The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.s1.35

v4.c21.s1.35

The civil war, which broke out on 4 May, 1753, and lasted for six months, took the form of incessant combats in the streets and neighbourhood of the capital. Safdar Jang sent his wife and family for safety into the Jāt country and enlisted the aid of Sūraj Mal, raja of the Jāts. Ghāzī-ud-dīn’s principal commander was Najīb Khān the Rohilla, whose hostility to Safdar Jang could be relied upon, and who afterwards rose to the rank of Amīr-ul-Umarā. Zu-’l-Fiqār Jang emerged from his retirement and joined Safdar Jang. Both parties summoned to their aid all the turbulent elements in the capital and the surrounding districts and the Sunnī Ghāzī-ud-dīn imported an additional element of bitterness into the strife by proclaiming the Shiah Safdar Jang a heretic. By this means as well as by bribes he was able to detach from Safdar Jang most of the Sunnīs serving in his troops, and individual heretics were seized in the streets and robbed and beaten, or even murdered. Sūraj Mal plundered Old Delhi, then more populous than Shāh Jahān’s city, and the latter was a scene of continual bloodshed, plunder and murder. Neither party obtained any decided advantage over the other and both at length grew weary of the fruitless and devastating strife. In November they came to terms. Safdar Jang was permitted to retain the provinces of Oudh and Allahābād, and departed for the seat of his government, and Intizām-ud-Daula, son of Qamar-ud-dīn and uncle of Ghāzī-ud-dīn, was confirmed as minister.