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Aayani : Fateh-Namah Mahmood Shah.
(1495)(History of Shah Mahmood)
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Taken from : Shanti Sadiq Ali : The African dispersal in the Deccan.
                     indiafamily.net

This Fateh Namah (History of Kings) relates in a poem the war between Sultan Ahmad Shah Bahmani in 1495 against the revolt of the African Dastur Dinar. I did not find the poem. But here is the history of the war as found in the sources mentioned above. The Sultanate of Bahmani was situated in North West India. This story does not learn us much about East-Africa except that the many African slaves most probably came from there. At the end of the 15th century the Africans rose in many kingdoms of India to important positions, even became the rulers. As the sources describing these events are from outside our time-span, and as they do not directly relate to the East-African history only some examples are given.  

Dastur Dinar held the position as sarlashkar (1), governor of Gulbarga (2), Aland (3), Ganjoti (4), Warangal (5). The prime minister; Qasim Barid (6) thinking Dastur Dinar was to powerful decided to take away from him the governor-ship of Warangal (5). The Prime Minister also formed an elite army force of the core rank and file soldiers of Dastur Dinar, so as to divide their ranks. Dastur Dinar raised the banner of revolt. With 7000-8000 African soldiers he occupied the territories surrounding his provinces. He send to the Sultan the message : You should give us the ancient and great empire, and if you whish to have the crown, you should give up the helmet. In the following battle near the village of Mahindri (7) Dastur Dinar was defeated by the kindness of God who took out dust from the army of the enemies. On the advise of Yusuf Adil Khan (8), an important noble and the rival of the prime minister, the Sultan pardoned and reinstated him in Gulbarga (2) and Aland (3), and all the property confiscated by the government was returned to him. Yusuf Adil Khan (8) then tries to take the other fiefs that Dastur Dinar had had to abandon, so Qasim Barid (6) and Dastur Dinar become allies. Yusuf Adil Khan (8) then attacks with his army Dastur Dinar and kills him in a big battle.

(1) Sarlashkar: Major general.

(2) Gulbarga: Kalaburagi, formerly known as Gulbarga, is a city in the Indian state of Karnataka.

(3) Aland: is a city in the district of Kalaburagi in Karnataka state India.

(4) Ganjoti: district of 76 small villages in Maharashtra, India.

(5) Warangal: Warangal is a city in the south Indian state of Telangana.

(6) Qasim Barid: (r. 1489–1504) was a Muslim (Shia) Turk domiciled in Safavid Georgia. He entered the service of the Bahmani sultan Muhammad Shah III and later became the prime-minister of the Bahmani sultanate.

(7) Mahindri: in southern Orissa.

(8) Yusuf Adil Khan: Yusuf Adil Shah, referred as Adil Khan, was the founder of the Adil Shahi dynasty that ruled the Sultanate of Bijapur for nearly two centuries.