Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c23.1

v2.c23.1

Ali Quli Khan, Zafar Jang, popularly called the Six-fingered, from that excrescence on one of his hands, was sprung from an Abbaside princely family of Daghestan (a Persian province south of the Caspian.) His father's paternal uncle Fath Ali Khan rose to the chancellorship under Sultan Husain Safavi, and his father, Md. Ali Khan, held the high office of Beglar-begi of Irwan. Ali Quli (born at Isfahan in 1712) displayed a fine vein of poetry from early youth, and having fallen in love with Khadija Sultan (the daughter of his paternal uncle Hasan Ali) when at school with her, he addressed passionate odes to her,* which were collected in a volume of some popularity named Masnavi-i-Wala Sultan, his pseudonym being Wala. During the Afghan usurpation of Persia his fair cousin was snatched away before he could gain her hand, and she was afterwards taken into Nadir Shah's harem. So, in despair, Ali Quli migrated to India in 1734, and was appointed second Mir Tuzuk by the Emperor, with the title of Zafar Jang. In the next reign he became Khan-i-Zaman, and in that of