Firishta's History (Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī) 101: MEERAN HOOSSEIN NIZAM SHAH.
History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India (Briggs) 101
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MEERAN HOOSSEIN NIZAM SHAH.
101.1
The King gives way to scandalous excesses, and exercises the most wanton cruelty. — Mirza Khan, the minister, is suspected of a design to raise the King's uncle to the throne. — The minister is confined — is again released, and recommends all the surviving male members of the royal family to be put to death. — Fifteen princes assassinated in one day. — The minister is again accused of treason. — Plot to seize him converted by the minister against the King himself. — The King's person is secured. — The Prince Ismael, being only twelve years of age, is placed on the throne by the minister and the foreign troops. — Jumal Khan, a Deccany leader, heads a tumult to oppose the measures of the minister Mirza Khan. — Jumal Khan demands the restoration of Meeran Hoossein — the latter is assassinated, and his head exposed upon a pole to the populace. — Jumal Khan insists on the Deccanies having the lead in the government, and excites the people to attack the fort of Ahmudnuggur. — They burn the gates and enter it. — The foreigners, both in the town and city, sought for, and put to death by the Deccanies and Abyssinians. — The minister Mirza Khan is disgraced, and suffers a cruel death.
101.2
Meeran Hoossein Nizam Shah, on his accession to the throne of Ahmudnuggur, being of an impetuous and cruel disposition, began his reign by tyranny and oppression. He appointed Mirza Khan prime minister, but paid little regard to his advice; so that he was disappointed in the hopes he had entertained of making a pageant of the Prince, and keeping the real power in his own hands.
101.3
The King having promoted several young persons of his own age to high rank, made them the companions of his pleasures and excesses. It was frequently his custom, in fits of intoxication, to ride through the city with his drunken associates and put persons to death, though guilty of no crime. Having learned that Mirza Khan had privately brought Shah Kasim, brother to Moortuza Nizam Shah, from the fort of Soonere, and concealed him in his house with a view to create a revolution in his favour, the King became alarmed, and confined the minister. The next day, however, finding the accusation false, he restored him to his employments, and gave him his full confidence; and Mirza Khan, in order to prevent future suspicion, advised the King to put to death the surviving males of the royal family. At his instance fifteen princes were accordingly murdered in one day. Not long after this event, the power of Mirza Khan becoming irksome to the King's companions, they again accused him of treachery, and the King believing it, would in his drunken hours exclaim at one time that he would behead him with his own hand, and at another, that he would have him trod to death by elephants.
101.4
These circumstances being reported to Mirza Khan, he resolved to ensure his own safety by deposing the King, who, in his turn, tried every means to get the minister into his power. On the 10th of Jumad-ool-Awul, 997, the King repaired to the house of his favourite Bungush Khan, and sent for Mirza Khan to partake of a banquet, intending to have him assassinated; but the milatter, being on his guard, excused himself under pretence of sudden illness, sending his friend Agha Meer to make his excuse. Agha Meer reached the house of Bungush Khan just as the King had dined, but the master of the house had waited, out of complaisance, to dine with Mirza Khan. When Agha Meer had eaten some dinner, he pretended to be seized with violent pains, declaring that he was poisoned, and left the house. Mirza Khan, soon after, sent a message to the King, that the Agha was dying, and entreated to see him. The King unsuspiciously repaired with a few attendants to the fort, where he was seized by the minister and confined. Mirza Khan then sent off Meer Tahir Nyshapoory to bring the two sons of the King's paternal uncle, Boorhan Nizam Shah, from the fort of Lohgur, that he might choose one of them to place on the throne, concealing the circumstance of the King's imprisonment till their arrival. On the third day, Meer Tahir returned with the Princes, the one named Ibrahim, and the other Ismael;
101.5
and the minister summoning several of the principal nobility into the fort, declared to them the deposal of Meeran Hoossein, and the accession of Ismael Nizam Shah (the younger brother), then only in his twelfth year. While the assembly was engaged in saluting the new king, a great tumult was heard at the gates of the fort, where Jumal Khan, a military leader, with several other officers and soldiers, chiefly Abyssinians and Deccanies, had assembled, demanding to see Meeran Hoossein their lawful sovereign. Mirza Khan sent them word, that Meeran Hoossein, being unworthy to govern, had been deposed, and that he had been succeeded by his cousin Ismael, who should appear and receive their homage. Jumal Khan became more clamorous, and sent persons to proclaim through the city, that the minister, aided by his foreign mercenaries, had deposed their sovereign, and seated another prince on the throne, and that if he were allowed to make kings and to act uncontrolled in this manner, the native nobles and inhabitants of the country would soon become slaves to foreign adventurers. The Deccany troops and the inhabitants inflamed by this proclamation, flew to arms, and in a short time about five thousand horse and foot, with a numerous mob, joined Jumal Khan, who was also supported by all the Abyssinians.
101.6
Mirza Khan, thinking to appease the tumult by the death of Meeran Hoossein, commanded his head to be struck off, and placing it on a pole, planted it on one of the bastions of the citadel. At the same time, a person cried out to the multitude below, that as they must now be convinced of the death of the King, if they would retire quietly to their houses they should be rewarded by the favour of Ismael Nizam Shah, now their sovereign. Several of the leaders proposed to retire; but Jumal Khan cried out, that if Meeran Hoossein were murdered, they ought to revenge his death on the foreigners, take into their own hands the administration of the government of Ismael Nizam Shah, and not suffer the country to be governed by strangers. On this, a resolution was formed to attack the fort; and having heaped piles of wood and straw against the gates, the mob set them on fire. About sunset, the gates were burned; but the quantity of hot ashes yet glowing prevented any one passing in or out till midnight, when Mirza Khan and his friends rushed from the citadel, and tried to make their escape. Numbers of others were slain in the attempt by the populace; but Mirza Khan having effected his retreat, fled towards the fort of Joonere. The Deccany troops, the Abyssinians, and the mob, having entered the fort, put to death every foreigner they found within, amounting to nearly three hundred, among whom were several persons of high rank and eminent character.
101.7
Their bodies were dragged out on the open plain, and orders given that they should lie unburied. Not content with the past slaughter, Jumal Khan commanded his adherents to murder the foreigners of every rank and occupation in the city, and to plunder and burn their dwellings. The soldiers and their followers, being once let loose, put to death indiscriminately the noble, the master, the servant, the merchant, the pilgrim, and the travelling stranger. Their houses were set on fire, and the heads of those lately exalted to the skies were brought low, and trampled in the dust; while the very females, who from modesty concealed their faces from the sun and moon, were dragged by the hair into the assemblages of the drunken. On the fourth day, Mirza Khan, who had been seized near Joonere, was brought to Jumal Khan, and being first carried through the city on an ass, his body was hewn in pieces, which were affixed on different buildings.
101.8
Several of his friends taken with him were also put to death, and their bodies being rammed into cannon, were blown into the air. In the space of seven days, nearly a thousand foreigners were murdered; some few only escaping under the protection of Deccany or Abyssinian officers. The reign of Meeran Hoossein Nizam Shah lasted only ten months and three days. Among those princes recorded in history as murderers of their fathers, we find none whose reigns extended beyond one year; and a poet observes, "Royalty befitteth not the destroyer of a parent, nor will the reign of such a wretch be long."
101.9
The power of Jumal Khan is firmly established — he becomes leader of a sect called Mehdvies. — All the surviving foreigners in the dominions required to quit them. — The author quits Ahmudnuggur, and proceeds to Beejapoor. — Sulabut Khan, the exiled minister, leads an army from Berar to oppose Jumal Khan — is defeated. — The regent of Beejapoor also leads an army against him. — Peace concluded. — Jumal Khan pays eighty five thousand pounds sterling to defray the expense of the war. — Chand Beeby, the Dowager of Ally Adil Shah, is required to be sent to Beejapoor. — The Emperor Akbur supports the claim of Boorhan, the father of the young King, and who for many years had quitted the court and lived in exile, from apprehension of his brother Moortuza Nizam Shah the Mad. — Boorhan is also supported by the court of Beejapoor. — Jumal Khan defeats the Beejapoor army, and marches to oppose that of Boorhan. — A battle ensues. — Jumal Khan is killed. — The young King escapes from the field, but is afterwards taken and confined by his father, who ascends the throne under the title of Boorhan Nizam Shah II.
101.10
It has been already mentioned in the history of Moortuza Nizam Shah, that his brother, Boorhan Nizam Shah, having been foiled in an attempt to dethrone him, fled for protection to the court of the Emperor Akbur. On his departure, he left behind him his two sons, Ibrahim and Ismael, who were confined in the fortress of Lohgur. The younger being raised to the throne, on the death of Meeran Hoossein Nizam Shah, assumed the title of Ismael Nizam Shah, and was acknowledged by the successful partisan, Jumal Khan. Jumal Khan being of the sect of Mehdvy persuaded the King to embrace the same tenets, and to commit the power of government into the hands of his followers. In the beginning of his administration, he obliged the few foreigners who had escaped the massacre in the last reign to quit Ahmudnuggur, after seizing their effects. Most of these obtained service with the King of Beejapoor. Among them was the writer of this history, who subsequently obtained rank at that court. The Mehdvies are a schismatic sect of Mahomedans. They assert that in the year 960 (A. D. 1550) a person of the Hunefy sect, styling himself Syud Mahomed, was in reality the promised Imam Mehdvy; and as there were some circumstances which the impostor turned to his advantage, representing them to be the signs of the coming of the Imam Mehdvy, many people of India believed him to be the real Imam.
101.11
Among these believers was Jumal Khan, commonly called Mehdvy, and who was considered as the leader of that sect in the service of Ismael Nizam Shah. He had at different times distinguished himself by his personal courage, and particularly on the occasion of the accession of the King, who was now a mere pageant in the hands of this wily chieftain. He commenced his power by persecuting all those not of his own persuasion, and by promoting to high offices, and retaining about his person, such as were Mehdvies. Among the discontented nobles were the chiefs of Berar, who, being at some distance from the capital, released Sulabut Khan, who had long been confined in the fort of Kehrla, on the Berar frontier. They joined his standard to oppose the Mehdvies, whom the Berar chiefs determined to expel from Ahmudnuggur; for which purpose they marched towards the capital. At the same period, also, Dilawur Khan, the Regent of Beejapoor, during the minority of Ibrahim Adil Shah, marched from the southward for the same purpose. Jumal Khan, undismayed at this double invasion, and encouraged by his adherents, marched, in the first place, against Sulabut Khan, and gave him a total defeat at the town of Peitun, on the Godavery, obliging him to retreat to Boorhanpoor. Thence he countermarched to oppose the Beejapoories, whom he encountered at the village of Ashty, where the two armies halted in the vicinity of each other for fifteen days, without making any hostile movement.
101.12
At length a peace was concluded, in which it was agreed that Chand Beeby, the widow of the late Ally Adil Shah, and aunt to the present King of Ahmudnuggur, should be sent to the Beejapoor camp, and that the Nizam Shahy government should pay two hundred and seventy thousand hoons (Nalbaha), for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the war. In the year 998 Sulabut Khan, now in his seventieth year, sent a petition from Boorhanpoor, begging permission to be allowed to return to his country, in order that he might lay his bones there. The request was granted; and he retired to the town of Tulegam, founded by himself: he, however, died during that year, and was buried in a mausoleum, erected during his ministry, on a hill lying south of Ahmudnuggur. Intelligence of the commotions in the Nizam Shahy capital having reached the Emperor Akbur, he recalled Boorhan Nizam Shah from his jageer of Bungush, lying between India and Kabul, and offered him a force to recover the kingdom of his ancestors, now his right, but usurped by his own son, aided by a despotic minister. Boorhan Nizam Shah represented, that should he accept the assistance of the Moguls, the Deccanies would be alarmed, and object to his authority; but that if his Majesty would allow him to repair to the borders of the country with his own dependents, he would try to gain over his subjects by conciliation.
101.13
Akbur, approving his proposal, permitted him to depart for the Deccan, and allotted the frontier district of Hundia for his support till he should regain his authority. At the same time he wrote to Raja Ally Khan, ruler of Kandeish, to afford him support. Boorhan Nizam Shah, having received overtures from many of the nobility, marched against his son, but was defeated. In a short time after this, however, he renewed his attempt, on being joined by a vast number of Nizam Shahy troops, as well as by an army from Beejapoor, which also made several marches to his assistance. At this period Jumal Khan collected his troops, among whom were ten thousand Mehdvies; and having ordered Syud Umjud-ool-Moolk of Berar, with the whole of his force, to oppose Raja Ally Khan and Boorhan Nizam Shah, on the northern frontier, marched himself against the Beejapoories. The two armies met at the village of Darasun: an action took place, in which the Beejapoories were defeated with the loss of three hundred elephants; but four days afterwards, information being received that the Berar troops had gone over to Boorhan Nizam Shah, Jumal Khan countermarched his victorious army towards Berar, to oppose the pretender, while Ibrahim Adil Shah despatched the whole of his Bergy cavalry to follow Jumal Khan, and to cut off his supplies.
101.14
Jumal Khan relying on the Mehdvies, whose very existence was identified with his welfare, proceeded to the Rohunkehra Ghat, notwithstanding he was daily deserted by his other troops. On his arrival there he found the pass occupied; and not being disposed to risk the loss that would attend forcing his way, he took another road, which was almost impassable, and which offered very little water. He had just pitched upon a spot to encamp, when he was informed that six miles farther on there was plenty of water, to which place he marched; but he found that position already occupied by the allied forces. His army, now in the greatest distress, was constrained to encamp where it was, as from the heat and difficulties it had encountered it was equally unable to proceed or to retreat. The troops, in the first instance, having obtained water, Jumal Khan ordered them under arms, and determined to decide his fate by an action, which was very near terminating in his favour, when he was killed by a chance shot. His death was the signal of defeat; for his army, having no other leader, fled in all directions, accompanied by Ismael Nizam Shah, who being taken in a village, was afterwards confined by his father, and deprived of his throne, after a reign of two years.