The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c18.3

v4.c18.3

Meanwhile messengers were despatched by Āsaf Khān to Shāh Jahān and by Nūr Jahān to Shahryār. The latter at once assumed the title of emperor and seized the treasure at Lahore, distributing large sums to gain support and to raise forces, which he placed under the command of a son of his uncle Dāniyāl. Āsaf Khān had little difficulty in defeating the hastily recruited troops who met him on his approach to Lahore, and Shahryār was given up by the guardians of the harem in which he took refuge on learning of the defeat of his army. He was made to do homage, and then cast into prison and blinded. The long journey to the Deccan was performed in twenty days by a fleet messenger, who carried Āsaf Khān’s signet to Shāh Jahān and arrived in time to stop him from a project he was meditating of another expedition to Bengal. Khān Jahān was still opposed to him, so he made a *détour* through Gujarāt, where the Dutch and English both sent him presents and congratulations. He passed on through Mewār where he had always received support and hastened to Āgra. There he was welcomed and proclaimed emperor with suitable pomp. Determined to avoid the dynastic strife which had marked his father’s accession he had sent orders to Āsaf Khān suggesting the murder of all possible claimants, which were carried out by the execution of Dāwar Bakhsh and another son of Khusrav, of Shahryār, and of two sons of Dāniyāl. Nūr Jahān alone was spared, perhaps in memory of the support she had given her stepson in early life, and certainly in the full conviction that a woman with no son or near male relative could not be dangerous to the new emperor. She received an adequate pension and was allowed to spend the rest of her life in or near Lahore, building and ornamenting the tomb for her husband at Shāhdara, a few miles from the city, and carrying on the works of charity for which she had been famed during her husband’s lifetime.