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213 informed that they are "an old fort," and if he should be sufficiently curious to seek for more definite information the answer will be repeated. It is probable that the nobles who had been induced or compelled by Muhammad Quli to build for themselves palaces in Haidarabad set their faces against his successor's attempt to provide a third capital for his kingdom.

Muhammad Qutb Shah died in 1626 and was succeeded by his son Abdullah Qutb Shah, during whose reign the hand of the Mughal began to fall heavily on the kingdom of Golconda. Mir Muhammad Said, entitled Mir Jumla, was prime minister during the early years of Abdullah's reign, and it was rumoured that he was on terms of intimacy with the queen mother, Hayat Bakhsh Begam, a masterful lady who managed both her young son and his kingdom, and never forgot that she was the daughter of a king, the wife of a king, and the mother of a king. Mir Jumla was appointed to the command in the Karnatak, and there won much credit for himself and much territory for his master, but his success was his undoing in Golconda, for Abdullah Qutb Shah feared that the conqueror of so much territory might aspire to the throne, and Mir Jumla's reputed liaison with Abdullah's mother, who had a hereditary claim to the throne, only served to intensify the king's apprehension. Abdullah began to betray his suspicions in his treatment of his minister and Mir Jumla wrote secretly to Aurangzib, who at that time dwelt in Aurangabad as his father's viceroy for the Mughal provinces in the. Deccan, offering him his services. The offer was accepted and Mir Jumla was privately informed that he had been made a commander of 5,000 horse, and his son, Muhammad Amir, a commander of 2,000 horse in the imperial service. At the proper time Aurangzib summoned his two new officers to his presence, and sent orders to Abdullah Qutb Shah to place no obstacles in the way of their joining him. It is doubtful whether these orders ever reached Abdullah Qutb Shah, but, however this may have been, he received information of the communications between his officers and Aurangzib, and confiscated Mir Jumla's property and confined Muhammad Amir in Golconda. This was regarded by Aurangzib as an act of defiance, and in 1656 he set forth for Haidarabad to punish Abdullah. Abdullah, in order to appease his powerful enemy, sent Muhammad Amir and his mother to Aurangzib's camp, but, in order