Ghazi ud-Din Khan

Feroze Jung III

Feroze Jung III or Nizam Shahabuddin

Muhammad Feroz Khan Siddiqi
Bayafandi also known by his sobriquet
Imad-ul-Mulk, was the grand vizier of the
Mughal Empire when it was under
Maratha suzerainty, making them the de
facto rulers.
 Portrait of Imad-ul-Mulk

He was the son of Ghazi ud-Din Khan

Feroze Jung II and a grandson of the
founder of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, Nizam-
ul-Mulk, Asaf Jah I.[1] After the death of
his father in 1752, he was recommended
by Nawab Safdar Jung to be appointed
as Mir Bakhshi (Pay Master General) and
received the titles of Amir ul-Umara
(Noble of Nobles) and Imad ul-Mulk.[1]
A controversial figure, Imad is well known
for deposing, imprisoning and blinding
Mughal emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur,
assassinating emperor Alamgir II, and
torturing their family members including
future emperor Shah Alam II.

He was declared to be an apostate by

various Islamic scholars, including Shah
Waliullah Dehlawi, and Durrani emperor
Ahmad Shah Abdali.[2]

Early life and rise to power

Feroz Jung was raised under the scrutiny
and austerity of his father Ghazi ud-Din,
spending his days under the care of
tutors and mullahs, and allowed the
company of only eunuchs on Fridays. He
was never allowed to mix with children of
his own age of attend performances by
musicians or dancing girls. He was
appointed to the Mughal court by his
father Feroze Jung II in 1752. The
historian William Dalrymple describes the
result as a "precocious intellectual
achievement...undermined by unbounded
ambition and profound immortality that
led to his turning on all who helped him,
starting with his patron Safdar
Jang."[3]: 154

Safdar Jang, the Nawab of Awadh, and

Wazir-ul-Malik-i-Hindustan (Prime Minister
of Hindustan), had intervened to secure
Feroz Jung's estates after the death of
his father and had appointed him the
imperial paymaster at the age of
sixteen.[4] The French military
commander Jean Law described that
Safdar Jang regarded Feroz Jung "like
his own son and could scarcely have
imaged that he was actually nursing a
serpent at his breast."[5]: 126

Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur chose

Feroz Jung to counter the powerful
Safdar Jang. He formed a coalition with
Hafiz Rahmat Khan Barech and Qudsia
Begum, the emperor's mother to
outmaneuver Safdar Jang out of the
court.[6]
According to Dalrymple, in 1753, a "civil
war between the old vizier and his
teenage replacement raged across the
suburbs of the city for six months, from
March to November, with the old and new
cities of Delhi held by rival factions."[3]: 154
Safdar Jang's Old Delhi stronghold was
looted and destroyed, never to
recover.[3]: 155 According to the Mughal
historian Ghulam Hussain Khan, "Old
Delhi, which used to be even wealthier
and populous than the new city,
Shahjahanabad, was plundered and
sacked so thoroughly that an infinity of
people lost their consorts and children,
and were totally ruined, besides numbers
that were massacred."[7] Safdar Jang
would be forced to retreat to Awadh and
would never recover, dying less a year
later, due to the "shock and grief at his
fall."[5]: 126 [8]

De facto emperor

Imad ul-Mulk holds a banquet

Imad-ul-Mulk emerged as the de facto

ruler of Delhi by calling on the Marathas
for help and instigating them to attack
the Jats of Bharatpur. The Marathas laid
siege over the Kumher fort on 1 January
1754 but were unable to overcome the
resistance of Suraj Mal.[9] Imad-ul-Mulk
had collected 1,500,000 dams but
refused to pay salaries to the Mughal
army and imperial officials, estranging
him from the emperor.

Ahmad Shah Bahadur declared the

reinstatement of Safdar Jang as his
Grand Vizier and tried to remove Imad-ul-
Mulk from the imperial court. This
caused him to send Aqibat Mahmud to
arrest the emperor and then seek an
alliance with the Raghunath Rao, the
brother of Maratha Peshwa Nanasabeb I.
Deposing Emperor Ahmad Shah
Bahadur

The Marathas, aided by the defection of

subahdar Malhar Rao Holkar, defeated
Ahmad Shah Bahadur's army at
Sikandrabad in May 1754 and captured
members of the emperor's household,
including 8,000 women.[10] Ahmad Shah
Bahadur fled toward Delhi while the ailing
Safdar Jang fled to Awadh. Imad-ul-Mulk,
with the support of Raghunath Rao,
proceeded to Delhi, and deposed Ahmad
Shah Bahadur on 2 June 1754 and
imprisoned at the Salimgarh Fort in
December.[11]
Imad-ul-Mulk released Prince Aziz-ud-Din
from prison and crowned him emperor
with the regnal name Alamgir II. The 55-
year-old prince had been in prison since
1714 when his father emperor Jahandar
Shah was overthrown by Farrukhsiyar. He
had no experience of administration or
warfare, serving as another puppet
Mughal emperor with all power vested
with Imad-ul-Mulk. He supposedly
intercepted the secret dispatches from
Ahmad Shah Bahadur to Suraj Mal where
the imprisoned emperor promised to aid
to the Jats if they continued to hold out
against the Mughal army besieging
Bharatpur. Imad-ul-Mulk made peace
with Suraj Mal, returned to Delhi and had
Ahmad Shah Bahadur and his mother
Qudsia Begum blinded with hot
needles.[12][3]: 156

Ahmad Shah Durrani's invasion

Afghan emperor Ahmad Shah Durrani

invaded India for the fourth time in 1756,
on the invitation of Mughlani Begum to
defeat Sikh rebels in Punjab. They
conquered the Lahore, Sirhind, Delhi,
Vrindavan and plundered Mathura.[13]

Ahmad Shah occupied Delhi in January

1757 and imprisoned emperor Alamgir II.
He attempted to impose an alliance on
the Mughals by marrying Hadrat Begum,
the daughter of Muhammad Shah, and
having his son Timur Shah Durrani marry
Zuhra Begum, daughter of Alamgir II. In
April 1757, Ahmad Shah reinstalled
Alamgir II as the titular emperor, and
began his return to Afghanistan.
However, actual control of Delhi was
given to Najib-ud-Daula, the Rohilla Mir
Bakshi of the Mughal army who had
defected to support Ahmad Shah's
invasion, in return for an annual tribute of
20 lakh rupees. Ahmad Shah Durrani
returned to Kabul, leaving his forces led
by Timur Shah, consolidating themselves
inside the garrisons of Lahore.
After the departure of the Afghans from
Delhi, Imad-ul-Mulk, who had been paying
the Marathas a tribute, invited them to
remove the Rohillas from Delhi. In the
ensuing Battle of Delhi, a 40,000-strong
Maratha army led by Raghunath Rao
expelled Najib ad-Dawlah from the city.
The Marathas, now the de facto rulers of
Delhi, appointed Antaji Mankeshwar as
the governor and retained Alamgir II as
the emperor.[14][15][16] Imad-ul-Mulk would
be declared an 'apostate' by Islamic
scholars and Ahmad Shah Durrani for
inviting the Hindu Marathas to defeat the
Muslim Rohilla Afghans.[2]
Maratha conquest of Lahore

In 1758, Peshwa Raghunath Rao drove

out Timur Shah Durrani and Jahan Khan
out of Lahore after extracting imperial
wealth from Imad-ul-Mulk. The Afghans
were forced to retreat to Peshawar under
the force of Maratha and Sikh attacks.
The combined Maratha-Sikh force
massacred the Afghan garrison,
wounding Jahan Khan and killing his son.
The Afghans quickly vacated the forts of
Peshawar and Attock and retreated west
to Afghanistan. Buoyed by success,
Peshwa Raghunath Rao grandiosely
sacked Delhi and signalled his intention
to place his son Vishwasrao on the
Mughal throne.[17]

Escape of Prince Ali Gauhar and

assassination of Alamgir

Imad-ul-Mulk feared that "Some ill-

emperor Alamgir would designing
invite the Ahmad Shah people

Durrani or use his son, had

Prince Ali Gauhar to turned his

brain, and
dispossess him of his
carried
newfound power. He began
him to the
to plot the assassination of
eastern
the emperor and members part of the
of the royal family in the Mughal
winter of 1759.[19] Fearing Empire,
for his life, Wali al-Ahd which

(crown prince) Ali Gauhar would be

the cause
organised a milita and
of much
escaped Delhi for the
trouble
Bengal Subah to strengthen and ruin
his position by attempting to our
to regain control over regimes."
Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. Feroze
Imad-ud-Mulk ordered Mir Jung III's
Jafar, the Nawab of Bengal letter to
to advance as far as Patna Mir Jafar,

to capture or kill Ali Gauhar. after the

escape of
In November 1759, emperor the

Alamgir II was told that a Mughal

crown
pious man had come to
prince Ali
meet him; ever so eager to
meet holy men, set out Gauhar.
[18]
immediately to meet him at
Kotla Fateh Shah, he was
stabbed repeatedly by Imad-ul-Mulk's
assassins. The emperor's death would be
mourned throughout the empire, but
particularly among the Muslim
populance. Maratha Peshwa Raghunath
Rao, under the influence of Sadashivrao
Bhau, considered abolishing the Mughal
empire, and placing his son Vishwasrao
on the Mughal throne by bribing or
deposing Imad-ul-Mulk.[17]

Sadashivrao Bhau then personally chose

Shah Jahan III as the new Mughal
Emperor and began a campaign of
plundering the jewels and ornaments of
the Mughal imperial court; defacing
Mughal mosques, tombs and shrines in
Agra and Delhi, and desecrating the
imperial Moti Masjid, and looting its
exquisite jewelled decorations.[20]

Fall from power

Ali Gauhar and his 30,000-strong Mughal

army, were reinforced by the forces of
Shuja-ud-Daula, Najib-ud-Daula and
Ahmad Khan Bangash. The Mughals
were also joined by Jean Law de
Lauriston and 200 Frenchmen, who had
been waging a campaign against the
British as a part of the Seven Years' War.
Ali Gauhar intended to overthrow Mir
Jafar and Imad-ul-Mulk by advancing
toward Awadh and Patna in 1759. Forced
to flee Delhi, Imad-ul-Mulk was replaced
as Grand Vizier by Najib-ud-Daula after
Ahmad Shah issued a farman
recognising Prince Ali Gauhar as the
Mughal emperor Shah Alam II.[21][22]

The defeat of Alamgir II's son-in-law,

Timur Shah Durrani by the Marathas in
the year 1760, provoked the wrath of
Ahmad Shah Durrani, who launched a
massive campaign gathering more
troops than ever before. At the Battle of
Panipat in January 1761, a coalition of
Afghan, Rohilla and Awadh troops
defeated the Marathas, shattering their
suzerainty over the Mughal throne and
their control over northern India.

Later life and death

According to the biography of the poet
Gulzar Ibrahim, Imad-ul-Mulk was living
in strained circumstances in 1780. In
1784, he formed an arrangement with the
Maratha Peshwa and received Baoni as
jagir.

Subsequently, he proceeded to Surat

where he passed a few years with the
English and then went on the Hajj. He
composed Persian and Rekhta poetry
and left Arabic and Turkish Ghazals and
a thick Persian Diwan and a Masnawi
Fakhria-tun_Nizam and Nalaa-e-Ny
relating the miracles of Maulana Fakhar-
ud-Din under the pen name Nizam.

Under the influence of Sufism, Imad-ul-

Mulk abandoned political career and
moved to Maharshrif, Chishtian to live
with Muhammad Maharvi. He poetically
described Maharvi's death, ‫حیف واویال‬
‫( جہاں بے نور گشت‬What a pity, where there
is no light) in 1205 Hijri, indicating his
residence in Maharshrif until at least
1791 CE. After Maharvi's death, Imad-ul-
Mulk moved to Khairpur and died there in
1800, where his grave is located.
His wife was the celebrated Ganna or
Gunna Begam, who died in 1775.

He was succeeded by his son Naser-ad-

Daula as the Nawab of Baoni jagir.

Popular culture
In the 2019 Bollywood war epic Panipat,
the character of Imad-ul-Mulk and his
role in the events leading up to the Third
Battle of Panipat is portrayed by Mir
Sarwar.

In the TV series The Great Maratha 1994

the role was played by Jitendra Trehan.
See also
Hyderabad State
Nizam

References
1. An oriental biographical dictionary:
founded on materials collected by the late
Thomas William Beale;2nd Edition;
Publisher:W.H. Allen, 1894; page 143

2. Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III (http

s://books.google.com/books?id=MazdaW
XQFuQC) at Google Books

3. Dalrymple, William (2019). The Anarchy:

The Relentless Rise of the East India
Company. Bloomsbury Publishing.
ISBN 9781408864371.
4. Sarkar, Sir Jadunath (1991). Fall of the
Mughal Empire, vol. 1. New Delhi. p. 222.

5. Lauriston, Jean Law de (2014). A Memoir

of the Mughal Empire 1757-61. Translated
by Cheema, G.S. New Delhi.

6. "HISTORY OF AWADH" (https://web.archiv

e.org/web/20010901224326/http://www.i
ndiancoins.8m.com/awadh/AwadhHist.ht
ml#BURHANULMULK) . web.archive.org.
1 September 2001. Retrieved 8 July 2023.

7. Khan, Syed Ghulam Hussain Tabatabai

(1790). Seir Mutaqherin or Review of
Modern Times, vol. 3. Calcutta. p. 334.

8. Kai, Manna (2018). Fleet, Kate; Krämer,

Gudrun (eds.). "The Encyclopedia of Islam
— Three" (https://www.worldcat.org/title/
1158412083) . www.worldcat.org. Brill.
pp. 110–13. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
 9. Pratik gupta (2014). Maratha Generals
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personalities of Marathas (https://books.
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q=battle+of+kumher&pg=PA64) . Pratik
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10. Singh, K. Natwar (3 December 2012).

Maharaj Suraj Mal 1707-1763 (https://boo
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&pg=PT51) . Rupa Publications India Pvt.
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11. Hari Ram Gupta, ed. (1961). Marathas and

Panipat. Panjab University. p. 24.

12. François Xavier Wendel (1991). Jean

Deloche (ed.). Wendel's Memoirs on the
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français de Pondichery. p. 124.
13. Mehta, Jaswant Lal (January 2005).
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p. 229. ISBN 9781932705546.

14. Advanced Study in the History of Modern

India 1707-1813 (https://books.google.co
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of India (https://archive.org/details/histor
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18. Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III (http

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AAcAAJ) at Google Books

19. "Alamgir II (Mughal emperor)" (http://ww

w.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1213
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20. Shaharyar M. Khan (20 October 2000).

The Begums of Bhopal: A History of the
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ogle.com/books?id=jq-g5YF1QzEC&pg=P
A37) . Retrieved 31 January 2014.
 21. Raghunath Rai. History (https://books.goo
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4) . Retrieved 31 January 2014.

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