Jahandar Shah
Jahandar Shah died on the 11th of February 1713, his body paraded through the streets of Delhi in pieces, hanging upside down from two elephants. He had reigned for less than a year. The man who placed him on the Mughal throne had just handed him over to be executed. And the nephew who replaced him would use his own cruelty as political justification.
Born Mirza Mu'izz-ud-Din Beg Muhammad Khan on the 10th of May 1661, Jahandar Shah became the ninth Mughal emperor under circumstances that left real power with someone else entirely. His story raises questions that go beyond one troubled reign: what happens when a dynasty's succession becomes a game managed by its own nobles? Who actually governed the Mughal empire when the emperor could not? And how did later historians reshape the legacy of a ruler to serve the ambitions of the man who had him killed?
Mu'izz-ud-din was born in Deccan Subah to Prince Mu'azzam, who would later rule as Bahadur Shah I. His mother, Nizam Bai, was the daughter of Fatehyawar Jang, a noble from Hyderabad. As Mu'azzam's eldest son, Mu'izz-ud-din was also the eldest grandson of Emperor Aurangzeb, and his birth was celebrated grandly at the Mughal court.
In his youth he showed enough military capacity to participate in campaigning in the Deccan for three years. In 1706, he brought the rebellious Mirani chief of Dera Ghazi Khan into submission. After Aurangzeb's death, his father won the succession struggle and ascended the throne in June 1707 as Bahadur Shah. At that point Mu'izz-ud-din received the title Jahandar Shah and was made governor of Thatta and Multan.
Despite that appointment, Jahandar Shah spent his father's reign close to the imperial court, as did all of Bahadur Shah's sons. Bahadur Shah had come to power at an advanced age, and each prince positioned himself near the throne in anticipation of what might come next. Jahandar Shah was, by the time of his father's final illness in 1712, the weakest among his brothers, with little military power and few independent resources of his own.
When Bahadur Shah lay on his deathbed in 1712, the strongest claimant was not Jahandar Shah but his brother Azim-ush-Shan, the subahdar of Bengal, who had built up considerable resources in that posting. The outcome of what followed was shaped less by the princes themselves than by the mir bakhshi Zulfiqar Khan, one of the most powerful figures in the empire.
Zulfiqar Khan constructed an alliance between Jahandar Shah and his two younger brothers, Rafi-ush-Shan and Jahan Shah. His proposition was that the three could divide the empire upon victory, with Zulfiqar Khan serving as mir bakhshi for all of them. Azim-ush-Shan was defeated and killed. Then Jahandar Shah broke the arrangement and turned on his own brothers with Zulfiqar Khan's help, defeating and killing them in turn.
The succession war that produced Jahandar Shah as emperor was thus not really won by Jahandar Shah at all. It was managed by a noble who saw the weakest prince as the most useful one. Zulfiqar Khan then assumed the post of wazir upon Jahandar Shah's coronation, and effective authority over the empire passed to him rather than to the man who wore the crown.
Jahandar Shah was crowned on the 29th of March 1712. His accession was widely seen as illegitimate, and he moved quickly to reward those who had supported him while punishing those who had backed his brothers. Several nobles who had sided with his brothers were executed. He also allowed the bodies of the defeated princes to be left exposed for days before burial, departing from the practice that previous emperors had followed.
As wazir, Zulfiqar Khan set the actual agenda of the reign. He worked to repair relations with the Rajputs, Sikhs, and Marathas, aiming to restore stability to an empire whose finances had been declining since before Jahandar Shah's predecessors. The treasury problems reduced the military's effectiveness and deepened the empire's political fragility.
Historians identify Jahandar Shah as the first in a line of Mughal rulers whose power was effectively held by someone outside the dynasty. The scholar Munis Faruqui has pointed to his political weakness as a prince as the real source of his failure as a ruler. Abhishek Kaicker has argued that the nobility had grown more self-interested by this period, and that accounts of the reign's cruelty were in part constructed by Farrukhsiyar's faction to justify the coming deposition. The excessive influence Zulfiqar Khan wielded eventually pushed Jahandar Shah to plot against him, generating further disorder.
During his reign, Jahandar Shah married Lal Kunwar, the daughter of Khasusiyat Khan. He was very fond of her, and after his accession gave her the title Imtiyaz Mahal. Her family gained unprecedented power and status at court as a result of his favour.
Jahandar Shah's personal life was a recurring subject for contemporary chroniclers, who pointed to his feasts and entertainments alongside the cruelty shown to his opponents as reasons for the turbulence of the reign. Later historians repeated those accounts. Recent scholars, however, have questioned how much weight to give them, noting that such characterizations served the political purposes of those who came after him.
His marriages extended well beyond Lal Kunwar. His first wife was the daughter of Mirza Mukarram Khan Safavi, wed on the 13th of October 1676. After her death he married her niece, Sayyid-un-Nissa Begum, daughter of Mirza Rustam, in a ceremony on the 30th of August 1684, conducted by Qazi Abu Sa'id in the presence of Emperor Aurangzeb and Prince Muhammad Muazzam. Sayyid-un-Nissa Begum received jewels worth 67,000 rupees at the time of the marriage, and the celebrations were overseen by Princess Zinat-un-Nissa Begum.
Farrukhsiyar, the son of Azim-ush-Shan, launched his challenge from Bengal. At first he struggled to find backers. The support he eventually secured came from the Sayyid brothers, Husain Ali Khan and Abdullah Khan, administrators under Azim-ush-Shan who had been removed from their positions by Jahandar Shah himself. With their resources and networks, Farrukhsiyar assembled a rebel army.
The imperial army, underpaid and demoralized, was defeated in battle near Agra in early 1713. Jahandar Shah fled to Delhi and took shelter at the home of Zulfiqar Khan and his father Asad Khan. The two men imprisoned him and handed him over to Farrukhsiyar, hoping to secure favor with the new ruler. The gambit failed for Zulfiqar Khan. Farrukhsiyar had both of them executed. Jahandar Shah was beaten to death and then beheaded on the 11th of February 1713.
His body was paraded through Delhi in parts from the backs of two elephants. He was ultimately buried at Humayun's tomb. The coins he had reintroduced during his brief reign included couplets in gold, silver, and copper, using the phrases Abu al-Fateh and Sahab Qiran, and were struck in copper at both 20-gram and 14-gram standards. Those coins outlasted the reign that produced them.
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Common questions
Who was Jahandar Shah and when did he reign as Mughal emperor?
Jahandar Shah was the ninth Mughal emperor, reigning briefly from 1712 to 1713. Born on the 10th of May 1661, he was the son of Emperor Bahadur Shah I and the grandson of Emperor Aurangzeb. His reign lasted less than a year before he was deposed and executed on the 11th of February 1713.
Why is Jahandar Shah called the first puppet ruler of the Mughal dynasty?
Jahandar Shah is considered the first puppet ruler because real power was wielded not by him but by the noble Zulfiqar Khan, who engineered his accession to the throne. Upon Jahandar Shah's coronation on the 29th of March 1712, Zulfiqar Khan assumed the post of wazir and exercised effective control over the empire. This was the first time in Mughal history that absolute power was held by someone outside the dynasty.
Who deposed Jahandar Shah and how did he die?
Jahandar Shah was deposed by his nephew Farrukhsiyar, backed by the Sayyid brothers Husain Ali Khan and Abdullah Khan. After his army was defeated near Agra in early 1713, Jahandar Shah fled to Delhi, where Zulfiqar Khan and his father Asad Khan imprisoned him and handed him over to Farrukhsiyar. He was beaten to death and then beheaded on the 11th of February 1713, and his body was paraded through Delhi from two elephants.
What role did Zulfiqar Khan play in Jahandar Shah's rise and fall?
Zulfiqar Khan, the mir bakhshi, engineered Jahandar Shah's victory in the 1712 succession war by building an alliance among Bahadur Shah's sons and then helping Jahandar Shah betray and defeat his brothers. He then served as wazir and held effective power throughout the reign. At the end, Zulfiqar Khan and his father Asad Khan imprisoned Jahandar Shah and surrendered him to Farrukhsiyar, who had both men executed.
Who was Lal Kunwar and what was her significance in Jahandar Shah's reign?
Lal Kunwar was the daughter of Khasusiyat Khan and the favored wife of Jahandar Shah. After his accession, he gave her the title Imtiyaz Mahal, and her family gained unprecedented power and status at the Mughal court as a result of his attachment to her.
Where is Jahandar Shah buried?
Jahandar Shah was buried at Humayun's tomb in Delhi after his execution on the 11th of February 1713.