Historian Dr Sarah Waheed’s new book Chand Bibi: The Lives and Legends of a Warrior Queen revisits the life of a sixteenth-century Deccan ruler whose resistance to Mughal expansion and political leadership have largely remained outside mainstream historical narratives.

Published by Penguin Random House India, the book reconstructs the life and legacy of Chand Bibi, the queen-regent of Ahmadnagar who defended the Deccan against Mughal imperial forces in 1595 and emerged as one of the most formidable political and military figures of her time.

Blending biography with historical investigation, the book goes beyond the story of a single ruler to explore larger questions about memory, power and historical erasure. It examines how archives, folklore and oral histories shape public understanding of the past, particularly in relation to women and regional histories often pushed to the margins.

At the centre of the narrative lies a long-standing historical mystery surrounding Chand Bibi’s death. Historical accounts differ sharply — some claim she was killed by her own soldiers, others suggest she died by suicide to avoid capture, while another version proposes she escaped altogether.

Drawing on archival research, oral histories and years of work across Hyderabad and the Deccan, including research at institutions such as the Salar Jung Museum and Telangana State Archives, Waheed uses these conflicting narratives to investigate how history itself is constructed through evidence, contradiction and memory.

Set against the politically dynamic world of the Deccan Sultanates, the book also revisits questions of sovereignty, gender and Muslim women’s political authority in medieval India.

Scholars and historians have described the work as an important contribution to recovering overlooked histories of the Deccan and expanding conversations around India’s plural and layered past.

Dr Sarah Waheed is Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and a specialist in South Asian history. Her work focuses on South Asian Islam, gender, colonialism, nationalism and memory. She is also the author of Hidden Histories of Pakistan: Censorship, Literature, and Secular Nationalism in Late Colonial India.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“This book is a major achievement. Like a detective, the author scours written sources, tracks down living memories, and traverses the land of her ancestors in a spirited quest to recover the life and mysterious fate of a heroic warrior queen of the Deccan.”
— Richard Eaton, Professor of History, University of Arizona

“A timely and profoundly exciting work… part of a great new wave of writing that questions historiography and the erasure of South Asian female Muslim voices.”
— Ira Mukhoty, historian and author of Daughters of the Sun

“At a moment when Muslim women rulers are pushed to the margins of history… this book stands as a powerful act of recovery.”
— Rana Safvi, historian and author of In Search of the Divine: Living Histories of Sufism in India

“This book will introduce you to two remarkable women: an engaged historian and the powerful historical figure she brings to life… We need more books like this to make sense of both the past and the present.”
— Sunil Sharma, Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature, Boston University

“This is a gorgeous book… Waheed’s beautiful prose and erudition pull us into Chand Bibi’s life, times and mysterious death.”
— Supriya Gandhi, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Yale University