Twilight of the Sultanate c15.s3.7

c15.s3.7

On their way to the east, the royal army was ambushed at Bangarmau near Qannauj.⁹⁵ Iqbāl Khan, a cavalry commander (Khasa Khail) of Āzam Humayūn Lodī, suddenly came out of his ambush with 5,000 and killed and wounded a large number of royalists (A. D. 1519).⁹⁶ This discomfiture evoked a just reprimand from the Sultan, who, while sending them fresh reinforcements, warned them not to return without achieving their objective.⁹⁷ Stung to the quick and sufficiently strengthened, the royalists resumed their march. The rebel forces by now had swelled to 40,000 horse and 500 elephants.⁹⁸ As the two armies lay facing each other, everybody could see that the battle was going to be sanguinary. Shaikh Yūsuf Qattāl, a leading contemporary saint,⁹⁹ intervened between them and advised the rebels to come to terms with the Monarch. They agreed to do so on the condition that Aʻzam Humayūn Sarwānī was released from prison,¹⁰⁰ but the Sultan, who insisted on their unconditional surrender, refused to come to terms with them. At the same time he ordered Dariyā Khan Nūhānī, governor of Bihar, Nāsir Khan Nūhānī of Ghazīpur and Shaikhzādā Muhammad Farmūlī to advance upon the rebels from the east. With their advance the rebel forces were sandwiched between two loyal armies. The forces fighting on the side of the Sultanate were now in a position of vantage which they had gained through the initiative of the Sultan as well as the complacency of the enemy. On the day of the battle the two sides were locked in mortal conflict, “and shed such streams of blood, that the eyes of the age became blind and old an beholding it”.¹⁰¹ In the words of Niʻāmatulla, “For many years such a sanguinary action had not occurred in Hindustan. … Dead bodies, heap upon heap, covered the field, … and streams of blood ran over the plain. Brother against brother, and father against son, urged by mutual rivalry and inborn bravery, mixed in the conflict; and restraining their hands from long arrow and spear, they contended only with dagger, sword and knife. In that battle 10,000 gallant Afghans fell on both sides.”¹⁰² Islām Khan was killed and Saʻīd Khan with a number of rebel chiefs was captured by the soldiers of Dariyā Khan Nūhānī.¹⁰³ Thus the rebel forces were utterly routed, and the insurrection suppressed. All chroniclers have moralised on the ingratitude of the rebels,¹⁰⁴ but none has blamed the cruelty and obstinacy of the Sultan in fanning this civil war. He might have found satisfaction in the fact that this war had broken the backbone of the rebellious nobility. In fact he felt exceedingly happy on the occasion and profusely rewarded those who had fought on his side.¹⁰⁵ Little did he realise that such a great conflict, in which the flower of the army had been lost, was bound to affect the strength and stability of his own Empire.