Shivaji’s father and uncle—Shahaji and Sharifji—were both named after a Muslim saint called Shah Sharif. If one travels to Ellora, the ancestral seat of the Bhonsle clan, the samadhis of Shivaji’s grandfather and other relations so closely resemble Islamic mausoleums that they have been mistaken for ‘tombs’ like those of the Nizam Shahs and the legendary Malik Ambar.
