The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c24.14

v3.c24.14

Sikandar had seventeen sons by his first wife, and only one, Ghiyās-ud-dīn A‘zam, the ablest and most promising of them all, by his second. A‘zam's stepmother, in order to secure the succession of one of her own sons, lost no opportunity of traducing him to his father, and at length succeeded in arousing his apprehensions to such an extent that in 1370 he fled to Sonārgāon and assumed the royal title in Eastern Bengal. Sikandar, who had never believed the calumnies against A‘zam, left him unmolested for several years, but in 1389 marched against him. The armies of the father and the son met at Goālpāra, and although A‘zam had given orders that his father was to be taken alive, Sikandar was mortally wounded, and died, after the battle, in his son's arms, forgiving him with his latest breath. The throne was the victor's prize, and one of A‘zam's first acts after his accession was to blind all his stepbrothers and send their eyes to their mother. He is more pleasantly remembered as the correspondent of the great poet Hāfiz¹, who sent him the ode beginning: