The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.133

v4.c20.133

Zu-’l-Fiqār Khān, who had thus alone brought about the fall of the most powerful of the claimants to the throne, now became supreme in the state. He threw aside the two youngest princes in favour of Jahāndār Shāh; a quarrel broke out among the three brothers for the division of the booty taken from ‘Azīm-ush-shān. The contest between Jahāndār Shāh and his youngest brother Jahān Shāh was fought out on 26 and 27 March, artillery playing the decisive part in these encounters. Jahān Shāh at first defeated his rival and put him to flight, but in the confusion caused by the dust and lack of generalship his troops were scattered in small isolated groups, he was shot dead and his army melted away. Rafī‘-ush-shān, who had stood aloof during this duel, attacked Jahāndār in the morning of the 28th, hoping to gain an easy victory over the latter’s exhausted troops. But most of his Turānī officers deserted him in the field, his raw levies fled away, and he was shot dead when fighting on foot against desperate odds. Jahāndār Shāh thus became the undisputed master of the empire of Delhi.