Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c7.s4.2

v1.c7.s4.2

The kernel of the Ruhela power in Northern India was a village at the south-western corner of the Barily district, just across the north-eastern frontier of the district of Budāun. This was acquired early in the 18th century by Dāud, an Afghān soldier of fortune coming from the Qandahār province. By hiring himself and his band of Afghān adventurers out at first to the landowners and then to the imperial governor of that country, Dāud laid the humble foundations of an estate. On his death (c. 1721), his adopted son Ali Muhammad Khān (a converted Jāt boy) succeeded to the command of his retainers and to his programme of ambition. By serving the imperial faujdār of Murādābād at times, but more often by dispossessing the local zamindārs and jāgirdārs, Ali Muhammad soon built up a fairly large estate in the Barily district, with its chief seat at Aonla, a village 18 miles south-west of Barily city and close to the northern border of the Budāun district.