________________
AUGUST, 1921] HISTORY OF THE NIZAM SHAHI KINGS OF AHMADNAGAR
231
Ibrâhîm Qutb Shah was still in his tent when he was awakened from his sleep by the shouts of the mail-clad warriors. He awoke from his sleep to perplexity, and finding that he could not withstand the foe, abandoned all idea of earning fame by valour in the fight, and leaving his insignia of royalty, all his horses and elephants, his tents, pavilions, and baggage, fled with a few courtiers, while his army, seeing that their king was not at their head, abandoned the fight, dispersed and fled. The army of Ahmadnagar, enriched with the gold and jewels and other spoils of the army of Golconda, came to the royal court. Besides these, large numbers of handsome slave boys and beautiful slave girls, of horses, and of elephant fell into their hands. After the royal share of the spoils had been set apart, the rest was remitted to the army.
When Ibrâhîm Qutb Shâh was fleeing in terror before the army of Ahmadnagar, his eldest, son, who was a young man of good understanding and great valour, offered to collect such of the troops as he could and to save as much as could be saved of the baggage, camp equipage, elephants and other establishments, and to bring what he could thus save to the royal camp. Ibrâhîm Qutb Shâh returned no answer to his son, but the young man's valour and boldness aroused in him such suspicion that when he arrived at his halting place he caused poison to be given to him and thus slew him178. Wise men attributed the ill-fortune that led him to murder his son to his constant bad faith with Murtaza Nizâm Shah.
The writer heard from Sayyid Khaibar Shah, Mir Tabâtaba, who was one of the most famous learned men of his time, and was at that time in close attendance on Ibrâhîm Qutb Shah, that when Ibrâhîm Qutb Shâh fled before the victorious army, he alone of all his attendants was with him. Ibrâhîm Qutb Shâh turned to him and said, 'These people, who have broken their treaty with me and turned our friendship into strife, will surely suffer in their faithlessness, will they not?' Sayyid Khaibar Shah made bold to say, 'It is that for this world for which we are suffering now, and we should now lose no time in escaping from this whirlpool of destruction, lest we be overtaken by punishment for what is past.'
After the rout of Ibrahim Qutb Shah's army, the victorious army of Ahmadnagar marched against the fortress of Udgir, besieged it, and took it by storm. Murtaza Nizâm Shah then placed one of his own officers in the fortress, with instructions to repair it. The king then returned in triumph to the capital with his army.
LXXVII.-AN ACCOUNT OF THE KING'S MARCH WITH HIS ARMY TO THE TOWN OF JUNNAR, AND OF HIS VISIT TO SHIVNER, AND OF THE EVENTS WHICH HAPPENED AT THIS TIME.
After the conclusion of peace between 'Ali 'Adil Shâh and Murtaza Nizam Shah and the flight of Ibrâhîm Qutb Shah, Shah Haidar and Shah Jamâl-ud-din Husain Injû, who were honoured by close attendance on and association with the king, were, by the royal command, associated with the administration of the state, and by their means the base actions of the Khankhânân were by degrees brought to the knowledge of the king, until he became estranged from and enraged with his servant, and the Khân khânân suffered the punishment which was his due for his ingratitude to Khanzah Humâyûn, and was, by the king's order, imprisoned in the fortress of Jond, the air of which is fouler than that of any other fort119.
178 The eldest son of Ibrahim Qutb Shah was 'Abdul Qadir. Ibrahim on his return to Golconda, caused him to be imprisoned in a fortress, and ultimately had him poisoned. F. ii. 260, 336.
179 Firishta says (ii. 261) that the two causes of the downfall of Multâ Husain Tabrizi, Khân khânânr were his having compassed the death of 'Inayatullah and his having counselled the plundering of Ibrahim Qutb Shah's camp. Sayyid 'All seems to have been, for some reason, a partisan of Khûnzah Humâyûn, but the Khân khânân's share in the destruction of the queen-mother's power can hardly have been imputed to him as an offence, for the measure had been not only a service to the State but a service to Murtaza Nizam Shah personally.