The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c18.18

v4.c18.18

Meanwhile, Aʻzam Khān had again opened the campaign against the army of Ahmadnagar. The strong fort of Dharūr, full of treasure and munitions, was taken without an assault, after the town and market below it had been plundered, and Parenda² was invested. Attempts were also made to take advantage of the dissension which usually existed between the kingdoms of Ahmadnagar and Bījāpur.³ During the later years of Jahāngīr's reign when Mughul pressure was slight Malik ʻAmbar, the capable Ahmadnagar general, had invaded Bījāpur and plundered Nauraspur, the new capital which the king was building. Ibrāhīm ʻĀdil Shah II of Bījāpur died in 1627, shortly before Jahāngīr, and his eldest son Darvesh was blinded and set aside in favour of Muhammad ʻĀdil, a younger son aged only fifteen, through the influence of a clique headed by Mustafa Khān, a capable minister, and Daulat (or Khavāss) Khān, a man who had risen from a low origin. The succession was recognised by Shāh Jahān but not by the king of Ahmadnagar, who favoured Darvesh, and invaded Bījāpur to support his claim. Shāh Jahān, busy with consolidating his own position, tried to make peace, but the quarrel was embittered by a dispute about Sholāpur which Malik ʻAmbar had taken from Bījāpur. When Shāh Jahān came to the Deccan to suppress Khān Jahān's rebellion, and if possible to crush Ahmadnagar, the rival ministers of Bījāpur were still divided over the attitude which the kingdom should assume. Mustafā Khān, whose father-in-law had been executed by Malik ʻAmbar, was in favour of supporting the Mughuls, but Randola Khān, the commander-in-chief, felt that the Mughuls were the enemy most to be feared. Aʻzam Khān's reduction of Dharūr increased the hope that Bījāpur might regain some of the territory taken by Malik ʻAmbar and terms were considered. But Randola Khān demanded an excessive area including Dharūr, and refused to furnish troops in aid of Aʻzam Khān when he was pursuing Muqarrab Khān and the army of Ahmadnagar. Being in great straits Muqarrab Khān offered to restore Sholāpur to Bījāpur, and Aʻzam Khān feared an alliance between the two kingdoms. His assaults on Parenda had failed, and the drought had so parched the country that even grass for horses could not be found within a range of forty miles. He therefore withdrew to Dharūr, losing rear-guard actions on the way. More success attended the other divisions of the Mughul troops, as Nasīrī Khān, though resisted by combined forces of Bījāpur and Ahmadnagar, took the strong fortress of Kandhār on the eastern edge of Bālāghāt, Berār was cleared, and Khvāja Abu-’l-Hasan, though with great difficulty, had reduced Nāsik and Sangamner on the north-west of Ahmadnagar. In the midst of these successes the emperor sustained a blow which left an impression never effaced in the death of his favourite wife, Mumtāz Mahall, on 17 June, 1631.¹ She was buried at first in a garden called Zainābād near Burhānpur, and afterwards her remains were removed to Āgra, where they lie with those of Shāh Jahān in a beautiful tomb.