A History of the Mahrattas v1.c23.48

v1.c23.48

New states sprung up even in the environs of Delhi; the founder of the principality, afterwards known by the name of Rohillah, had been for some time rising into notice. The person who first established himself was the son of a Hindoostanee Aheer,¹ a class of shepherds nearly similar to the Dhungurs of Maharashtra. An Afghan adopted him, when a boy, as his son, and gave him the name of Ali Mohummud Rohillah, which procured for him and all his followers the appellation of Rohillahs.² He began his career under the deputy governors of Mooradabad, as commander of a small party of Afghan cavalry. He afterwards got the possession of lands on pretence of paying a higher rent for them; and at last, on an attempt to suppress his encroachments, he raised an insurrection and defeated the deputy of the Vizier Kummur-ud-deen Khan; in whose Jagheer, situated in the Dooab, little more than a hundred miles to the southward of the capital, all these circumstances happened.