Mahmud Begada
Sultan of Gujarat
Abu'l Fath Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah I (Gujarati: અબુલ ફત નાસીર ઉદ દિન મહમુદ શાહ), more famously known as Mahmud Begada, was the Sultan of the Gujarat Sultanate from 1459 until his death in 1511. He is considered the greatest and most renowned Sultan of Gujarat. Raised to the throne at the young age of fourteen, he successfully conquered Pavagadh, Junagadh and Dwarka. He is known by his surname Begada. He established Champaner as the capital.
Names
His full name was Abu'l Fath Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah I. He was born Fat'h Khan or Fateh Khan. He titled himself, Sultan al-Barr, Sultan al-Bahr, Sultan of the Land, Sultan of the Sea.
Of the origin of Mahmud's surname Begra or Begarh/Begarha are belived to be either:
From his mustachios being large and twisted like a bullock's horn, such a bullock being called Begado.
That the word comes from the Gujarati be, two, and gadh, a fort, the people giving him this title in honour of his capture of two forts; Junagadh of Girnar (1472) and Pavagadh of Champaner (1484).
Early life
On the death of Qutb-ud-din Ahmad Shah II, the nobles raised to the throne his uncle Daud Khan, son of Ahmad Shah I. Daud appointed "low-born men", Hindus and recent converts to Islam, to high offices and committed improper acts, hence within a short period of seven or twenty-seven days, he was deposed.
The public source identifies “Mahmud Begada” as sultan of Gujarat. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mahmud, Begada and Sultan.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2768005. VIAF identifies the subject as 50479847. The Library of Congress control number is n78027870. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1459, 1511, 1472 and 1484.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mahmud Begada” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.