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History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c66: Chapter XLVI

History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c66

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Chapter XLVI

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THE DECLINE OF THE QUTB SHAHS.

§ 1. Reign of Abdullah Qutb Shah, 1626-1672.

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Abdullah Qutb Shah, the 6th king of Golkonda, had succeeded his father in 1626, at the age of twelve, and reigned for 46 years, during the whole of which he was a mere puppet on the throne. The actual administration was conducted for more than 40 years by his mother, Hayat Bakhsh Begam, a lady of strong character, the imperious daughter of one king, wife of another and mother of a third. After her death (12th Feb., 1667), Abdullah was swayed entirely by his eldest son-in-law Sayyid Ahmad.

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The clever diplomacy of these two had for half a century saved the Qutb-Shahi State from being annexed by the Mughals. But it was only a temporary respite, and the dissolution of the kingdom was inevitable. Abdullah was throughout life, indolent and almost imbecile, and his narrow escape from capture and assassination by Aurangzib's army in 1656 had given him such a fright that Bernier noted eleven years afterwards, "The King has lost all mental energy and has ceased to hold the reins of government. He never appears in public to give audience and administer justice according to the custom of the country, nor does he venture outside the walls of the fortress Golkonda. Confusion and misrule are the natural and unavoidable consequences of this state of things. The grandees, totally disregarding the commands of a monarch for whom they no longer feel either affection or respect, exercise a disgusting tyranny.'' (Bernier, 194-195.)

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Nor was the state of things any better within the palace. The worthless king spent his time in the company of dancing-girls, practising ingenious forms of sensuality, while his family was torn by discord between rival factions. (Tavernier, i. 158.) Abdullah had no son, but three daughters, the second of whom had been married to Aurangzib's son Muhammad Sultan, and the first to Sayyid Ahmad, who claimed descent from one of the noblest families of Mecca and who rose by his ability to the position of prime minister and *de facto* ruler of the State. It was proposed to marry the third princess to Sayyid Sultan, a protege of Sayyid Ahmad and a former disciple of Ahmad's learned father. But a quarrel broke out between the two as the result of Sayyid Sultan scoffing at the pedigree of Sayyid Ahmad. At last feelings were so embittered in consequence that, on the day proposed for the marriage, Sayyid Ahmad told Abdullah that if he gave his daughter to Sayyid Sultan, he would at once leave the kingdom. The weak king could not lose his long accustomed support, nor disoblige his beloved eldest daughter, and so the expectant bridegroom was suddenly stripped of his gala dress and expelled the city, and his house was looted by the ruffians under royal orders! A hurried search was made for another match for the princess in order to marry her without fail at the moment selected by the astrologers. The choice of the palace agents fell on Abul Hasan, a youth descended on his father's side from the Qutb-Shahi family, who had spent the last 16 years in the lazy pampered life of a monk by entering himself as a disciple of the saint Sayyid Raju Qattal. On account of his low tastes, dirty habits and debauched life, the Court and the gentry had shunned him. But he had pleased his master by his devoted attendance, and a story is told that the saint on the eve of the marriage-day had laughingly daubed Abul Hasan with red clay, saying "Thus I dye your fingers with henna like a bridegroom's." The words of a holy man are prophetic; next day the royal emissaries, instructed by the ladies of the harem, came to the hermitage, seized Abul Hasan, dragged him to a hot bath, washed him clean, smeared him with scents, clad him in the wedding robes made for Sayyid Sultan and led him on a richly caparisoned horse with music and lights to the palace, where he was forthwith married to the princess. (Qutb-numa, 90-94.)

§ 2. Succession of Abul Hasan and ministry of Madanna.

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On 21st April, 1672, Abdullah died, and at once there arose a dispute for the succession. Sayyid Ahmad* claimed the throne as the husband of the late king's eldest daughter, Mā Sahib, and that lady armed her foreign slave-girls and stood within the palace sword in hand to defend her rights. But Sayyid Ahmad during his long wazir-ship had made many enemies at Court by his pride and harshness, —possibly also by his administrative vigour, while the easy pleasure-loving character of Abul Hasan promised a golden age to the dishonest courtiers and self-seeking officials if he could be seated on the throne. After some confusion and fighting, Sayyid Muzaffar, a leading general of high Persian origin, supported by Musa Khan mahaldar and several other officers of the harem, overpowered Sayyid Ahmad and forced him into prison. Abul Hasan was crowned king, Muzaffar becoming his prime minister. But the new wazir's greed of power and policy of turning his master into a cypher, exasperated the king. Abul Hasan bought over Madanna, the Brahman *factotum* of Muzaffar, and through him corrupted most of the captains of his personal followers, so that one day Muzaffar was quietly deprived of his wazir-ship, which was conferred on Madanna, with the title of Surya Prakash Rao.

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∗ Tavernier calls him 'a prince of Arabia', 'a relative of the Grand Shaikh of Mecca' (i. 161—162.) Azad Bilgrami alleges that he was the offspring of a runaway marriage between Sayyid Masum (a scholar and devotee of Persia) and a sister of Shah Abbas II, and that his full name was Sayyid Nizam-ud-din Ahmad of Najaf. Fryer says (i. 83—84) that Abul Hasan was chosen as heir by the king of Golkonda at the instigation of Sayyid Muzaffar. For the Golkonda succession, K. K. ii. 309—313 (full.) M.A. 143 calls Abul Hasan "brother's son to Abdullah," but the word brother is loosely used in India for any kind of cousin.

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This change of ministers took place about 1673 and Madanna's rule continued till his own assassination in 1686, on the eve of the fall of the kingdom. His brother Akkanna became commander-in-chief and his nephew, the gallant and learned Yengana surnamed Rustam Rao, was given a high command. Musa Khan, too, was sent into retirement and Muhammad Ibrahim, a creature of Madanna, was first created *sar-i-khel* (Master of the Horse) and then premier peer ("great Nawab") for a bribe of one *lakh* and ten thousand *hun* paid to Madanna.

§ 3. Madanna's pro-Maratha policy.

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During the twelve years of Madanna's ministry the internal administration of the country was marked by the same disorder and tyranny as in the reign of Abdullah, and matters naturally declined from bad to worse. As the English at Madras wrote on 23rd July 1676, "Madanna has sole control, and nothing is thought of but peeling and squeezing the people. . . . The government of the country (i.e., the Karnatak) is now in so bad hands that nothing but fraud and oppression, and so void of shame that no credit can be given to either agreements, promises, qauls or farmans." (Love, i. 356-357.) With a grasping and suspicious paramount Power, a sensual king, a venal aristocracy, and an ignorant and timid people, the reform of the kingdom was hopeless.

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In foreign affairs, ever since the extinction of the Nizam-Shahi dynasty in 1636, the Deccan Powers had but one absorbing thought,—How to avert the approaching annexation by the Mughals? For this the Qutb Shahs had very wisely professed lip-obedience to the Emperor of Delhi, but secretly helped Adil Shah with money and assembled their forces on the frontier as a threat to the aggressor, every time the Mughals had tried to invade Bijapur. No Mughal general could undertake such an invasion without running the risk of a Golkonda army raiding the imperial dominions or attacking the Mughal expeditionary force from two sides in concert with the Bijapuris.

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Madanna continued the same foreign policy with a necessary variation. There was no estrangement from the Adil-Shahi Government, but that Court was now the scene of chaos, faction-fights and changes of regency, so that co-operation by that weak and unsteady State was practically impossible and would have been useless. Madanna, therefore, built his hopes of national defence chiefly on a close alliance with the ever-victorious Maratha king. In 1677 he had given Shivaji a more than royal welcome on his visit to Haidarabad and promised him a regular subsidy of one lakh of hun for the defence of Golkonda. After Shivaji's death the alliance had been renewed with his successor and the subsidy continued.

§ 4. Mughal treatment of Golkonda king.

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The Qutb-Shahi kingdom was badly situated for defending itself. Its northern frontier, adjoining the Mughal dominion, was an open plain, without any natural stronghold, inaccessible mountain, or barren and arid belt like those that protected Bijapur on the north. But so long as Bijapur stood, Golkonda was safe. (Fryer, ii. 51.) Aurangzib knew it, and therefore did not try to annex the latter first. Nor was it necessary for him to do so. As Bernier noted, "Aurangzib has no great inducement to march troops into that kingdom (Golkonda), which he probably considers as his own. It has long been tributary to the Mughal . . . Aurangzib's ordinary ambassador at the Court of Golkonda issues his commands, grants passports, menaces and ill-treats the people, and in short, speaks and acts with the uncontrolled authority of an absolute sovereign.” (194-195.)

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The Emperor found it more profitable and cheaper to fleece and terrorize the Qutb-Shahi Government than to extinguish it. The Mughal “Resident” at Haidarabad domineered over the king and the people, insulted and taxed them, but without provoking armed protest. Mirza Muhammad, an exceptionally rude and heartless envoy, was sent by Aurangzib to Abul Hasan expressly for the purpose of goading him into defiance and thus giving the Emperor a valid pretext for exterminating him. As he told the envoy, “I am not really sending you there to get these useless bits of stone (namely, two famous diamonds possessed by Qutb Shah) which I do not care for. My sole intention is that you should not humour him, but bandy words with him so fearlessly that he too may be harsh to you and thus give me a justification for extirpating him. As far as possible quarrel with him, and never treat him politely in private or public.” (K.K. ii. 294.)

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But like Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Oudh, of whom Dalhousie wrote that he “would not offend or quarrel with us (the English) and took any amount of kicking without being rebellious,"—the last Sultan of Golkonda refused to be hustled into a war by his enemy's ambassador. His ignoble clinging to a throne that gave him ease at the expense of honour, was redeemed only by an inborn courtesy and readiness of speech which often gave him the best of any wrangle with the Mughal envoy. One day Abul Hasan mildly protested against the habitual insolence of Mirza Muhammad's address to him, saying "I too am called Emperor in my own country." The haughty envoy retorted, "It does not become you to assume the title of Emperor. If Aurangzib hears of it, he will become more angry." Abul Hasan promptly replied, "You chide me by mistake. If we are not to be called Padishahs, how can Aurangzib be styled the Padishah of Padishahs?" And the Mughal envoy had to admit to his friends that the repartee totally silenced him. (K.K. ii. 295.)

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From the thoughts of these humiliations and the impending ruin of his house, Abul Hasan, like Wajid Ali Shah, sought distraction or oblivion by plunging into unrelieved sensuality, (Fryer, i. 85.) Resigning his royal functions to his wazir, Madanna, he shut himself up in his palace with a host of concubines and dancing-girls. Under his predecessor, Haidarabad had become the Indian Babylon, with its twenty thousand public women (who had to dance before the king in the public square every Friday) and its countless taverns, close to these women’s quarters, where 1200 large leather bottles of fermented palm-juice were consumed daily. (Tavernier, i. 157-158.) But he also promoted several fine arts contributory to luxury; he settled in his capital and supported by his bounty skilled craftsmen of various kinds whose exquisite manufactures were famous throughout India. The king’s own skill in music was of no mean order. He was rightly called Tana Shah or "the dainty king." (Chahar Gulshan, 91b-92a.)

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§ 5. Why Aurangzib wanted to annex Haidarabad.

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The enormous wealth of the country was derived from its well-watered fields which at once arrest the eye by their greenness and abundance of tropical fruits as the traveller enters the State from the arid and sterile region round Bijapur, its rich mines of diamond and iron, and its prosperous ports on the east coast from Chicacole southwards to St. Thome. The king had a secure income of 2¾ krores of Rupees, which could easily maintain all his personal luxury and at the same time pay for the inglorious defence of his country by the arms of a subsidized ally. This wealth became the cause of his ruin after Bijapur had fallen and Mughal imperialistic ambition hungered for fresh food.

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For nearly thirty years after Aurangzib's accession to the throne, the kingdom of Golkonda had enjoyed respite from Mughal attack. It had not been so openly hostile to the empire as Bijapur, and the pre-occupation of the Mughals with Shivaji and his patron Adil Shah had prevented them from turning to Golkonda. Qutb Shah had also paid tribute to the imperial Government more regularly than the Sultan of Bijapur.

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But his attitude to his suzerain had been one of covert disloyalty bursting, on three occasions, into open rebellion, though varied by the offer of presents at intervals. His faults were many. First, the war-indemnity promised in the treaty of April 1656 (ante, i. Ch. 10 § 12) and the older annual tribute of two lakhs of hun, were perpetually in arrears; but that was the normal condition of vassal States during the Mughal period.. Secondly, for a long time past he had made persistent attempts to keep in his own hands the extensive jagir,—almost equivalent to a kingdom,—which Mir Jumla had won in the Karnatak when in his service, (ante, i. Ch. 10 § 14,) and he had taken advantage of the war of succession among Shah Jahan's sons to wrest Gandikota and Sidhout from Mir Jumla's agents. But after the second anniversary of his coronation, Aurangzib had recovered these places. In more recent times, when the Mughals captured Kulbarga, in the declining days of Bijapur, the officers of Qutb Shah had seized Malkhed, Serum, and some other districts beyond their western border and politically appertaining to the new Mughal province of Bidar, after raising the false plea that these tracts had formerly belonged to Telingana and were therefore lawfully included in the kingdom of Golkonda. (K.K. ii. 293.)

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During the Mughal invasions of Bijapur under Jai Singh in 1665-6, under Dilir Khan in 1679 and under Prince Muhammad Azam in 1685, the Sultan of Golkonda had openly sent his troops to assist his brother in distress. The first two of these acts had been condoned, or atoned for by the payment of tribute. The last brought ruin on him.

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But, in the eyes of Aurangzib his worst offence was his fraternizing with infidels. He had effectively helped Shivaji with the sinews of war after his flight from Agra in 1666 and thus enabled him to recover his forts from the Mughals. Again, Qutb Shah had rapturously welcomed Shivaji on his visit to Haidarabad in 1677 and behaved like a humble vassal of the Maratha, placing a necklace of gems round his horse's neck and promising him an annual subsidy of one *lakh* of *hun* for the defence of his territory. Above all, he had made the Brahmans Madanna and Akkanna, his chief ministers, and thus allowed Hindu influence to predominate in his administration.*

§ 6. Rupture with the Mughals, 1685.

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The active help that he gave to Bijapur during its last siege brought his quarrel with the Mughals to a head and sealed his fate. Aurangzib had begun his attack on that fort (in March 1685) by warning Abul Hasan not to assist Sikandar Adil Shah in any way. Next, as a precaution he had, immediately after his arrival at Sholapur (24th May), detached Bahramand Khan to watch the Haidarabad frontier. In the imperial camp at Sholapur the two Golkonda envoys were kept under watch and their correspondence was opened by the Mughal police. At the end of June, a letter from Abul Hasan to these agents was intercepted, in which he had written, "The Emperor is a great man, and has acted magnanimously up to this time, but now, finding Sikandar a helpless orphan, he has laid siege to Bijapur and pressed him hard. It is, therefore, necessary that while the Bijapur army and Shambhu with his countless hordes are offering resistance from one side, I should, from this side, send 40,000 men under Khalilullah Khan to enter into the war. We shall then see on which front the Emperor can meet and repel his enemies." (B.S. 533; M.A. 259-260.)

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∗ As the Emperor wrote to his envoy at the Golkonda Court 'This luckless wretch (meaning Abul Hasan Qutb Shah) has given the supreme power in his State to a *kafir* and made Sayyids Shaikhs and scholars subject to that man He has publicly allowed (in his realm) all kinds of sin and vice (viz, taverns brothels and gambling houses) He himself is day and night sunk in the deadly sins through the intoxication of kingship and fails to distinguish between Islam and infidelity, justice and oppression sin and piety By refusing to respect God s commands and prohibitions, by sending aid to infidel Powers and by recently paying one lakh of hun to the *kafir* Shambhu he has made himself accursed before God and man ' (K K ii 328)

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At this clear proof of Qutb Shah's disloyalty, Aurangzib's anger boiled over. He at once (28 June, 1685), detached Prince Shah Alam with a vast army to march on Haidarabad, and ordered Khan-i-Jahan to advance from his outpost of Indi and join the Prince on the way, though he knew that this diversion of his forces would delay and hinder the success of the undertaking against Bijapur.

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This Mughal force marched south-eastwards along the north bank of the Bhima river. The 70 miles between Sholapur and Kulbarga were easily passed, as this country was imperial territory. Then Khan-i-Jahan, in charge of the advanced division, reached Malkhed, 25 miles further east, while the Prince kept 3 or 4 marches behind. But when the Mughal vanguard under Jan Nisar Khan approached Serum, 8 miles east of Malkhed, he found his path barred by a Golkonda army, variously estimated from 40,000 to 70,000 men, under Mir Muhammad Ibrahim, the premier peer, Shaikh Minhaj, and Madanna's gallant nephew Rustam Rao. The enveloping movement of the Deccani cavalry was defeated after hard fighting; but the Mughal advance was stopped and Jan Nisar Khan fell back on Malkhed. Every day there were skirmishes with the enemy, who hovered round the imperial army and tried to assail it at a disadvantage. In view of the enemy's superior numbers, Khan-i-Jahan ran up walls round his camp at Malkhed and practically stood a siege there. As Bhimsen writes, "He fought on the defensive, because it was difficult for him to advance one step." (Dil. 187.) After some time the Prince arrived on the scene* with the rest of the army. Some days were passed in negotiations, but the Deccani generals insolently rejected the Prince's offer to secure a pardon for Abul Hasan on condition of his submitting to the Emperor.

§ 7. Battles near Malkhed.

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The Mughals deposited their baggage at Malkhed and their Van again advanced under Khan-i-Jahan to hack a way towards Haidarabad. The Deccanis outnumbered this force as three to one; but the Mughal troops, especially those under Himmat Khan and Sayyid Abdullah Khan of Barha, fought with obstinate bravery, and, in spite of heavy losses, always succeeded in beating the Deccanis back at the end of the day. Khan-i-Jahan himself was attacked by a Golkonda captain named Bari Khan, who was celebrated for his skill in throwing stones with the accuracy of a musketeer marksman; but the Mughal general shot him dead with an arrow. On one occasion a Mughal defeat is said to have been averted only when an infuriated elephant of Rajah Ram Singh was driven into the enemy's ranks, with a three maund iron chain swinging from its tusk, which unexpected charge caused the horses of several Deccani captains to rear and overthrow their riders. Each such encounter was followed by a halt of three or four days on the Mughal side. (K.K. ii. 296-298.)

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∗ *Dil* 187 says that Shah Alam started from the imperial camp at Sholapur after Khan-i-Jahan had been checked at Malkhed and had reported it to the Emperor. But *M.A.* 260 distinctly states that the Prince received marching orders on 28th June and Kh. J. about three weeks later. Ishwardas (89b) makes a mess of the whole campaign.

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It was already August, and the heavy rain caused great hardship to the Mughal troops and impeded their advance, while the Deccanis were reinforced by 10,000 fresh horsemen of Madanna's own contingent. Jan Nisar Khan, who had taken the mud-fort of Serum, was invested there by the enemy, but held out gallantly. In the daily fights that followed, both sides suffered heavy losses in killed and wounded. The Mughals, worn out with the day's murderous contest, had to rest content with a bare victory and had no strength left in them to pursue the vanquished. They were, besides, weakened by quarrels among their generals, by the resentment of Khan-i-Jahan at the Emperor censuring him for slackness, while younger officers like Itiqad Khan and Khwajah Abul Mukaram were openly praised for energy and courage, and finally by the tame and unenterprising spirit of their supreme commander, Shah Alam. It is also evident that these daily losses at last took the heart out of the Mughal soldiery. So, the imperial generals halted and wasted two months in the neighbourhood of Malkhed without fighting, their camp being occasionally fired upon by the enemy with rockets at night.

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Then a stinging rebuke from the Emperor and an unusually audacious act of sniping on the Prince's camp, roused him to seek battle again. After a very bloody contest the Deccanis were pushed back to their camp at noon, when the Prince very chivalrously granted them a few hours' respite to remove their women to a place of safety, as it was a war between men on both sides. Thereafter, the battle was renewed; but at sunset the Deccanis retreated, after Shaikh Minhaj and Rustam Rao had been wounded and both sides had suffered heavy losses. Next morning it was learnt that they had fled towards Haidarabad. The cause of this sudden break-down of the Deccani resistance was dissension between the commander-in-chief, Mir Muhammad Ibrahim, and his second in command, Shaikh Minhaj, and the seduction of the former by the Mughals. The Prince, being now unopposed, rapidly marched towards Haidarabad. It is said in some histories that Ibrahim’s intended treachery was suspected by the Golkonda Government and a plan was formed to arrest him, but he forestalled it by escaping to the Prince’s camp when the Mughals arrived in the vicinity of Haidarabad, in the beginning of October, 1685. (K.K. ii. 298-306; Dil. 189; Ishwardas, 91a.)

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The flight of the commander-in-chief paralysed the defence of Haidarabad. Though more than half the army and several generals were still loyal, Qutb Shah did not know whom to trust. Shaikh Minhaj told him that as Mir Ibrahim was Madanna’s protege the desertion of the general must have taken place with the consent of the prime minister, who also would take the same step soon. Losing faith in his long accustomed guide and all-powerful minister, the weak imbecile king thought only of securing his own safety. He fled to Golkonda, an impregnable fort, which had baffled Aurangzib thirty years ago and might do so now. Madanna very wisely advised him not to shut himself up in Golkonda, but to go to Warangal or some other distant fort, so that, in the event of Golkonda being besieged by the Mughals, he would be free to move about and reinforce its defenders. But this advice only deepened the king's suspicion of his wazir's sinister design as suggested by Shaikh Minhaj. (Dil. 190.)

§ 8. Second Mughal capture of Haidarabad City, 1685.

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The king's flight to Golkonda was so precipitate that all his property was left behind. When the people learnt that the city of Haidarabad was abandoned by the Government and that the enemy were at hand, there was a mad scramble to flee to the fort. "Thousands of high-born persons, who had no time to procure conveyances or remove their property, grasped the hands of their wives and children in bewilderment and, without giving them time to dress fully, ran towards Golkonda." The confusion was aggravated by the indiscriminate looting which began immediately. "A noise and tumult arose like that of doomsday. The royal property worth 4 or 5 krores of Rupees and the belongings of the soldiers who had left their families at Haidarabad began to be plundered at once." (K.K. ii. 306.)

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Some citizens removed to the fort, in the course of the night, whatever they could carry away on their own persons or by means of hired porters. But most people had to stay in their own houses, dazed and helpless, as Bhimsen found them a few days afterwards. The city presented the spectacle of a sack after assault by an enemy. "Before the news of the king's flight could reach Prince Shah Alam's camp, the ruffians and robbers of the city began to loot it. . . . . . In every ward, street, and market-place, there were lakhs of Rupees worth in cash, property, China-ware of the nobles and tradesmen, and carpets of the king and the aristocracy, besides horses and elephants. These were looted in the midst of a terrible uproar. Many Hindu and Muslim wives and children were kidnapped and some of them outraged. Rich carpets, too heavy to be carried off, were slashed with the sword or dagger and the pieces removed by the robbers . . . Even the doors were taken off their hinges." (Dil. 190; K.K. ii. 306-307.)

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Haidarabad was then the richest and most voluptuous city in the Deccan, the seat of a gorgeous Court, the home of many fine arts and an extensive trade, and the abode of twenty thousand women of pleasure; and its accumulated wealth was almost inexhaustible.

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Next day Shah Alam sent a party of his soldiers to protect the citizens, but these men themselves joined in the plunder! "So many tents were taken away from the city that in the Prince's camp no old tent could be seen." Fires lighted by the ruffians blazed in the city, destroying what had escaped plunder. After two days the Prince appointed Khan-i-Jahan to police the city, and he succeeded in restoring order to some extent. But, by that time, everything portable had disappeared, and the imperial provost-marshal (kotwal) and diwan, who were sent to attach the property of Abul Hasan, could secure only a small fraction of it. At this disappointing result Aurangzib grew angry with his son and suspected him of concealing the loot for his own use, or at least of showing culpable negligence in looking after the Emperor's interests. (Ibid.)

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The Mughal army made this its second entry into Haidarabad about 8th October 1685. The Prince first came by way of Dhobipettah (16 miles west of Haidarabad) to the Gagan-pahari suburb, and thence, after a few days, removed to the Gosha-mahal palace and garden of Abul Hasan, close to the fort. For some days after this date, Qutb Shah continued to send agents to the Prince, helplessly appealing to him to make peace and promising "to agree to every demand" of the Mughal Government. Many more Deccani nobles now deserted to the Prince, among them being Sharif-ul-mulk, the husband of Abul Hasan's sister.

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At the Prince's recommendation, which reached the Court on 18th October, the Emperor consented to pardon Abul Hasan on the following conditions: (1) He must pay one krore and 20 lakhs of Rupees in settlement of all past dues, and in addition a tribute of 2 lakhs of hun every year. (2) He must dismiss Madanna and Akkanna. (3) He must give up all claim to Malkhed and Serum, which the imperialists had already occupied. (Ishwardas, 91 a; Dil. 190-191; K.K. ii. 307; M.A. 267.)

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While the Prince was waiting for the fulfilment of these terms, a small party sent by Aurangzib approached the city, carrying costly rewards for Shah Alam and his chief officers, in recognition of their splendid success in capturing the enemy's capital. But the Golkonda administration was now in utter disorder, and every man acted for himself without obeying the king or his agents. At Munagal, 28 miles west of Haidarabad, the deputation was attacked by Shaikh Nizam and a body of Afghan mercenaries; and its leader Mir Abdul Karim was wounded and carried off into captivity, many of his followers were slain, and all the imperial gifts as well as the property of the traders who had joined the party in a caravan for the sake of the escort, were plundered (middle of November.) Qutb Shah disavowed and apologized for this outrage, released the captive Abdul Karim, and restored as much of the lost property as he could get out of the plunderers. (M.A. 268—9, Dil. 192, K.K. ii. 315.)

§ 9. Murder of Madanna, 1686.

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Shah Alam stayed for some months, first close to Golkonda and afterwards at Qutb Shah's request withdrew to Kuhir, (48 miles n. w. of it), waiting for the collection of the war-indemnity. Considering the ruined state of Golkonda finance and the disorder in the administration, this was no easy task. Abul Hasan put off the dismissal of Madanna as long as he could. At this his discontented nobles lost all patience. They regarded Madanna as the cause of all their sufferings at the hands of the Mughals,—"the cause of the ruin of the State and of the slaughter of Muslims and soldiers." In a day of national disaster, the popular fury naturally turns against the ministers who have failed to avert it, as John DeWitt of Holland had discovered to his cost only 13 years before this. A plot was formed against Madanna by the discontented Muslim nobles, whose leader was Shaikh Minhaj, and by Saruma and Jani Sahiba, the widows of Abdullah Qutb Shah, who now ruled over the king's harem with despotic powers. One night, early in March, 1686, just after Madanna had left his master's presence, he was set upon and murdered in the streets of Golkonda by Jamshid and other slaves, with the help of some of the minister's own guards who had been corrupted by the conspirators. Akkanna, who was with him, shared his brother's fate on the spot. Their brave and accomplished nephew, Rustam Rao,—whom Khafi Khan calls "a renowned master of the pen and the sword alike,"—was pursued to his house and there stabbed to death. The minister's family residences were plundered. Next, a general attack was made by the mob on the Hindu quarter of the fort and "many other Brahmans lost their lives and property in that night." (K. K. ii. 308; Ishwardas, 91 b; Dil. 191.)

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The Dowager Sultana now sent the heads of the obnoxious ministers to Aurangzib as the best of peace-offerings. The Emperor, being thus assured that henceforth Golkonda State counsels would not be swayed against the Mughal interests, and also wishing to bring the siege of Bijapur to a decisive issue, recalled Shah Alam to his side at Sholapur, where the Prince arrived on 7th June 1686. Five days later Qutb Shah's envoy was received in audience and presented 100 elephants on behalf of his master. Golkonda territory was now completely evacuated by the Mughals, and all the resources of the empire were concentrated against Bijapur. (M.A. 272—274.)

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Bijapur fell on the 12th September of that year, and its fall set the Mughal forces free to deal the death-blow at the Qutb-Shahi monarchy. At last the fateful hour had come,—the hour which the kings of Golkonda had dreaded for half a century, which they had so abjectly tried to avert, and which the last among them had tried to banish from his mind by drowning himself in sensual pleasure. Aurangzib was about to carry to completion what Akbar and Shah Jahan had merely dreamt of and he himself had fruitlessly sought during seventy years of his life: the Mughal empire was to embrace the whole of the Deccan without a rival.