Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s1.1

v2.c21.s1.1

The successor of Ahmad Shah on the throne of Delhi was an old man of fifty-five. He was the youngest son of the Emperor Muiz-ud-din Jahandar Shah, and therefore a grandson of Shah Alam I. Born at Multan on June 6, 1699, he had lost his father at the age of fourteen, in the civil war which gave the crown to Farrukhsiyar. Since then he had passed his days in poverty and neglect, mewed up in the rooms of the "Emperors' grandsons" (*deorhi-i-salatin*) within the Delhi fort. He had been denied any opportunity for learning war or administration, or acquiring practical experience of the open outer world, but had wisely guarded himself from vice by devoting his time to study and meditation. He had chosen for his ideal the Emperor Aurangzib (Alamgir I), whose title he adopted on ascending the throne. Like Aurangzib he loved to read books on history and shunned the usual diversions of royalty, such as dance and song. Like Aurangzib, too, he made it a point to say his five daily prayers in the outer palace mosque and the Friday afternoon prayer in full congregation in the Jāma‘ Masjid of the capital. He knew by rote the administrative rules and practice of the great Aurangzib, and his aim was to follow these to the letter. Condemning the slack and undignified conduct of his two immediate predecessors,—who used to sit in an open sedan chair held up on men’s shoulders when granting audiences,—Alamgir II laid it down that he would hold only regular *darbars* seated on the imperial throne in the Hall of Audience. Imitating the strenuous life of Aurangzib, he used to read all petitions, and even passports, and sign the orders on them. [*TALS.* 4b-5a, *Mux.* 98.]