The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c21.38

v3.c21.38

The nobles who still held their fiefs made preparations for overthrowing Sarvar-ul-Mulk. Malik Ilāhdād Lodī, now governor of Sambhal and Āhār, Malik Chaman of Budaun, Amīr ‘Alī Gujarātī, Amīr Kambal, and others agreed to stand or fall together and raised the standard of revolt. Sarvar-ul-Mulk assembled an army to crush them, and appointed to its command Kamāl-ud-dīn, who had dissembled his hostility, associating with him his own son Yūsuf, Sayyid Khān, and Sidhāran the Khatrī. This force advanced from Delhi to Baran and Ilāhdād Lodī retired, but halted at Āhār on learning that Kamāl-ud-dīn favoured his cause. His hostility to the minister and sympathy with the faction in arms against him could no longer be concealed, and Sarvar-ul-Mulk sent from Delhi to the army his slave Hūshyār, nominally as Kamāl-ud-dīn’s assistant, but in fact as a spy upon his actions and a coadjutor of Yūsuf and Sidhāran. Malik Chaman of Budaun now joined Ilāhdād Lodī at Āhār and Kamāl-ud-dīn’s attitude became so menacing that Yūsuf and Sidhāran returned to Delhi. On their departure Ilāhdād and his allies joined Kamāl-ud-dīn, marched with him on Delhi, defeated Sarvar-ul-Mulk’s troops in a battle before the city, and besieged him for three months in Sīrī. Sarvar-ul-Mulk discovered, in the course of a siege which lasted for three months, that the king was in sympathy with the besiegers, and attempted to slay him as he had slain his predecessor, but Muhammad was prepared for the attempt and his armed attendants slew Sarvar-ul-Mulk, and seizing the sons of Mīrān Sadr, executed them on the spot. Kamāl-ud-dīn and the confederates were then summoned into the city and the remaining conspirators retired to their houses. Sidhū Pāl imitated the Rājput custom of *jauhar*, set fire to his house, immolated his family, and died fighting, but Sidhāran and the other Khatrīs were taken alive and put to death, and Hūshyār the slave and Mubārak, police magistrate of the city, were executed at the *Lāl Darwāza*, or Red Gate.