has resisted rust since around AD 300, is often cited as an example of the skill of Indian metallurgists, but more relevant to most ancient rulers was the fame of Indian swords, which were exported across Islamic World, and even into Europe.