Mirza Aziz-ud-Din spent forty years locked in a prison cell before he ever touched a throne. Born on the 6th of June 1699 at Burhanpur, he was the second son of Jahandar Shah and a Rajput princess named Anup Bai, yet his life was defined not by royal privilege but by the shadow of the prison walls. When his great-grandfather Aurangzeb died in the Deccan, the young prince was only seven years old, but the political storm that followed his grandfather Bahadur Shah I's death would seal his fate. His father Jahandar Shah lost the war of succession to Farrukhsiyar, and in 1714, Aziz-ud-Din was imprisoned by Asaf Jah I. For the next four decades, from 1714 to 1754, he remained in captivity, a man who knew nothing of administration or warfare, only the cold stone of confinement. When he was finally released in 1754 by the usurping Vizier Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III, he was fifty-five years old, an age where most men had long since retired from public life. The vizier saw him as a frail personality who would not object to his regime, so on the 2nd of June 1754, Aziz-ud-Din was given the title Alamgir II, a name chosen to evoke the centralized authority of Aurangzeb, though the man bearing it had never held power in his life.
The Puppet and The Vizier
Imad-ul-Mulk, the man who placed Alamgir II on the throne, held all the strings of power while the emperor remained a figurehead. The vizier hired Maratha mercenaries to do his bidding and funneled all imperial revenues into his own pocket, leaving Alamgir II's family to starve. He persecuted Ali Gauhar, the elder son of Alamgir II, ensuring no rival could rise from the royal line. Relations between the emperor and his vizier deteriorated rapidly, transforming from a political arrangement into a deadly struggle for survival. Imad-ul-Mulk's regime was so authoritarian that he sought to strengthen his control with the undaunted support of the Marathas, who dominated northern India. The emperor's attempts to follow the approach of Aurangzeb were mocked by the reality of his powerlessness. The vizier's power was absolute, and the emperor's only role was to sign decrees that Imad-ul-Mulk had already decided upon. This dynamic created a volatile situation where the emperor's very existence was a threat to the vizier's ambitions, setting the stage for a tragic end.The Durrani Alliance
Ahmad Shah Durrani marched into Delhi in January 1757, bringing with him a force that threatened to overthrow the regime of Imad-ul-Mulk. The Mughal Emperor Alamgir II, along with courtiers such as Shah Waliullah and nobles like Najib-ul-Daula, went to meet the invader. Durrani's relations with the Mughal Emperor were strengthened when his son Timur Shah Durrani was chosen as the suitor of Alamgir II's daughter Zuhra Begum. Ahmad Shah Durrani himself also married Hadrat Begum, the daughter of the former Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah. This alliance was a desperate attempt to stabilize a crumbling empire, but it only deepened the divisions within the court. Durrani returned to Kabul, leaving his forces led by his son Timur Shah Durrani to consolidate themselves inside the garrisons of Lahore. They founded the Zamzama cannon with the assistance of Mughal metalsmiths, a symbol of the new military power that had entered the region. The alliance was supported by Mohammad Bahawal Khan II, the Nawab Amir of Bhawalpur, and Muhammad Nasir Khan I of the Khanate of Kalat, creating a complex web of alliances that would soon be tested by the rising power of the Marathas.