The Deccanis or Deccani people are an Indo-Aryan ethno-religious community of Urdu-speaking Muslims who inhabit or are from the Deccan region of India. The community traces its origins to the shifting of the Delhi Sultanate's capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in 1327 during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Further ancestry can also be traced from immigrant Muslims referred to as Afaqis, also known as Pardesis who came from Central Asia, Iraq, and Iran and had settled in the Deccan region during the Bahmani Kingdom (1347). The migration of Muslim Hindavi-speaking people to the Deccan and intermarriage with the local Muslim converts from Hinduism, led to the creation of a new community of Hindustani-speaking Muslims, known as the Deccani, who would come to play an important role in the politics of the Deccan. Their language, Deccani, emerged as a language of linguistic prestige and culture during the Bahmani Sultanate, further evolving in the Deccan sultanates.
Following the demise of the Bahmanis, the Deccan sultanate period marked a golden age for Deccani culture, notably in the arts, language, and architecture. The Deccani people form significant minorities in the Deccan, including the Maharashtran regions of Marathwada and Vidarbha, and the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka (except Tulu Nadu), and northern Tamil Nadu. They form a majority in the old cities of Hyderabad and Aurangabad. After the partition of India and the annexation of Hyderabad, large diaspora communities formed outside the Deccan, especially in Pakistan, where they make up a significant portion of the Urdu speaking minority, the Muhajirs.
