Shahzada Mirza Muhammad Jahan Shah Bahadur (also known as
Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...
Mirza Jehan Shah) (1779–1846) was the son of Prince Mirza Akbar, who became the Emperor
Akbar Shah II
Akbar II (; 22 April 1760 – 28 September 1837), also known as Akbar Shah II, was the Nineteenth Mughal emperor of India. He reigned from 1806 to 1837. He was the second son of Shah Alam II and the father of Bahadur Shah II
Akbar had littl ...
in 1806. He was a younger brother of Emperor
Bahadur Shah II
Bahadur Shah II, usually referred to by his poetic title Bahadur Shah ''Zafar'' (; ''Zafar'' Victory) was born Mirza Abu Zafar Siraj-ud-din Muhammad (24 October 1775 – 7 November 1862) and was the twentieth and last Mughal Emperor as well a ...
and former
Crown Prince
A crown prince or hereditary prince is the heir apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The female form of the title is crown princess, which may refer either to an heiress apparent or, especially in earlier times, to the wif ...
s
Mirza Jahangir
Shahzada Mirza Muhammad Jahangir Bakht Bahadur (also known as Prince Mirza Jahangir Bakht) (1776 – 18 July 1821) was the son of Prince Mirza Akbar, who became the Emperor Akbar Shah II in 1806 and his wife Empress Mumtaz Mahal, he was also the ...
and
Mirza Salim
Shahzada Mirza Muhammad Salim Shah (1799 – 8 September 1836 ) (also known as Prince Mirza Salim Shah) was a son of Mughal emperor Akbar II and his consort Mumtaz-un-Nissa Begum. He was a younger brother of Emperor Bahadur Shah II, former Cr ...
. His mother Selaa'h un-nissa, was the third wife of the Emperor. He was the last Mughal ruler of
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
before Mughals left Assam. The Prince was under house arrest by British where he died at Assam at the age of 51.
Biography
His father ruled over a rapidly disintegrating
empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
between 1806 and 1837. It was during his time that the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
dispensed with the illusion of ruling in the name of the Mughal monarch and removed his name from the Persian texts that appeared on the coins struck by the company in the areas under their control.
![Silver rupee coin of Akbar Shah II](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Silver_rupee_coin_of_Akbar_Shah_II.jpg)
His brother was not his father’s preferred choice as his successor. One of Akbar Shah's queens, Mumtaz Begum, had been pressuring him to declare her son, and Mirza Jahan Shah's half-brother
Mirza Jahangir
Shahzada Mirza Muhammad Jahangir Bakht Bahadur (also known as Prince Mirza Jahangir Bakht) (1776 – 18 July 1821) was the son of Prince Mirza Akbar, who became the Emperor Akbar Shah II in 1806 and his wife Empress Mumtaz Mahal, he was also the ...
as his successor. The East India Company exiled Jahangir after he attacked their resident, Sir
Archibald Seton
Archibald Seton (1758 – 30 March 1818) was a Scottish East India Company colonial administrator, Resident and Civil servant.
Bengal Service
Seton was the son of Hugh Smith who, on marrying Elizabeth Seton of Touch in 1745, had taken his wi ...
, in the
Red Fort
The Red Fort or Lal Qila () is a historic fort in Old Delhi, Delhi in India that served as the main residence of the Mughal Emperors. Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned construction of the Red Fort on 12 May 1638, when he decided to shift hi ...
.
Family
During his lifetime, he kept six wives, and had at least ten children. He died in 1846, years before the
events of 1857 that ushered in the end of his
dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A ...
and the rule of the
Imperial family of India.
His grandson,
Zahir Shah Mirza Mirza Mu'hammad Zahir ud-Din Shah (c. 1855–1899) known as Mirza Zahir Shah (Persian-ظهیرالدّین میرزا محمد) was a Mughal Prince through the Nineteenth Mughal Emperor Akbar II lineage descendant who was the Great-Grandfathe ...
was the patriarch of the
Singranatore family in the eastern provinces of the empire.
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Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jahan Shah, Mirza
1795 births
1846 deaths
Mughal princes
People from Delhi
18th-century Indian royalty
19th-century Indian royalty
Indian people who died in prison custody
Prisoners who died in Indian detention