Twilight of the Sultanate c8.s1.29

c8.s1.29

Encouraged by the arrival of Sultan Mahmūd, Mallū Iqbāl thought it opportune to settle accounts with Jaunpur, and taking Mahmūd with him he started for Qannauj in A. D. 1402. On the way they learnt that Mubārak Shāh Sharqī had died at Jaunpur.²⁷ Iqbāl Khan could not have hoped for better news. But Ibrāhīm Sharqī who had succeeded Mubārak²⁸ was no less warlike than his deceased brother,²⁹ and hearing of Iqbāl Khan’s movements, he came up to the Ganga³⁰ and fought a few skirmishes with the Delhi army. As the two forces lay facing each other Sultan Mahmūd, to whom the gilded bonds at Delhi had become too galling, left on the pretence of going on a hunting expedition and went over to Ibrāhīm Sharqī in the hope of securing his help in removing his aggressive friend. But disappointment lay in store for him because Ibrāhīm did not treat him well. It would have been foolish for him to go back to Iqbāl, and so he avenged himself on the Sharqī ruler by attacking and occupying Qannauj where he began to reside. His defection weakened Iqbāl Khan’s position and he returned to Delhi, while the newly crowned king of Jaunpur acquiescing in Mahmūd’s occupation of Qannauj, probably because it provided a distraction to Iqbāl Khan, also went back to Jaunpur. Iqbāl Khan could never forgive Sultan Mahmūd’s “treachery”, and three years later he led an attack against Qannauj.