During the
interval between Aurangzeb's death and his own, he had struck coins.
Mu'azzam, the second, and eldest then surviving son, after the defeat
of his rival, ascended the throne under the title of Shah Alam
Bahadur Shah, and is generally known as Bahadur Shah. He was then
sixty-four years of age, his father having been eighty-seven years
old when he died. The events following the death of Bahadur Shah are
narrated as follows by Mr. Lane-Poole; 'The Deccan was the weakest
point in the empire from the beginning of the reign. Hardly had
Bahadur appointed his youngest brother, Kam Baksh ('Wish-fulfiller'),
viceroy of Bijapur and Haidarabad, when that infatuated prince
rebelled and committed such atrocities that the Emperor was compelled
to attack him. Zu-l-Fikar engaged and defeated the rebel king (who
was striking coins in full assumption of sovereignty) near
Haidarabad, and Kam Baksh died of his wounds (1708, A.H. 1120).
'In the midst of this confusion, and surrounded by portents of coming
disruption, Bahadur died, 1712 (1124). He left four sons, who
immediately entered with the zest of their race upon the struggle for
the crown.
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