1 Alamgir proclaimed
2 Emperor, 1754.
3 The new emperor 2
4 devout man.
5 The enfoebled state
6 of the empire,
7 Yeath of Mir Manni,
8 wiveroy of the Panjab,
9 (aU.
10 Murad Begum, wi-
11 dow of Mir Manni.
12 Distracted state of
13 eee eenS The Panjab in
14 the namo of herinfant
15 son.
16 Murad Begum pro-
17 claims herself viceroy
18 of the Panjab.
19 Mir Bikhari Khan.
20 His cruel death.
21 2.26 HISTORY OF THE PANJAB. ;
22 of Muhammad Az-ud-din, son of Moz-ud-din Jahdndar Shah, on the throne,
23 Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jé&h Ghazi-ud-din Khan holding the same view, Az-ud-din
24 was called to the public hall of audience, and placed on the throne with the
25 title of Abul-Adl Az-ud-din Muhammad Alamgir Séni Bddshah-t-Ghazi.
26 The new emperor was an elderly man of fifty-five, having been born in 1699
27 A.D., in the 48rd year of the reign of Aurangzeb. He had five sons,
28 the eldest of whom was twenty-eight years old. He had devoted his hours
29 to the study of theology and history, and he eschewed every kind of pleasure.
30 He never missed his prayers at the five appointed times, and read them in the
31 congregation, and on the sabbath he never failed to attend the Jama Masjid,
32 or the wooden mosque within the palace. So devout a man was unlikely to
33 take interest in the administration of the country, and the youthful king-
34 maker, Ghazi-ud-din, exercised absolute authority. Buta deathblow had, by
35 this time, been struck at the prestige of the Great Moghal by widespread,
36 anarchy in the country, and the dominions of Akber had fallen into a pitiable
37 condition, The Mahratta name had become a terror, or a beacon, throughout
38 southern India; Oudh and Allahabdd were held by Shujd-ud-doula; the
39 country south of Agra had been seized by the Jats; Bengal, Behar and
40 Orissa were swayed by the dynasty of Allawardi Khan; Malwa and R4j-
41 putdnd had ceased to pay tribute ;-and the Panjdb had become tributary to the
42 new Durrdéni Kingdom of Afghanistan, established by the Abddéli, Ahmad
43 Shah. Only the country around Delhi, and a few districts north of the Sutlej,
44 remained-under the direct sway of the descendants of Tymtr. Mir Manni,
45 or Moin-ul-Mulk, regent of the Panjéb, did not long survive the re-establish-
46 ment of his authority as the viceroy of a new king. He was killed in a
47 shooting excursion, by a fall from his horse, in 1756 a.D. His widow, Murad
48 Begum,* a woman of vigour and activity, proclaimed her minor son, Amin-
49 ud-din, a child three years old, viceroy under her own guardianship. She
50 professed submission to both the Delhi court and the Abddli king, and her
51 appointment as regent to the infant viceroy was ratified by both. Murad
52 Begum, on attaining power, honoured her late husband’s ministers and
53 “tH 9
54 Pe fig Whose counsel she sought on all State matters, and on whose advice
55 co HESS”: Jepended. She had now established her authority firmly, when
56 she entirely {due we 1,
57 mo pannened to her. The child in whose name she was
58 another calamity “hs, Wwere- «1p, ose name she
59 an atime te a8
60 governing, died of small-pox” bone tor LAAT: ‘tiad expired. The aps
61 Begum thereupon took up the administration in her own name and proclaime
62 herself vicegerent of the Panjéb. The Omerahs at the court of Léhore,
63 who entertained great respect for her deceased husband, acknowledged her
64 supremacy, and, agents having been sent to the courts of Delhi and Kabul,
65 royal firmans were obtained, recognising the lady as the viceroy of the
66 Panjab. ;
67 Firmly established in her government, Murad Begum displayed the
68 frailty of her sex. She began to look with distrust upon the Omerahs of her
69 husband’s court, to whom she owed her magnificence and her elevation to
70 power. Mfr Bikhdri Khan, son of Raushan-ud-doula Turre Baz Khan,
71 prime minister to the late viceroy} and chief secretary of the Begums
72 darbér, once her great favorite, was seized in the zandénd interior
73 apartments, and beaten so severely with shoes and sticks by the female
74 servants, under the Begum’s orders, that he expired under the punishment.
75 The Mir’s only fault is believed to have been that he had given the lady
76 some personal disappointment of a kind never forgiven by her sex. This
77 AS A aS hpi RD re BS SE LNT eon Ln Re
78 * Also called Muchlani Begum—Tarikhi Ahmadi.
79 + Comnere Cunningham’s History of the Sikhs, p. 104, |.
80 t He built the Lahore Golden Mosque or Sunahri Masjid.
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