The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c24.11.3

v3.c24.11.3

This was Zafar Khān, son-in-law to Mubārak of Eastern Bengal, whom, according to his own account, he had had some expectation of succeeding. The conquest of Eastern Bengal by Iliyās had compelled him to seek safety in flight, and after many vicissitudes he reached Delhi, where he was well content with the position of a courtier until his wrongs suggested themselves to the king as a pretext for invading and conquering Bengal. His advance to Bengal has already been described in Chapter VII, and while he halted at Zafarābād, engaged in superintending the building of Jaunpur, he received envoys from Sikandar, bearing valuable gifts. These he meanly retained, while persisting in his design of invading Bengal. Sikandar, like his father, took refuge in Ikdāla, and so completely baffled Fīrūz that when he opened negotiations for peace he demanded and obtained most favourable terms. He is said to have been obliged to agree to send to Delhi an annual tribute of forty elephants and to surrender Sonārgāon to Zafar Khān. The latter condition was never fulfilled, owing, as the Delhi historians say, to Zafar Khān's preferring the security of Delhi to the precarious tenure of a fief in Sikandar's dominions, and if the tribute was ever paid Sikandar obtained an equivalent in the formal recognition of his independence, a jewelled crown worth 80,000 *tangas*, and 5000 Arab and Turkmān horses; and Bengal was no more molested.