The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c14.72

v4.c14.72

After returning to Delhi Islām Shāh learned that Humāyūn had crossed the Indus, and, though seriously ill, tore off some leeches which had been applied to his neck and set out for Lahore, but on arriving there learned that his enemy had gone back to Kābul, so he returned to Gwalior, his favourite place of residence. Here he spent his time chiefly in sport but continued so to harass his nobles that they conspired to assassinate him. He escaped by good fortune, and the chief conspirators were put to death and others were imprisoned. He now suggested to his wife that her brother, whose partisans increased in number, should be removed lest his pretensions should injure the interests of their son, but she insisted that her brother was a mere nonentity who cared for nothing but music, pleasure and dissipation, to which he was devoting his time in order to avert suspicion. The known partisans of Mubāriz Khān meanwhile refused to attend court together, lest they should be seized and put to death, and the king dared not proceed against those who attended singly lest the remainder should rise against him. His health now failed but he concealed his malady from others and cauterized with his own hand a growth from which he suffered, so injuring himself that he fell mortally sick. He made a final appeal to his wife to remove her brother, and, as she merely burst into tears, turned his face to the wall and died on 22 November, 1554.