Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III
"Some ill-designing people had turned his brain, and carried him to the eastern part of the Mughal Empire, which would be the cause of much trouble and ruin to our regimes."
Feroze Jung III's letter to Mir Jafar, after the escape of the Mughal crown prince Ali Gauhar.[1]
Nawab Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III, Feroze Jung III, or Imad-ul-Mulk, was a mid-18th-century kingmaker during the Mughal Empire. He was the son of Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung II (the son of Nizam ul Mulk Asaf Jah[2] (s/o Sultan Begum)). His original name was Shahabuddin Muhammad Siddiqi. 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 by the Mughal Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur of Delhi.[2]
Military career
He blinded and imprisoned Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur in 1754. In 1757, Imad invited Marathas to invade Delhi in order to drive out the Afghans and Rohillas from Delhi.[3] As a result, a massive force of Marathas defeated the Afghan garrison in Delhi and captured the city. In the same year, Ahmad Shah Durrani declared Imad-ul-Mulk an "apostate". Two years later, Emperor Alamgir II was assassinated in 1759. He was later named the Wazir ul-Mamalik-i-Hindustan.[2] Imad-ul-Mulk also planned the death of young Ali Gauhar and even ordered Mir Jafar the Nawab of Bengal to advance as far as Patna with the motive to kill or capture the Mughal Crown Prince. Imad-ul-Mulk soon fled Delhi after the rise of Najib-ud-Daula and the Mughal Army, which eventually places Shah Alam II as the new Mughal Emperor.
Writings
His wife was the celebrated Ganna or Gunna Begam who died in the year 1775. The year of Khan's death is unknown but according to the biography of the poet called Gulzar Ibrahim he was living in 1780 in straitened circumstances. His poetical name was Nizam. According to the work called Masir ul Umra he went to the Deccan in 1773 and received a jagir in Malwa. 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" in which the miracles of Maulana Fakhr uddin are related. Under the influence of Sufism he abandoned his power hungry political career and went to Maharshrif, Chishtian now Pakistan to live with Hazrat Noor Muhammad Maharvi his fellow disciple of Hazrat Moulana Fakhar ud Din Muhib-un-Nabi Dehlavi. After Hazrat Noor Muhammad Maharvi died Nizam moved to Khairpur and died there.
See also
References
- ↑ Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III at Google Books
- 1 2 3 An oriental biographical dictionary: founded on materials collected by the late Thomas William Beale;2nd Edition; Publisher:W.H. Allen, 1894; page 143
- ↑ Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III at Google Books