Bhagamati (Hyder Mahal), also known as Bhagyawati,^[1] was a queen of Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, in whose honour Hyderabad was supposedly named.^[2] The historicity of her existence is debated among scholars.^[3][4]

Bhagmati was born in 'Chichlam' (a location yet to be identified with certainty) to a Hindu family; she was a local nautch-girl.^[3] Qutb Shah met her whilst out for a ride, fell so deeply in love that he constructed the Purana Pul bridge to ensure he could meet with her regularly, and entered into a marriage.^[3][5] He founded a city at her birth-place and named it Bhaganagar or Bhāgyanagar in her honor.^[4] After she converted to Islam and adopted the title Hyder Mahal, the city was renamed Hyderabad.^[5]

That Purana pul was completed in 1578 after 2 years of construction; Qutb Shah (b:1566) was romancing Bhagmati as young as ten years.^[3] Furthermore, no tomb was built over her last remains unlike other leading female figures of the court; no inscription or coin of that period mentions her name.^[3][4] The chroniclers who mentioned of her were either from North of the Sultanate, who did not visit Hyderabad or foreigners, who arrived long after her death; contemporary Deccani sources including Qutb Shah himself don't mention of her at all.^[4][5] The conferral of 'Hyder', an immensely sacred Islamic attribute on a nautch-girl has been doubted as well.^[3][5] All these cast significant doubts on the authenticity of Bhagmati's existence.^[4]

Some however assert that the historicity of multiple sources can't be rejected as hearsay due to their foreign nature, sources exist in that the State Museum in Public Gardens has a portrait of her commissioned around 1750, and that her conspicuous absence from Deccani sources were a result of damnatio memoriae.^[4][5] Others believe Bhagnagar (which was indeed named after her) was a separate village which has nothing to do with today's Hyderabad.^[4]