Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c24.s4.11

v2.c24.s4.11

But there was no escape for her. On 5th April she was taken, decked as a bride, to Ahmad Shah’s tents; Mālika-i-zamāni and Sāhiba Mahal (widows of Muhammad Shah) and Muhtaram-un-nisā (a daughter of the late Emperor Ahmad and a nursling of Mālika-i-zamāni from her infancy) accompanied the weeping bride in exile out of India. Other Delhi princesses present in the retreating Afghan camp were Alamgir II’s daughter Gauhar-un-nisā the wife of Timur Shah, and Aiffat-un-nisā the daughter of Dāwar Bakhsh and great-grand-daughter of Aurangzib whom Nādir Shah had married to his son Nasrullah in 1739 and whom Ahmad Abdali had taken to his bed after the murder of Nādir. With this party went 16 other ladies of the Delhi harem, but 400 maidservants who were being dragged away with their mistresses escaped from the way and dispersed to their homes. A Marathi letter reports, "The Pathan has taken away the handsome wives of the amirs and of [other] people, and sent them off to Lahor." [*TALS.* 109*b*—111*b*, 113*a*, 112*a*, 114*b*. *DC.* *SPD.* xxi. 118, 98, xxvii. 152. *Raj.* i. 63.]