The year was 1595, and the Deccan kingdoms of India were under attack. From the north came the Mughal imperial army, led by Emperor Akbar. For generations, the rulers of South Asia had fought amongst themselves, but a new leader, Chand Bibi, united them.
Chand Bibi led both men and women into battle and beat back Emperor Akbar. She defended a critical fort, rebuilding the walls when they were broken down. While it sounds like a legend, historian Sarah Waheed has seen firsthand the ruins of the fort where Chand Bibi won this victory.
“You can see to this day the very lobes on the bastions of the fort, which part of it had been destroyed and then built back up,” she says.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Waheed traced the life of Chand Bibi through the southwestern region of India. She visited ruins and archives, working with historians, archeologists and residents to gather the pieces of Chand Bibi’s story.
Now an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, Waheed tells this story in her forthcoming book, In Search of Chand Bibi: Warrior Queen of India. The book mixes elements of a historian’s personal journey with primary source accounts, placing the warrior queen’s narrative within a larger history of South Asia.
“I wanted to tell the story about Chand Bibi, but also about my search for her. As much as the book is about Chand Bibi, she is not actually extraordinary so much as she is exemplary,” Waheed says. “In fact, this area may have produced more female sovereigns than any other region of South Asia.”
What makes Chand Bibi so compelling is the influence she continued to wield long after she disappeared in the year 1600. Waheed was drawn to Chand Bibi because of the way she is portrayed in art and culture, even hundreds of years later.
“In the 18th century, this image of her basically went viral: She is painted on horseback with a falcon on her hand, which is symbolic of her leadership,” she says. “Falconry was usually associated with male sovereigns, so it is unique that she is depicted this way.”
Chand Bibi's legend lives on
Another central question Waheed explores: What actually happened to Chand Bibi?
Traditional historical accounts say she was murdered by her own troops for negotiating with the Mughal forces. Another version of events says she chose martyrdom over defeat. Yet a third account has been passed down by the working classes in India, which says that Chand Bibi was never defeated but escaped – and would someday return.
“It’s like the falcon in the images of her from the 18th century. What does a falcon do? It flies away and comes back,” Waheed says. “So, when we see this image of Chand Bibi, they’re harkening back to this earlier memory – this hope tied to Chand Bibi’s eventual return.”
Despite Chand Bibi’s cultural legacy, Waheed says historians have given this story relatively little attention so far. But Chand Bibi’s history is important because it provides a window into South Asia’s past and defies stereotypes of the roles of women in these cultures.
“We think that Muslim women were always hidden behind the veil and, therefore, never came forward in politics or war, but this is belied by the historical record,” she says.
A shared history in Hyderabad
To follow in Chand Bibi’s footsteps, Waheed traveled to the places where she lived and ruled. Chand Bibi and her people were constantly on the move, ranging throughout the area of South Asia known as the Deccan Plateau. Waheed’s own connection to India also plays an important role in the book.
“My family is originally from Hyderabad, so I started out there and went to places like Ahmadnagar, where Chand Bibi was born and raised,” she says. “Hyderabad in particular is very close to me because I really feel like I know that city, and it’s changed so much.”
Like many residents of Hyderabad, Waheed’s family was dispersed in 1948, when the city was overthrown and annexed. While Waheed grew up in various countries, including Saudi Arabia, Canada and the United States, Hyderabad is a city her family visited often.
The city is also a central location for scholars working to preserve the archives and ruins of the region. Waheed connected with a grassroots organization called The Deccan Archive, which helped her locate archives and archeological sites that are still uncharted.
“The archives in India are in a state of disarray for all kinds of political and economic reasons, so this posed a challenge,” she says.
Waheed had the help of a research assistant, Maleeha Fatima, who is now pursing her doctoral degree in history at USC. At the time, Fatima worked for a local university and was a team member with The Deccan Archive. Since many of the archives are only known about by word of mouth, she was a valuable resource in Waheed’s search.
“As I looked for traces of Chand Bibi, I saw how she is in some ways fading from history, or being erased, but I also encountered all kinds of other cultural memories of her,” Waheed says. “She is a figure who lives on in the imagination of the people in this region.”
After her Fulbright Scholarship in India, Waheed joined the College of Arts and Sciences faculty as the Department of History’s specialist in South Asia with a joint appointment in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. Her expertise has opened the door for USC students to gain new perspectives on the vast history of South Asia and has given them deeper understanding of the lives and impact of women throughout world history.
Chand Bibi’s history as inspiration
For Fatima, Chand Bibi was a character in her bedtime stories, cast as a hero and role model to Indian girls. Her mother likewise grew up hearing stories of Chand Bibi.
“My childhood was an era where stories about women in a positive light were beginning to emerge more. My mother may have not read it in the same way that I did, but to her it was already passed down and very familiar,” she says.
Waheed’s book caught the attention of Penguin Random House International and is slated for a 2026 release in Indian markets. Fatima says that although Chand Bibi’s story has been told many times, Waheed’s book will provide a more complete history than ever before.
“Nobody has written about Chand Bibi in the way Dr. Waheed does, with such academic thoroughness,” she says. “The methods that Dr. Waheed uses situate her story into a larger history of the Deccan itself. And those are the methods that intersect with what I want to do as a historian.”
Fatima came to USC shortly after Waheed and is earning her Ph.D. to return to Hyderabad and expand on her work there. Her dissertation so far focuses on the history of the region from the perspectives of women and gender. Waheed is uniquely suited as her advisor because of her connections to Hyderabad.
“Even though in the past decade there has been this wave of interest in Hyderabad's history, it's largely a male dominated field so far. There are exceptions, of course, and incredible ones. Dr. Waheed is a major exception to that trend,” Fatima says.