Later Mughals v2.c14.s8: Sec. 33.—Muhammad Shah as an Indian Solomon.
Later Mughals v2.c14.s8
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Sec. 33.—Muhammad Shah as an Indian Solomon.
v2.c14.s8.1
As a curious instance of then prevailing ideas of justice we introduce here a case which cropped up in Rajab 1137 H. (March-April 1725). Three or four years before one Ramji, a clerk in the imperial offices, had become a Muhammadan, but his wife and daughter refused to follow him. He now laid a complaint before the chief Qazi Mustafid Khan, to the effect that when he changed his religion his daughter was a minor and therefore *ipso facto* became a Muhammadan without having any choice in the matter. On being sent for, the girl denied everything and was sent to prison while enquiries were made. In the end she admitted that the signs of puberty had appeared three months after her father's conversion. Thereupon the chief Qazi and the expounders of the law recorded an opinion that the girl was a Muhammadan. The Hindus of the Urdu Bazar gathered in a crowd below the Emperor's lattice window and shouted for redress. The dispute was committed to Mir Jumla, then Sadar-us-sadur, or chief almoner, and he opened an enquiry at the wooden mosque within the palace. The Sadar held that the menses are not the only signs of puberty; although one mufti named Daulat grew hot and angry and contested his finding. By the Emperor's order the girl was made over for safe custody to Jiwan Das, a Hindu cloth-seller, in case the Qazi might refuse to produce her.
v2.c14.s8.2
This result was far from pleasing to the Muhammadans. Next day, a Friday, fifty or sixty thousand of them assembled at the great mosque usually known as the World's Wonder (Jahan-numa). With shouts and cries they hindered the recital of the khutba or prayer for the Emperor's welfare, next they seized two or three Hindus and forcibly circumcised them, and a great riot was on the point of commencing. Roshan-ud-daulah the third Bakhshi was sent to bring the chief Qazi and the muftis. To pacify them Muhammad Shah ordered the girl to be imprisoned, and two or three days after she was buried according to Muhammadan rites. "To make a long story short, she was killed, otherwise there would have been many headaches and much vexation." The poll-tax on un-believers was re-instituted as a sop to the Muhammadans; but in a week the chief Qazi was removed and other muftis appointed. The life of the poor young girl was as nothing compared to the ease and comfort of the Emperor and his advisers! [Kamwar, Rustam Ali 245a differs.]