Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/30

Rh Shahjahan, when, in 1633, Daulatabad was captured/ and Husain II, the last titular king of the Nizam Shahi dynasty, and Fath Khan, the son of Malik Ambar, were made prisoners. The latter entered the imperial service, but the former was sent, as a state prisoner, to Gwalior, where his companion in captivity was his cousin Bahadur Nizam Shah, who had been captured some thirty years before this time, on the fall of Ahmadnagar.

Meanwhile Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur had, in 1619, annexed the small kingdom of Bidar; and when Shahjahan, later in his reign, appointed his third son, Aurangzib, viceroy of the imperial province of the Deccan with his head-quarters at Malik Ambar's capital of Khirki now renamed Aurangabad, there remained, of the five original kingdoms of the Deccan, only two, Bijapur and Golconda. In 1656 Aurangzib wrested Bidar from Bijapur and well nigh succeeded in taking Golconda, whence he was recalled by peremptory orders from Delhi. Two years later he was called northwards by the sickness of his father, and the evident intention of his brothers to maintain by force of arms their claims to the throne.

Some years later Aurangzib, now emperor of India, returned to the Deccan. His first objective was Bijapur, and that city fell in 1686, its young king, Sikandar Adil Shah, being sent into captivity at Daulatabad. Golconda fell, after a siege of eight months, in the following year, and Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, the last king of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, was sent to bear Sikandar company in Daulatabad.

The Mughal empire, now at its greatest extent, soon began to show signs of decay. The power of the Marathas was rising and their activity and influence increased during the fratricidal wars which followed the death of Aurangzib in 1707, and during the confusion which for the next twenty years prevailed at Delhi.

In 1724 a faction in Delhi incited Mubariz Khan, subahdar of Haidarabad, to attack Asaf Jah Nizam-ul-Mulk, subahdar of Malwa, promising him, as a reward in the event of success, the viceroyalty of the whole of the Deccan. Mubariz Khan, though a personal friend of Asaf Jah, was unable to withstand this temptation, and marched north-wards to meet him. Asaf Jah, though he marched southwards into the Deccan and occupied Daulatabad, did his best to dissuade Mubariz Khan