Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Ahmed Shah Bahadur

Ahmed Shah Bahadur (1725-1775) was born in 1725 to Mohammed Shah. He succeeded his father to the throne as the 15th Mughal Emperor in 1748 at the age of 23. His mother was Udham Bai, (also known as Kudsiya Begam). When Ahmed Shah came to power the rule of the Mughal Empire was collapsing. During the reign of his father the city of Delhi (the Mughal capital) had been plundered and much of northern India had been ransacked by the invading army of Nadir Shah).
Ahmed Shah inherited a much weakened Mughal state and after ruling unsuccessfully for 6 years, he retired in 1754, badly afflicted by disease. He was blinded and killed in his sleep on a night in January 1775 at the age of fifty by Wazir Ghazi-ud-Din (Son of Asaf Jah I). His son Bidar Baksh the Second temporarily rose to power in 1788 as puppet of Ghulam Qadir.

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