Later Mughals v1.c6.s1.t1: Muhammad Muazzam (Shah Alam)
Later Mughals v1.c6.s1.t1
- Language
- English
Muhammad Muazzam (Shah Alam)
v1.c6.s1.t1.1
After the imprisonment and death of his elder brother, Sultan Muhammad, the second son, Muhammad Muazzam, became heir-apparent. The latter, in the early part of his father's reign, from 1664, was actively employed in the Dakhin against the Mahrattas and the Muhammadan kingdom of Bijapur. In 1683-4 he commanded an army in the Konkan without much success and then served under his father at the siege of Golkonda. Aurangzeb's suspicious nature is sufficiently notorious: and his intrigues against his father had prepared him to expect a similar conduct on the part of his own children. More than twenty years before this period, Muhammad Muazzam had been suspected of intriguing for power at the time of his father's temporary illness. During the siege of Golkonda, some communications passed between Abul Hasan the ruler of that place and the Prince. These messages referred to a proposed intercession for peace to be made through Mhd. Muazzam. Aurangzeb assumed that they were of a disloyal nature and at once placed his son under arrest, (4th March, 1687.)*
v1.c6.s1.t1.2
Muhammad Muazzam was kept a prisoner for nearly seven years during the whole of which time he behaved with the utmost discretion, showing throughout the most complete outward humility and resignation. After applying various tests, Alamgir readmitted his son to partial favour. His two eldest sons Muizz-ud-din and Mhd. Azim were released and appointed to commands. In 1695 Muhammad Muazzam (styled in his father's lifetime Shah Alam) was himself released, and on the 9th Shawwal 1106 (24th May 1695) sent as governor to Akbarabad. He passed one year (up to 24th July 1696) in Agra, proceeding thence to Lahor, Multan and Uch. On the death of Amir Khan, the subahdar of Kabul, he assumed the government of that province, reaching the city of Kabul on 4th June 1699 after a march by way of Jhang, Peshawar, the Khaibar Pass, Jalalabad and Jagdalak. For eight years the hot season was spent in Kabul and the cold weather at Jalalabad or Peshawar or in marches through the country. On the 25th Nov. 1706 he pitched his camp at Jamrud twelve miles west of Peshawar and he was still there when he heard first of the illness and then of the death of his father at Ahmadnagar in the Dakhin. The Prince's two youngest sons Rafi-ul-qadr and Khujista-Akhtar were then with him, the eldest Muizz-ud-din was at Multan, and the second Muhammad Azim on his way from his Government in Bihar to his grandfather's camp in the Dakhin.*
v1.c6.s1.t1.3
∗ The story of his Konkan expedition and arrest is told, with references to authorities, in Sarkar's History of Aurangzib, vol. iv. ch. 44 and 47. The story of the relaxation of his captivity, in Khafi Khan, ii. 397-398, 404, 407-418, 437, 443 and M.A. 335, 341-351, 370-373. [J.S.]