 |
| Image Credit- Navbharat Times |
Today, the 13th crown prince of the Mughal Empire is sitting in front of the Iranian king Nadir Shah in the court of Mohammad Shah, but at the moment he does not have the royal crown on his head, because Nadir Shah usurped the kingdom two and a half months before that. After staying in Delhi for 56 days, the time has come for Nadir Shah to return to Iran and he wants to hand over the reins of India to Muhammad Shah again.
Nadir Shah has plundered the Mughal treasury accumulated over the centuries and pickpocketed all the nobles and rulers of the city, but he is secretly told by Noor Bai, a courtesan from Delhi who will be mentioned later. Has achieved something which Muhammad Shah has hidden under his turban.
Nadir Shah Ghag was a politician who had drunk the water of Ghat Ghat. On this occasion, a trick named Nahle Pe Dehla was performed. He said to Muhammad Shah, "There is a custom in Iran that brothers exchange turbans on happy occasions. From today we are brothers, so why not repeat the same custom?"
Muhammad Shah had no choice but to bow his head. Nadir Shah took off his turban and put it on his head, and put his turban on his own, and thus the world's most famous diamond, the Koh-i-Noor, left India and reached Iran.
Muhammad Shah - Early Life of Rangeela Raja
Muhammad Shah, the owner of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, was born in 1702 during the reign of his great-grandfather Aurangzeb Alamgir. His birth name was Roshan Akhtar, however, he was given the title Abul Fateh Nasiruddin Roshan Akhtar Muhammad Shah after the Emperor Gir Sayyid brothers placed him on the throne of the Timurid Empire on September 29, 1719, at the age of 17.
His own nickname was 'Sada Rangela'. Who would remember such a long name, that's why people named Muhammad Shah Rangila by mixing both and he is still known and considered by this name in the history of India.
At the time of Muhammad Shah's birth, Aurangzeb Alamgir imposed a certain type of strict Islam in India, his first target being the arts which were considered incompatible with Islamic principles.
An interesting example of this is written by Italian traveler Nicolo Manucci. He says that when music was banned during Aurangzeb's time, the livelihood of singers and musicians stopped. Finally, fed up, 1000 artists took out a procession from Delhi's Jama Masjid on Friday and started crying carrying musical instruments in the form of a funeral procession.
When Aurangzeb saw it, he was surprised and asked, 'For whose funeral are you going, for whom there is so much mourning?' He said: 'You have killed the music, we are going to bury it.'
Aurangzeb replied, 'Just dig the grave deeper!'
It is a principle of physics that for every action there is a reaction. The same principle applies to history and human society as well that the harder something is suppressed, the more strongly it emerges. So the same thing happened after Aurangzeb and during the reign of Muhammad Shah, all those arts which were earlier suppressed came to the fore.
Two extremes
The most interesting evidence of this comes from 'Marka-e-Delhi'. This is a book written by Muhammad Shah's Dargah Quli Khan and in it, he has drawn pictures from the words that the living and breathing Delhi of that time comes before the eyes.
A strange fact emerges from reading this book that not only the king, but the life of the people of Delhi also swung like a pendulum between two extremes. On the one hand, they used to lead a luxurious life and when they got tired, they used to go straight to the sages and temples. When my mind was filled from there, I used to take refuge in the colors of life again.
The Marka-e-Delhi mentions the Kadam Sharif of the Prophet Islam, the Kadam Gah of Hazrat Ali, the tomb of Nizamuddin Auliya, the Qutub Sahib shrine, and dozens of other places where many pilgrims live. It is written in the book that there are so many graves of saints that even heaven is jealous of them. On the one hand, the 11th Sharif is celebrated with great fanfare all over Delhi, garlands are decorated and lanterns are decorated and there are elaborate gatherings of Sama.
At the same time, music also got a lot of boosts. The dargah mentions several musicians who were associated with the royal court. Among these, Ada Rang and Sada Rang are the most prominent, which gave a new tone to the Khayal singing style which is popular even today.
According to Marka Sada Rang, 'As soon as he plucks the strings of the instrument with his fingernails, an uncontrollable scream emerges from the heart and as the sound emerges from his throat, it seems that the life has left the body.'
A bandash of the same era is sung even today: 'Muhammad Shah Rangele Sajna Tum Bin Kari Badariya, Naat Na Sahwe.'
Colorful decorations of Muhammad Shah, The dark clouds made by you do not make the heart suffer.
Not only this, Dargah Kuli also mentions dozens of Qawwals, Dholak Nawaz, Pakhavji, Dhamdhi Nawaz, Sabucha Nawaz, Nakal, even Bhanda, associated with the royal court.
Elephant crowd
Why should dance be left behind in this world? Noor Bai has already been mentioned. There used to be such a crowd of elephants from Amara and Rusa in front of his palace that the traffic used to get jammed. According to Marca of Delhi:
"Whoever tasted his party, his house was destroyed and the mind, intoxicated by his friendship, began to spin round and round like a whirlwind. A world spent its wealth and countless people fought for this infidel." Wasted all my capital.
Nurbai also established relations with Nadir Shah and it was probably in one such private meeting that she told Nadir Shah the secret of the Kohinoor. It is important to clarify here that this incident is recorded by Theo Metcalf, historian of the East India Company, in his book about Koh-i-Noor, however, some historians question its authenticity. Yet it is so popular that it has become a part of India's collective memory.
Dargah Quli Khan narrates the wonderful story of another courtesan Ud Begum as follows:
'Eid Begum: There are famous Begums of Delhi who do not wear pajamas, but make flowers on the lower part of their body like pajamas. Baina makes flowers that are a place of Roman dreams, thus she attends the gatherings of the nobles and surprisingly no one can differentiate between the pajamas and this painting. Until this secret is not disclosed, no one can understand his craftsmanship.
This was the youth of Mir Taqi Mir. Is it any wonder that he was inspired by Ad Begum to say this poem:
Yes, it is torn from the clothes attached to jealousy
Is there a blanket wrapped around his body?
Muhammad Shah's daily routine during this period was as follows: in the morning he would go to Jharuka Darshan and entertain himself with a quail or elephant fight. During this time if someone comes to cry, then listen to his baptism. Enjoying the art of Bazigur, Mewa, Mimicry, and Bhanda in the afternoon, with dance and music in the evening and at night.
The king also had another hobby. He often liked to wear women's clothes and used to go to the court wearing a silk Pashwaj, at which time he used to wear shoes studded with pearls on his feet. However, it is written in the books that after Nadir Shah's attack, he started wearing mostly white clothes.
The art of Mughal painting, which had languished during Aurangzeb's reign, now flourished. Prominent painters of this period include the names of Nadhamal and Chaturman, whose paintings can be compared to the masterpieces of the Golden Age of Mughal painting.
For the first time after Shah Jahan, the School of Mughal Painting reopened in Delhi. One of the main features of this style is the use of light colors. Furthermore, while earlier Mughal images would fill the entire frame, during the Muhammadan era there was a tendency to simplify the scene and keep empty space where the eye could wander.
There is a famous painting from the same period in which Muhammad Shah Rangila himself has been shown giving pleasure to a maidservant. Rumors that the king was impotent were said to have spread in Delhi, which was dispelled by a painting that would today be classified as 'porn art'.
Golden bird
In such a situation, how will the government run the business and who will run it? The nawabs of the fertile and prosperous provinces like Awadh, Bengal, and the Deccan became the de facto kings of their respective regions. On the other hand, the Marathas began to gain a foothold in the south and the bones of the Timurid Empire began to break, but the biggest threat to the empire appeared from the west in the form of Nadir Shah, who was a sham of works and everything. Was spoilt.
Why did Nadir Shah invade India? Shafiq-ur-Rahman in his masterpiece 'Tazaq-e-Nadri' gives several reasons for this, for example, "they make fun of us by saying 'Nadarna Dheem Dheem' as if we are from India," or that " We are not "to attack, but to protect our ancestors." came to visit John. Humor aside, there were only two real reasons.
First: India was militarily weak. Second: He was full of money.
Despite the decline, the coinage of the Mughal emperors still circulated from Kabul to Bengal, and their capital Delhi was the largest city in the world at the time, with a population of two million, more than the population of London and Paris combined, and It could be counted among the richest cities in the world.
So, Nadir Shah crossed the Khyber Pass, the famous passage of the conquerors of India, and entered India in early 1739. It is said that whenever Muhammad Shah was told that Nadir Shah's forces were advancing, he would say: 'Hanuz Dili Dur Ist', meaning, Dili is far away now, why worry about it now?
When Nadir Shah reached a hundred miles from Delhi, the Mughal emperor had to lead his own army for the first time in his life. Here too Crofer states that his army numbered in the millions, but the bulk of it consisted of cooks, cooks, porters, servants, treasurers, and other civilian staff, while the fighting soldiers numbered little over a hundred thousand. were
Compared to this, the Iranian soldiers were only 55 thousand, but where are the battle-hardened Nadir imperial troops, and where are the Mughal soldiers who are full of blood? The battle of Karnal was decided in just three hours and Nadir Shah took Muhammad Shah prisoner and entered the city as the conqueror of Delhi.
Massacre
The next day was Eid Al-Zhaa. Nadir Shah's name was preached in the mosques of Delhi and coins were minted in his name in the mints. Only a few days had passed when a rumor spread in the city that a prostitute had killed Nadir Shah. The residents of Delhi got fed up with this and started killing the Iranian soldiers stationed in the city. What happened next is enshrined in the pages of history as follows:
'The rays of the sun had just appeared from the eastern horizon when Nadir Shah Durrani came out of the Red Fort on his horse. His body was covered with armor, an iron head on his head, and a sword on his waist, and he was accompanied by commanders and generals. He was heading towards Roshan-Ud-Daula Masjid, half a mile away in Chandni Chowk. Standing in the high courtyard of the mosque, he took out the sword from Niam.
This was the signal for his soldiers. At nine o'clock in the morning, the massacre began. The Qizilbash soldiers went from house to house and began to kill what they found. So much blood flowed that it started flowing over the drains, Lahori Darwaza, Faiz Bazaar, Kabuli Darwaza, Ajmeri Darwaza, Huz Qazi and Johari Bazaar were full of dead bodies, thousands of women were raped, hundreds committed suicide by falling into wells. Preferred. Many people themselves killed their daughters and wives so that they would not fall into the hands of the Iranian soldiers.
According to most historical references, 30,000 Delhiites landed on Talwar Ghat that day. Finally, Muhammad Shah sent his prime minister Nizam-ul-Muk to Nadir Shah. It is narrated that Nizamul Mulk appeared before Nadir Shah with bare feet and bare head and recited this poem attributed to Amir Khusrau:
Don't be afraid of someone else...
(And there is no one left whom you kill with your sword. Except that he revives the dead and kills them again)
Whereupon Nadir Shah thrust the sword into Niam again, and his soldiers restrained his hand.
When the massacre stopped, the looting market opened. The city was divided into different parts and the duty of the army was to collect as much wealth as possible. Anyone who tried to hide his wealth was subjected to the worst torture.
When the city was cleaned, Nadir Shah turned his attention to the royal palace. It has been described by Nadir Shah's court historian Mirza Mehdi Astarabadi as follows:
'Within a few days, the workers were ordered to empty the royal treasury. There were seas of pearls and pearls, mines of diamonds, jewels, gold, and silver, the like of which he had never dreamed. During our stay in Delhi, crores of rupees were transferred from the royal treasury to Nadir Shah's treasury. The nobles of the court, the Nawabs, and the kings gave many more crores in the form of gold and jewels as ransom.'
For a month, hundreds of workers melted down gold and silver ornaments, utensils, and other equipment to make bricks to facilitate their passage to Iran.
Shafiq-ur-Rahman in 'Tazik-i-Nadri' describes this practice in humorous detail: 'We gave permission to Azrah-i-Marwat Muhammad Shah if he saw anything which we could take as a present and by mistake If you don't remember, then tie it together. People were crying loudly and repeatedly saying that without us Red Fort would be empty. It was the fact that the Red Fort seemed quite empty to us too.'
How much wealth did Nader Shah loot yesterday? According to an estimate by historians, its value was 70 crore rupees at that time, which is 156 billion dollars according to today's calculation. That is equal to the three budgets of Pakistan! It was the biggest armed robbery in human history.
The golden age of Urdu Poetry
The court and official language of the Mughals were Persian, but as the court's grip on public life loosened, the language of the people, Urdu, began to rise. Just like when a banyan branch is cut off, other plants get a chance to flourish under it. Therefore, the era of Muhammad Shah Rangela can be called the golden age of Urdu poetry.
This era began as soon as Muhammad Shah himself sat on the throne when in the year of the king's procession i.e. 1719, the Diwan of the Deccani reached Delhi from the Deccan. This Dewan created a great stir in Delhi's stagnant literary lake and revealed to the people here for the first time that Urdu (then called Rekhta, Hindi, or Deccani) could still contain poetry.
Soon, the Panery of Urdu poets was prepared, among which the names of Shakir Naji, Najamuddin Abro, Sharafuddin Azaman, Shah Hatim, etc. are important.
Shah Hatim's disciple is Mirza Rafi Sauda, a better poet than whom Urdu has not been able to produce to date. The example of the ghazal of Sauda's contemporary Mir Taqi Mir has not been found to date. In Delhi of the same period, there is a monastery of Mir Dard, the same Mir Dar who is still considered the greatest Sufi poet of Urdu. In this era, Mir Hassan grew up, whose Masnavi 'Sahrul Bayan' is still his example.
Not only this but among the 'second-rate' poets who flourished during this period, there are also names who faded away in that era but would have shined like the moon if they had been in another era. Among them are Mir Souz, Qaim Chand Puri, Mirza Taban, and Mir Dhahek etc.
End of Muhammad Shah
Heavy drinking and addiction to opium had made Muhammad Shah as hollow as his empire. That is why his life proved to be short. He had just reached the age of 46 when one day he had a sudden fainting attack. Doctors tried every prescription. He was picked up and transferred to Hayat Bakhsh Bagh, but even this garden could not prolong the King's life and he died the next day after being unconscious all night.
He was buried side by side with Amir Khusrau in the tomb of Nizamuddin Auliya. Perhaps the idea behind this is that just as Amir Khusrau's poetry stopped the carnage in Delhi, in the same way perhaps his company could provide some help to the king in his last life.
It was the 15th of April and the year was 1748. In a sense, it was good for Muhammad Shah because in the same year Ahmad Shah Abdali, one of Nadir Shah's generals, initiated the invasion of India. It is clear that, unlike Babur, Akbar, or Aurangzeb, Muhammad Shah was not a military general. was not, and he did not lead any war except at Karnal against Nadir Shah. Nor did they have the strength and energy of Jahan Bani and Jahan Giri which was characteristic of the earlier Mughals. He was not a man of action but a man of entertainment and unlike his great-grandfather Aurangzeb, he was more fond of fine arts than martial arts.
Is it correct to put all the responsibility for the destruction of the Mughal Empire on Muhammad Shah? We don't think so. Aurangzeb himself had started to put termites on the throne through his extremism, harshness, and wanton warfare. Just as a healthy body requires a balanced diet, vitality, and good spirits are as essential to a healthy society as a strong army. Aurangzeb emphasized swords and swords, then the great-grandsons on Taos and harps. The result was the same as before everyone.
Having said all this, holding on to the Shiraz of the Mughal Empire during adverse conditions, external attacks and the intrigues of powerful nobles is proof of Muhammad Shah's political success. Only two Mughal rulers Akbar and Aurangzeb passed before him and ruled longer than Muhammad Shah. On the other hand, Muhammad Shah can also be called the last powerful Mughal emperor, otherwise, the kings who came after him were court princes. , was nothing more than a puppet of the Rohillas, the Marathas, and ultimately the British.
With all colors and colors in place, it would be unfair to ignore the role that Muhammad Shah Rangela played in the promotion of the Gangetic culture and arts of India.
