Indian Antiquary Vol 47

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 128

124
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1918
Khandesh. had imprisoned his younger brother, Latif Khân. Latif Khân was now dead but had left a son, Mahmûd, and a deputation from Gujarat, headed by the amir Ikhtiyar Klan, waited on Mubarak Shah and demanded the surrender of Mahmûd. The demand was a disappointment to Mubarak, who had hoped that the choice of the amirs of Gujarat would fall on him, and he demurred to surrendering Mahmûd but, on the amirs of Gujarat assembling their forces and assuming a threatening attitude, delivered him to Ikhtiyar Klân, who carried him off to Gujarat and there enthroned him as Mabmûd III. The history of Gujarât during the early part of Mahmûd's reign is the history of contests between the leading amirs of the kingdom for the possession of the king's person and the regency which such possession involved and two amirs entitled "Imad-al-Mulk and Darya Khân, having slain Ikhtiyâr Khân, quarrellod with one another. Imad-al-Mulk was worsted by his confederate in the contest for the possession of the young king and fled to Khandesh, where he took refuge with Mubarak Shah. Daryâ Kân and Mahmûd III pursued him and were met by Mubarak at Dankri. Mubarak was defeated but the Gujaratis refrained from following up their success and 'Imad-al-Mulk fled to Mândû and took refuge with Qadir Khân, one of the old amirs of the Khalji kings of Mâlwa who, on the expulsion and retirement of Humâyûn's officers from Mâlwa, had assumed the government of the country and entitled himself Qadir Shah. According to Firishta, 19 Mahmûd now, in fulfilment of a promise which he had made to Mubarak when they were fellow-prisoners in Asirgach during the life-time of Bahadur and Muhammad, surrendered to Klandesh the town and district of Nandurbâr.
It was in Mubarak's reign that the army of Khandesh first measured swords with the troops of Akbar, and defeated them. In 1561 an imperial army under the command of Adham Klân, Akbar's foster-brother, conquered Målwa and expelled Båz Bahadur, the son and successor of Shujâ'at Khân, Shir Shah's viceroy of that province, who had assumed independence as the power of the short-lived Sûr dynasty of Dihlf declined. Baz Bahadur took refuge in Burhânpûr, and was followed thither in 1562 by the brutal Pir Muhammad Khân, Akbar's governor of Malwa, who committed the most terrible atrocities in Khandesh, plundering and laying waste the country and slaughtering its inhabitants without regard to age or sex. He captured Burhanpûr and ordered a general massacre of its inhabitants in which many pious and learned men perished. Mubarak and Bâz Bahadur shut themselves up in Asîrgarh and Tufal Khan, who had usurped the government of Berar and imprisoned Darya Shah, the last of the 'Imad Shâhi dynasty, came to their assistance. The allies niarched to attack Pir Muhammad who, anxious to save the plunder which he had collected, retired before them without fighting. On reaching the Narbada Pir Muhammad and his officers were attacked and defeated by their pursuers and fled in confusion across the river, in which Pir Muhammad was drowned. All historians agree in regarding his fate as God's judgment on the atrocities which he had committed in Malwa and, above all, in Krändesh. As Budoni says, "the sighs of orphans, the weak, and the captives did their work with him." As a result of the defeat of Pir Muhammad Bâz Bahadur temporarily regained possession of Måndů.
(To be continued)
19 ii, 569.