Muhammad Shah
Muhammad Shah was born Roshan Akhtar on the 7th of August 1702 and went on to become the thirteenth Mughal emperor. He ruled from 1719 to 1748. His father was Khujista Akhtar, the fourth son of Bahadur Shah I. He is often called Muhammad Shah Rangila, a nickname tied to his generous support for the arts, and he wrote poetry under the pen-name Sadrang. Yet his reign of nearly three decades is also remembered for the rapid and irreversible decline of the Mughal Empire. How did a teenage emperor shake off the men who had made him king? Why did a court devoted to song and painting lose province after province? And what happened when a foreign conqueror marched toward Delhi, shocking even the British?
On the 9th of October 1720, Syed Hussain Ali Khan Barha, commander in chief of the Mughal army, was assassinated in his encampment at Todabhim. He was one of the Sayyid Brothers of Barha, the men who had chosen Muhammad Shah as emperor at the age of 18 and then supervised him strictly. With that brother dead, the young emperor took direct command of the army. Nizam-ul-Mulk, Asaf Jah I, had helped him break free of his handlers. He was now dispatched to win complete control of six Mughal provinces in the Deccan.
Syed Hassan Ali Khan Barha, the Grand Vizier, was the next target. Muhammad Amin Khan Turani, newly made a Mansabdar of 8000, was sent after him. Hassan Ali Khan was defeated at the battle of Hasanpur by a group of commanders that included Muhammad Amin Turani, Khan-i Dauran, Sher Afkan Panipati and Amin-ud-Din Sambhali. He was captured on the 15th of November 1720 and was dead by 1722. Their fall marked the beginning of the end of direct Mughal control over the Deccan.
On the 21st of February 1722, Muhammad Shah appointed Asaf Jah I as Grand Vizier. Asaf Jah advised the emperor to be "as cautious as Akbar and as brave as Aurangzeb". He then used his new influence to chase his own ambitions in the Deccan. The emperor's trust ebbed after Asaf Jah sent Hamid Khan, a relative of Saadullah Khan, to govern Gujarat on the pretext of restoring order. Seeing his standing slip, Asaf Jah resigned and returned to the Deccan.
In 1723, Asaf Jah set out against Mubariz Khan, the Mughal Subahdar of the Deccan. Mubariz Khan had kept the Maratha Empire at bay and was a former ally of the Barha Sayyids. Muhammad Shah had appointed him to kill Asaf Jah. Exploiting his opponent's conventional weaknesses, Asaf Jah defeated and eliminated him at the Battle of Shakar Kheda. In 1725 he founded the Hyderabad State and named himself the Nizam of Hyderabad.
Back in Delhi, the Amir-ul-Umara, Khan-i Dauran, had the emperor's ear. Qamar-ud-Din Khan was named Grand Wazir to follow Asaf Jah but was quickly dismissed. Roshan-ud-Daulah Turrah Baz Khan, a native of Panipat, took the post, since the move reduced the influence of the Turani family. Even with the Deccan provinces gone in 1724, the Nawab of Awadh, Saadat Ali Khan, and the Mughal subahdar Dilawar Khan remained loyal. Together they built a well-protected bastion on the Malabar Coast.
Asaf Jah had a blunt view of the Marathas, recorded in the Maasir-i Nizami. He wrote: "I consider all this army (Marathas) as my own and I will get my work done through them." He continued: "It is necessary to take our hands off Malwa." He planned to entrust the raiding on the far side of the Narmada to them. The Mughal-Maratha Wars of 1728-1763 would go on to devastate six Deccan subahs: Khandesh, Bijapur, Berar, Aurangabad, Hyderabad and Bidar.
In February 1728, Bajirao I and his brother Chimaji Appa decisively defeated Asaf Jah at the Battle of Palkhed. They then re-invaded Malwa. In November 1729, at the battle of Amjhera, the Mughal subahdar Giridhar Bahadur was defeated and killed. Chimnaji Appa next tried to besiege the remnants of the Mughal army at Ujjain, but he did not succeed.
In 1731, Asaf Jah won over two influential Maratha leaders, Trimbak Rao Dabhade and Sanbhoji. They threatened to abandon the Marathas and side with Muhammad Shah. The plan collapsed at the Battle of Dabhoi, where a large Maratha force under Bajirao I and Chimnaji Appa overran and killed the defectors. Bajirao then attacked Gujarat with his full force and had driven out Sarbuland Khan by 1735.
At Rikabganj, Bajirao I beat a well-trained Mughal army led by Amir Khan Bahadur. He could have taken the city unopposed but chose not to press on. News of the advancing forces of Wazir Qamar-ud-Din Khan made him withdraw. He fell back southeast to Badshahpur and corresponded with Muhammad Shah. The emperor ratified a peace by agreeing to hand Malwa over to the Marathas.
In 1740, Dost Ali Khan, Nawab of the Carnatic, was killed on the 20th of May at the Battle of Damalcherry. He had been defending Arcot against Marathas under Raghoji I Bhonsle, who acted with the authority of Chhatrapati Shahu I. Arcot was looted and plundered. Chanda Sahib and his garrison were captured and imprisoned at Satara. Their defence of the Carnatic during the Siege of Trichinopoly drew the attention of the French East India Company official Joseph Francois Dupleix.
Asaf Jah I then led an expedition to free the region. Sadatullah Khan II and Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan joined him, and together they recaptured Arcot. The Siege of Trichinopoly in 1743 lasted five months and forced the Marathas under Murari Rao Ghorpade to leave the Carnatic.
In 1747, Raghoji I Bhonsle turned east and began to raid and annex the lands of Alivardi Khan, the Nawab of Bengal. During the Maratha invasion of Orissa, its subahdar Mir Jafar withdrew all his forces. Alivardi Khan arrived with the Mughal Army and routed Raghoji at the Battle of Burdwan, then dismissed the shamed Mir Jafar. Four years of continuous war still forced Muhammad Shah to cede Orissa to the Marathas.
In May 1738, Nader Shah attacked northern Afghanistan and captured Ghazni. Kabul fell to him in June and Jalalabad in September. By November he had crossed the Khyber Pass, besieged the fortress of Peshawar and razed it. In January 1739 he took Lahore, after he completely subdued the forces of the Mughal viceroy Zakariya Khan Bahadur and his 25,000 sowars by the Chenab river.
The Afsharid forces soon met bands of Sikh rebels, who Nader Shah predicted would benefit from his invasion. They took territory all the way to Attock. That showed Muhammad Shah and his court that the Turkic Qizilbash Afsharid emperor would not settle for the loot of a single province. Wazirabad, Eminabad and Gujrat were sacked and razed to the ground. Near Larkana the Afsharids routed the army of the Nawab of Sindh, Main Noor Mohammad Kalhoro, and captured him and his two sons. In February 1739 they took Sirhind, which opened the road to Delhi.
Rao Bal Kishan of Rewari tried a desperate defence of Delhi with 5,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, joined by the forces of the city. He was killed in battle, and his stand is remembered under the names Vijay and Veergati. Nader Shah later told Muhammad Shah that if the combined Mughal forces had backed the Rao, he might not have been able to enter Delhi. He added that he had never seen a warrior so brave, fierce and strong. Muhammad Shah commissioned a royal chhatri to honour Rao Bal Kishan.
Once inside Delhi, Nader Shah claimed that his invasion and occupation came from religious devotion. He warned that if "the wretched Marathas of the Deccan" moved toward Delhi, he might "send an army of victorious Qizilbash to drive them to the abyss of Hell."
The occupation began cordially, until a rumour swept the city that Nader Shah had been assassinated. Crowds attacked the Afsharid troops and killed some soldiers. Furious, Nader Shah ordered a massacre of the populace that left at least 30,000 dead. Muhammad Shah and Asaf Jah I had to beg for mercy before he stopped and turned to plundering the Mughal treasury.
The haul included the famous Peacock Throne and the Daria-i-Noor and Koh-i-Noor diamonds, along with elephants, horses and anything else that caught his eye. Muhammad Shah also had to give his daughter, Jahan Afruz Banu Begum, as a bride for Nader Shah's youngest son. Asaf Jah I then retired to the Deccan, first installing his eldest son Intizam-ud-Daula as a major commander in the Mughal Army.
Naimat Khan, also known as Sadarang, never once performed the khyal he composed. He wrote it for his disciples instead, and his nephew Firoz Khan, known as Adarang, helped make the form popular. Khyal became a key component of Indian classical music, and it rose to princely patronage at the court of Muhammad Shah.
The emperor also employed master painters. Nidha Mal, active from 1735 to 1775, and Chitarman produced lively pictures of court life. Their scenes show Holi celebrations, hunting and hawking.
Muhammad Shah took part himself. As the poet Sadrang, he also composed Indian classical raga songs in the bhairav, kafi, dhamar and malkauns genres. His songs dealt with love and with the festival of Holi.
His devotion to the performing arts came almost at the cost of his administrative duties. That neglect helped pave the way for the breakdown of governance, even as the arts flourished. Qawwali was also reintroduced into the imperial court during his reign, and it quickly spread throughout South Asia.
Between 1727 and 1735, Jai Singh II of Amber completed the Zij-i Muhammad Shahi, a significant scientific work of 400 pages. It was finished during Muhammad Shah's reign and carries his name.
Urdu was already in use before the emperor took the throne. Its older names include Zuban-i Urdu-yi Mualla and Lashkari Zaban, shortened to Lashkari. Under Muhammad Shah it grew more popular among the people, and he declared it the court language in place of Persian. During his reign the Quran was translated for the first time into simple Persian and Urdu. He is also known to have set up religious institutions for education, called maktabs.
Court dress changed as well. The Mughals had originally come from Samarqand, and the high nobility normally wore formal Turkic dress. In this reign the sherwani replaced it. The emperor adopted Deccan-influenced dress at court, which drew mockery. One jeer ran: "See how the Deccan monkey dances!"
In 1721, Kasim Ali Khan, a Mughal officer, was sent against the Kolis of Kheda district to collect a fine. They refused to pay, and a battle followed at Pethapur. Khan was killed and the Mughal army was defeated and retreated to its base.
Trouble with the Kolis had begun two years earlier. In 1719, Kolis along the Mahi River were plundering villages and committing piracy. Mihir Ali Khan, acting as viceroy of Gujarat in place of Ajit Singh of Marwar, marched out and subdued them. In 1722, Muhammad Bahadur, son of Salabat Khan Babi, was put in charge of Sadra and Virpur with the title of Sher Khan. He subdued the rebellious Kolis of Chunval but was deeply wounded. The Kolis of Modhera then opposed the emperor, and Modhera village was burnt down.
In 1729, a Mughal viceroy marched against the Kolis of Sorath, destroyed them and took them to Ahmednagar. Jawan Mard Khan Babi, the Governor of Petlad, then ordered action against the rebellious Kolis of Balor, but he was killed by a man of the Koli tribe. In revenge the town of Balor was plundered. His eldest son, Kamal-ud-din Khan Babi, received the districts of Sami and Munjpur and his father's title.
In 1738, Sher Khan Babi, governor of Sorath at Junagadh, had to march against the Koli chieftain Kanji Chunvalia of Chhaniar. The Kolis resisted him fiercely, so Momin Khan was called in with a large force and Chhaniar was burned down. The next year the chieftain Jamaji of Thara raised the Kolis of Kankrej against the emperor. Jawan Mard Khan could not keep order and asked Fida-ud-din Khan to subdue them. After the chieftain's defeat, Mughal troops plundered the Koli country.
In 1740, the Kolis of Atarsumba refused to pay any tax to the Mughal Padishah. Jawan Mard Khan and his brother Zorawar Khan Babi marched against them. After a battle the Mughals won and forced them to pay, but the peace did not last. When the Kolis refused again, troops under Abdul Hussain Khan and Vajeram burned three Koli villages.
In 1747, the Maratha military leader Rangoji returned to Ahmedabad, where Jawan Mard Khan met him a few miles outside the city. Soon afterward the Kolis of Mehmudabad and Mahudha rebelled, but Shahbaz Rohilla speedily crushed the revolt.
Far to the east, Muhammad Ali Khan, the Mughal Faujdar of Rangpur, and his stern ally Deena Narayan were ambushed out of Koch Bihar. The attackers were Upendra Narayan, a Hindu Bihari, and Mipham Wangpo, who ruled Bhutan from 1729 to 1736. Ali Mohammed Khan, meanwhile, had established the barons of Rohilakhand. In the Punjab, the Sikhs were at war with local Mughal subahdars and devastated them with hit-and-run tactics.
On the 8th of December 1721, Muhammad Shah married his first-cousin, Princess Badshah Begum, at Delhi. She was the daughter of Emperor Farrukhsiyar and his first wife, Gauhar-un-Nissa Begum. He gave her the title Malika-uz-Zamani, meaning Queen of the Age, and she became his chief consort. Their son Shahriyar Shah Bahadur died young in 1726. She herself lived until the 14th of December 1789.
His second wife, Sahiba Mahal, bore a daughter, Hazrat Begum, who married Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1757. His third wife was a dancing girl, Qudsia Begum. She gave birth to his successor, Ahmad Shah Bahadur, on the 23rd of December 1725. The baby was taken from her and raised lovingly by Badshah Begum, who considered him her own son. Her efforts later helped him ascend the throne. The emperor also favoured Nur Bai, a woman of tawaif origins.
After Nader Shah's invasion, the Ottoman Empire took advantage of the void on its eastern borders, since almost all Persian forces had been sent to India. Muhammad Shah tried to recover all the territory lost to Persia. That effort ended when the Afghan Durrani Empire attacked him at the Battle of Manupur.
The Mughal victory at Manupur in 1748 came at a heavy price, and many fell in the fighting. At first the loss was kept secret. When the news reached the emperor, he could not speak and suddenly fell sick. He stayed in his apartments for three days and fasted, while his guards heard him crying aloud: "How could I bring about anyone as faithful as he? (Qamaruddin Khan)".
He died of grief on the 26th of April 1748, and visiting Imams from Mecca attended his funeral. His tomb lies in an enclosure within the Nizamuddin Dargah complex. Viewers can meet him in the 2010 historical TV series Maharaja Ranjit Singh, broadcast on DD National, where Rishikesh Sharma plays the emperor.
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Common questions
Who was Muhammad Shah, the Mughal emperor?
Muhammad Shah, born Roshan Akhtar, was the thirteenth Mughal emperor, who ruled from 1719 to 1748. He was the son of Khujista Akhtar, the fourth son of Bahadur Shah I.
Why is Muhammad Shah called Rangila?
Muhammad Shah is called Rangila because he was a great patron of the arts, including music and culture. He also wrote poetry under the pen-name Sadrang.
What happened to Delhi when Nader Shah invaded during the reign of Muhammad Shah?
In 1739 Nader Shah occupied Delhi. After a rumour of his assassination led to attacks on his troops, he ordered a massacre that left at least 30,000 dead and then looted the treasury, including the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
How did Muhammad Shah get free of the Sayyid Brothers?
Muhammad Shah removed the Sayyid Brothers with the help of Nizam-ul-Mulk, Asaf Jah I. Syed Hussain Ali Khan Barha was assassinated at Todabhim on the 9th of October 1720, and Syed Hassan Ali Khan Barha was captured on the 15th of November 1720.
What cultural changes happened under Muhammad Shah?
Muhammad Shah declared Urdu the court language in place of Persian and reintroduced Qawwali to the imperial court. The sherwani replaced formal Turkic dress, and the Quran was translated for the first time into simple Persian and Urdu.
How did Muhammad Shah die?
Muhammad Shah died of grief on the 26th of April 1748, after news reached him of the heavy losses in the Mughal victory at the Battle of Manupur. His tomb is in an enclosure within the Nizamuddin Dargah complex.
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