The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.526

v3.c20.526

The various cities which had at different times been the capital of the kingdom were now held by the factions of one puppet or the other. Muqarrab Khān and Mahmūd Shāh were in Delhi, Nusrat Shāh and the old nobles and servants of Fīrūz in Fīrūzābād, Bahādur Nāhir, whose allegiance had been temporarily secured by Muqarrab Khān, was in Old Delhi, and Mallū, who owed his life to Muqarrab Khān and had received from him the title of Iqbāl Khān, was in Sīrī, but neither Nāhir nor Mallū was a warm partisan, and each was prepared to shape his conduct by the course of events. For three years an indecisive but destructive strife was carried on in the names of Mahmūd and Nusrat, but the kingdom of the former, who had been first in the field, was bounded by the walls of Delhi, though Muqarrab Khān reckoned Old Delhi and Sīrī as appanages of this realm, while the upstart Nusrat Shāh claimed the nominal allegiance of the districts of the Doāb, Sambhal, Pānīpat, Jhajjar, and Rohtak. The great provinces were independent.