The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.121

v4.c20.121

Meantime, A‘zam Shāh, after hastening to the dead Aurangzīb’s camp at Ahmadnagar, had ascended the throne on 14 March. But his utter lack of money, added to his impatience of advice, uncontrollable temper and insane vanity, doomed his cause to failure from the outset. At the time of Aurangzīb’s death his soldiers in the Deccan were starving from their salaries being three years in arrears, and A‘zam could give them no relief when dragging them with him to northern India. His promotion of his personal favourites alienated the veterans of Aurangzīb’s time. The Turānī party (called *Mughuls* in India), led by Fīrūz Jang, Chīn Qilich Khān (afterwards Nizām-ul-Mulk) and Muhammad Amīn Khān (later imperial *vazīr* or revenue minister), held aloof from him. Asad Khān and his son Zu-’l-Fiqār (entitled Nusrat Jang), the leaders of the Īrānī party at court, no doubt joined him, but on account of A‘zam’s incurable defects of character and temper they could do him no good. Leaving Ahmadnagar on 17 March, A‘zam arrived at Gwālior on 11 June. His able son Bīdār Bakht could have forestalled the enemy in the capture of Āgra, the viceroy of which was his father-in-law; but A‘zam with fatal jealousy feared that if Bīdār Bakht got possession of the treasures in Āgra fort, he would raise an army of his own and oust his father from the throne. So he had ordered Bīdār Bakht not to increase his army nor advance on Āgra, but wait for him at Gwālior. In this way fifty precious days were lost by the young prince in enforced inactivity in Mālwa, while his father delayed coming up from the south, and the quicker movements of Bahādur Shāh and ‘Azīm-ush-shān gave them Delhi and Āgra.