The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.77

v3.c29.77

Ibrāhīm changed his policy at the same time, and with some reason began to regard ‘Alī ‘Ādil Shāh’s southern conquests as a more real and present danger than the menace to Bīdar. Sayyid Shāh Mīrzā, his envoy, was authorized to conclude an alliance with Murtazā and to offer a subsidy of 20,000 *hūns* daily for any army invading the kingdom of Bījāpur, and an agent from Venkatādri promised a contribution of 900,000 *hūns* towards the expenses of a war on ‘Alī. Sayyid Shāh Mīrzā found Chingīz Khān inaccessible to a bribe of 200,000 *hūns*, to be paid for a guarantee that Murtazā should be restrained from attacking Bīdar, and revenged himself by compassing his destruction. He found a willing confederate in Husain, the king’s vile favourite, whom the minister had severely punished for some insolence, and who warned his master that Chingīz Khān was scheming to establish his independence in Berar, and, when the king scouted the malicious accusation, appealed for corroboration to Sayyid Shāh Mīrzā. The envoy, by ingeniously marshalling some specious evidence, persuaded the king of his minister’s guilt, and Murtazā caused his faithful servant to be poisoned. He died in 1575, leaving a letter protesting his innocence and commending to his ungrateful master the foreigners in his service. His innocence was established after his death, and his master, overcome with grief and shame, expelled the envoy from his court and withdrew from affairs, on the ground that God had withheld from him the faculty of discriminating between truth and falsehood, and of executing righteous judgement, but his infatuation for the worthless Husain remained unchanged. The administration of the kingdom fell into the hands of Salābat Khān the Circassian and Sayyid Murtazā of Sabzavār.