An Ethiopian slave known to history as 'Malik Ambar' was already seventeen years old in 1565, the year of the Battle of Talikota. Born in 1548, Chapu as a youth had fallen into the hands of slave dealers operating between the Ethiopian highlands and the coasts of eastern Africa. Clearly, Indian textiles were reaching the Ethiopian highlands in exchange for Ethiopian exports, which included gold and ivory in addition to slaves. Although military slavery is often identified as an 'Islamic' institution, it never occurred throughout the Muslim world. Habshi ex-slaves generally allied themselves both culturally and politically with the Deccani class. The emergence of a distinct Deccani regional identity, already visible in the mid-fourteenth century as both cause and consequence of the Bahmanis' successful revolution against north Indian Tughluq rule, gained force in the sixteenth century. It was during the tumultuous period 1595-1600 that the Ethiopian slave born as 'Chapu', and later renowned as 'Malik Ambar', rose to prominence.