Murtaza Nizam Shah III, was a

Nizam Shahi The Ahmadnagar Sultanate was a late medieval Indian Muslim kingdom located in the northwestern Deccan, between the sultanates of Gujarat and Bijapur. Malik Ahmed, the Bahmani governor of Junnar after defeating the Bahmani army led by general Ja ...

boy prince who in the year 1633 became the nominal

Sultan Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it ...

Ahmednagar Ahmednagar (), is a city located in the Ahmednagar district in the state of Maharashtra, India, about 120 km northeast of Pune and 114 km from Aurangabad. Ahmednagar takes its name from Ahmad Nizam Shah I, who founded the town in 1494 ...

. He was subjected to the authority of the

Maratha The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a M ...

leader

Shahaji Shahaji Bhonsale (Pronunciation: �əɦad͡ʒiː c. 1594 – 1664) was a military leader of India in the 17th century, who served the Ahmadnagar Sultanate, the Bijapur Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire at various points in his career. As a membe ...

. The

Mughal general Sardar Ranoji Wable attacked

killed Fateh Khan along with the boy prince Hussain Nizam Shah III on the order of

Mughal Emperor The Mughal emperors ( fa, , Pādishāhān) were the supreme heads of state of the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent, mainly corresponding to the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The Mughal rulers styled t ...

Shah Jahan Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...

, his relatives as well as two pregnant women so that there would not be any male heir to the throne. But soon, Shahaji with the assistance of

Bijapur Sultanate The Adil Shahi or Adilshahi, was a Shia,Salma Ahmed Farooqui, ''A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century'', (Dorling Kindersley Pvt Ltd., 2011), 174. and later Sunni Muslim,Muhammad Qasim Firishta's T ...

, placed an infant scion of the Nizam Shahi dynasty, Murtaza on the throne and he became the regent. The scion Nizam and Shahaji's family was stationed in the

Mahuli Mahuli is an area of the Indian state of Maharashtra, covering about 6km. It is approximately 75km north-east of Mumbai in the 421601 postcode. Features Mahuli Fort, located 2815 ft above sea level, is a popular trekking and rock clim ...

Fort. Shah Jahan quickly made an alliance with Mohammed Adil Shah of

Bijapur Bijapur, officially known as Vijayapura, is the district headquarters of Bijapur district of the Karnataka state of India. It is also the headquarters for Bijapur Taluk. Bijapur city is well known for its historical monuments of architectural ...

and the respective Mughal and

Adil Shahi The Adil Shahi or Adilshahi, was a Shia,Salma Ahmed Farooqui, ''A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century'', (Dorling Kindersley Pvt Ltd., 2011), 174. and later Sunni Muslim,Muhammad Qasim Firishta's T ...

generals, Khan Zaman (son of Mahabat Khan) and Ranadulla Khan (father of Rustum-e-Zaman) besieged

. Shahaji tried to break the siege externally several times but failed. However, the mother of Murtaza Nizam, Sajeeda was caught while fleeing along with the Nizam. Murtaza Nizam Shah III was brought before

and Mohammed Adil Shah. Shah Jahan proposed to murder the boy Nizam so as to finish the

once and for all but Shahaji intervened and requested Shah Jahan to change his decision. But Mohammed Adil Shah was adamant that he should kill the young prince. After some thinking, Shah Jahan ordered Nizam's release much to the surprise of Mohammed Adil Shah. However, he set a condition that Shahaji would be placed in the

deep south The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...

so that he could not pose any challenge to the

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

. The Nizam was taken away by

Sardar Ranoji Wable to

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

and was made a

Sardar Sardar, also spelled as Sardaar/Sirdar ( fa, سردار, , 'commander', literally 'headmaster'), is a title of royalty and nobility that was originally used to denote princes, noblemen, chiefs, kings and other aristocrats. It has also been u ...

References

{{reflist Ahmadnagar Sultanate

See also

References