Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/257

 KHE 249 ułla secured the favour of Raja Newal Ráe, the Oudh díwán, by assent- ing to the latter's getting Barkhár in Muhamdi pargana as jágír; and Newal Ráe aided him to gain possession of the entire estate, ousting the sons of Sayyad Khurram, who se descendant, Nashigar Ali, now holds six villages in Aurangabad and Pasgawan. Ibádulla did not wish to remain in Aurangabad, the scene of his treachery. He removed to Muhamdi, where he enlarged and strengthened the fort so that it was able to offer a show of resistance to a British army.* He had obtained from Delhi the title of Rája and of Khan. Ibádulla Khan died in 1737 A.D.; his son and successor Mahbub Ali Khan in 1742; the latter's brother in 1752, and a son of Mahbúb Ali Khan, Ghulam Muhammad, succeeded. Daring this time the great estate, still including Muhamdi, Aurangabad, Magdapur, Barwar, Pasgawan, Aliganj, Haidarabad, Kukra Mailáni, Karanpur, Alamnagar, was undi- vided. Ali Akbar Khan, the third and last surviving son of Badar Singh, was enraged that his nephew, a mere boy, should be preferred to him. It was the custom of the Chhattri brotherhood, to which his father origi- nally belonged, that the brother should succeed if an adult and able in mind and body to the headship of the family, rather than the minor son, who would be incompetent for the charge. The uncle now complained to the Sombansi kinsmen, who had been settled by successive rájas in the pargana of Muhamdi. Some of these men, who lived in Waini Rájapur, a large village three miles north of Muhamdi, listened to the crafty uncle's appeals to their zeal for ancient Hindu custom. They came at night and murdered the nephew in the fort at Muhamdi (1757 A. D). Again did a widow appear in the dark scene, the mother of the murdered prince; but instead of flying to Lucknow, she collected forces and defeated Ali Akbar Khan in the field. The Hindu party and the Musal- man purists now came to terms, and arranged a peaceful line of succession- namely, that Ali Akbar Khan should manage the estate during his life, and that Ghulam Nabi Khan should succeed. Extraordinary to relate, in 1772, Ali Akbar Khan, of his own accord, abandoned the chiefship and power, which he had held for fifteen years, and, according to promise, transferred the property to Ghulam Nabi Khan. The uncle survived for five years after his abdication. During his tenure of the ráj foreign invasion had almost put an end to the existence of the family. The Gaurs of Katesar and Chandra, a bold and turbulent clan (see Láharpur and Dhaurahra), had overthrown the great ráj of Mitauli, and caused its occupants to skulk for fifteen years in the jungle at Paasár on the Kauriála; they had fought and beaten the Názim of Khairabad, had driven out the Chauhans from Saádatnagar, and had gradually spread since their first arrival in Oudh (1653 A. D.), tili they now pressed upon the great Muhardí ráj, all along its southern border in Pasgawan and Alamnagar. About 1180 A. H. (A. D. 1766), they rushed to the attack, rightly judging that the Rája of Muhamdi , sup- ported by hired levies alone, would be no match for the fierce bands of • Ball's History of Mutinies, II., page 838.