History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v1.c9.8

v1.c9.8

On the public side of the Prince’s career from 1650 a new and copious source of information is opened to the historian by the *Adab-i-Alamgiri*. Aurangzib took into his service an elegant and facile secretary, Shaikh Abul Fath, afterwards raised to the title of Qabil Khan and the high post of *Munshi-ul-mamalik* ("Secretary of the Empire") when his master won the throne of Delhi. The scribe served the Prince for 26 years and retired only when failing eye-sight made him unfit for his task.‡ He kept copies of all the letters he wrote in the name of Aurangzib to the Emperor, the princes, ministers, and generals, and of certain other epistles written to them on his own behalf. These number more than six hundred and fill 427 pages of a foolscap folio manuscript, with 23 lines to the page. They cover the entire period from 1650 to the dethronement and captivity of Shah Jahan. From the commencement of the second siege of Qandahar the letters become more full and frequent, and we get a detailed and most authentic account of Aurangzib’s efforts at Qandahar, his feeling at his father’s censure, his financial difficulties in the Deccan, the administrative problems that he handled there, the crooked ways of Mughal diplomacy with Bijapur and Golkonda,—and lastly, of his hopes and fears, plans and movements during the war of succession, and his relations with his captive father. Half a century later, Sadiq of Ambala collected Qabil Khan’s drafts, supplemented them with a history of the war of succession extracted from the *Amal-i-Salih* and the *Alamgir-namah*, added 131 letters* which he himself had written as secretary to the luckless prince Muhammad Akbar, and published the whole to the world. In the Khuda Bakhsh MS. the collection forms a folio volume of 586 pages, of inestimable value to the historian of the epoch.†