Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c7.s3: § 3. Muhammad Bangash of Farrukhabad
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c7.s3
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§ 3. Muhammad Bangash of Farrukhabad
v1.c7.s3.1
A second detached area was occupied by the Afghāns of the extreme south-west, i.e., the district immediately south of Rohilkhand proper. This was the domain created by a highly gifted and successful soldier of fortune, Muhammad Khān Bangash, who lived to rise to the highest rank in the Mughal peerage. The area in his possession varied greatly from time to time, but at its greatest extent it included the whole district of Farrukhābād, the western half of Cawnpur, nearly the whole of Mainpuri and Etāh, two parganahs of Budāun and parts of the Shāhjahānpur, Aligarh and Etāwa districts, some 7500 square miles in all. His family belonged to the Kāghazāi Karlāi clan of the Bangash country in Eastern Afghānistān (i.e., the modern Kohat, Kuram and Paiwar), but he was born at Mau-Rashidābād (now named Qāimganj), a village in the Farrukhābād district, about 1665. At the age of twenty he joined the Pathān freebooters who used to come every year to Katehr and hire themselves out to the local Hindu chieftains in their perpetual intestine wars. In time he rose to be himself a successful leader of mercenaries. His chance came when he sided with Farrukhsiyar in that prince’s bid for the Delhi throne (1713). Thereafter his rise was rapid and unbounded. He became a first-grade *mansabdār*, a Nawāb, and imperial viceroy over highly important provinces like Allahabad and Mālwa. His capital was Farrukhābād, a city founded by him in 1714 and named after his patron. On his death (1743) his eldest son, Qāim Khān, succeeded as Nawāb of the principality.
v1.c7.s3.2
“Muhammad Khān was indeed a man of great energy. His habits were plain and soldierlike. He always wore clothes of the coarsest stuff. In his audience-hall and his house, the only carpets were rows of common mats. He never boasted, and his manner was not overbearing. His hospitality was great. But . . . we find vices which more than counter-balanced these virtues. Muhammad was cruel and vindictive. In the matter of the fair sex he was far more licentious than becomes a great man." (Irvine, *Farrukh. Gaz.* 157). His harem included only one legitimate wife and 2,600 women of another category. But his territories lacked the homogeneity and strength of the Ruhela State across his eastern border, because they were inhabited merely by a lord and his tenantry and did not form a compact tribal brotherhood with perfect cohesion among all its chiefs and their retainers.