The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c28.21

v3.c28.21

Humāyūn's behaviour for the rest of his reign was that of a homicidal maniac. 'The torchbearer of his wrath ever consumed both Hindu and Muslim alike, the broker of his fury sold at one price the guilty and the innocent, and the executioner of his punishment slew whole families for a single fault.' Nobles summoned to court made their wills and bade their families farewell before leaving them, and the inmates of the harem were butchered in mere sportive brutality, but the most hideous of all his acts of oppression were the forcible abduction of the wives and children of his subjects and his exercise of the *droit du seigneur*. He earned the name of *Zālim*, ‘the Oppressor,’ by which he is still remembered by the Deccan, and tormented his subjects until ‘God the Most High, the Most Merciful, and the Succourer of them that seek aid answered the prayerful cries of his people’ and stretched the monster on a bed of sickness. On September 4, 1461, the tyrant died and his people were ‘freed from the talons of his tortures.’ It was understood that he had succumbed to his illness, but the best authority for his reign relates the true story of his death. He recovered, but the inmates of the harem could no longer endure his barbarity, and the eunuch Shihāb Khān suborned an African maid-servant to stab him to death when he was helpless with drink.