Having a strong penchant for Sunni Islam, the religion of most Deccani Muslims[1]—on his accession he deleted the names of the twelve Shi'ah Imams from the Khutbah, discontinued previous Shia practices and restored the exercise of the Sunni Islamic practices.[2][3][4] He deviated from the traditions of his predecessors and introduced many innovations in the political and religious policies. He degraded most of the afaqi faction (with a few exceptions), and in their place enrolled the Deccani (including the Marathas and Habashis) to the services, retaining only four hundred afaqi troops as his bodyguard. Consequently, he brought Sunni Muslims to power and ended Shia domination by dismissing them from their posts[5][6] and many Marathas acquired great influence at his court and public accounts began to be maintained in Marathi.