“The sickening tale of the fratricidal war of succession need not detain us long. Though it lasted only a
little less than a year, from the illness of Shah Jahan, in September 1657, to the coronation of
Aurangzeb, in July 1658, its trailing cloud of crime cast a portentous shadow over the future of the
Empire. Shah Jahan had secured his throne by the virtual murder of his brothers Khusru, Parviz,
Shahriyar and other relations. Aurangzeb was only following too closely the examples of his
predecessors. The unfortunate, though perhaps, unconscious motto of the house seemed to be:
‘Kingship knows no kinship; the watchword of the brothers who were now at death-grips with one
another appeared to be: ‘takht ya takhta’, - either crown or coffin.
 
“Prince Dara Shikoh, Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad were all uterine brothers. Their ages were
respectively 43, 41, 39, and 33 years, at the time of this fateful struggle. The eldest seemed to be the
father’s favourite, and would have normally succeeded to the throne. Though he spent most of his
time at the Capital with Shah Jahan, he was nominally the viceroy of the Punjab and the Northern-
Western Provinces. Shuja was governor of Bengal and Orissa; Aurangzeb of the Deccan, and Murad of
Gujrarat. All four were reputed soldiers, though each of the other three yielded the palm to Aurangzeb
in point of steadiness and strength of character, astuteness, and generalship. In religious outlook also,
Aurangzeb was as determined to uphold orthodox Sunni Islam as his brothers were either
latitudinarian or namby-pamby. Dara was eclectic like Akbar, Shuja and Murad, at least for political
purposes, a hater of heresies. Hence the first combination of the younger two against the two elder;
once the discomfiture of the former was achieved the latter were quits. Aurangzeb had the same axe
for all, though Dara was executed to all appearances, on a charge of heresy and Murad on a charge of
murder. Shuja escaped beyond the north-eastern frontier only to be done to death by the Arakanese.
Dara’s son, Suleiman Shikoh, was not treated more unkindly than Aurangzeb’s own son, Muhammad
Sultan, for crimes which were not dissimilar in the eyes of the fanatical Aurangzeb: the former had
fought for his father, and the latter for his father-in-law (and uncle) Shuja, who were equally heretical
and therefore equally hateful, - both were imprisoned and then ‘sent to hell’. But in spite of all this
Aurangzeb was not a blood-thirsty fiend.
 
“From the point of view of our study of the Empire no purpose would be served by going into the
details of this war. When all is stated, it only illustrated: the basic weakness of a system that could be
set at naught at the merest illness of the Emperor; the darker side of the family tradition of the house
of Timur that exalted pelf and power above everything else; and the consummate ability of Aurangzeb
in diplomacy and war in contrast with the political impotency of his brothers. The circumstances which
led to the ‘discomfiture and death of the weaker parties may be briefly stated as follows:
 
1. When Shah Jahan fell ill, in September 1657, he formally nominated Dara Shikoh his successor, to
avert the possible tragedy of a war of succession.
 
2. In spite of this, on the 5th December 1657, Murad proclaimed himself Emperor at Ahmadabad,
struck coins and had the khutba read in his own name.
 
3. Shuja did the same at Rajmahal in Bengal, and marched with an army and fleet towards Benares
which he reached on January 24, 1658.
 
4. Aurangzeb, quick to apprehend the situation, but too shrewd to precipitate matters, proposed to
act, not in his own name, but in the interests of Islam and his younger brother Murad. The Empire was
to be saved from the heresies of Dara and Shuja; a third of the booty was to be given to Murad
together with the Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Sindh: the rest to be retained by Aurangzeb
himself.
 
5. Mir Jumla who was called to the north, by order of Shah Jahan, was not allowed by Aurangzeb to
proceed from the Deccan. He was arrested and his army thus made available for Aurangzeb. Smith
says, ‘The circumstances indicate that probably Mir Jumla connived at his own arrest. Certainly he did
not resent it, nor did he fail to continue to give his ally invaluable support when released ... ... Mir
Jumla’s fine park of artillery proved to be extremely useful’.
 
6. At the beginning of February 1658, Aurangzeb too assumed Imperial prerogatives. On 3rd April he
crossed the Narmada and joined forces with Murad, near Ujjain.
 
7. On 15th April, 1658, the Imperial army, under Kasim Khan and Raja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur, was
defeated at Dharmat, (14 miles s-w of Ujjain) by the rebel Princes. Jaswat Singh fled from the battle-
field, but his wife would not give him shelter after such rank cowardice!
 
8. Dara Shikoh then encountered the rebels at Samugarh (8 miles to the east of Agra fort), on May
29, 1658. A mere accident in this well-contested battle, in which the Rajputs ‘did honour to the
traditions of their race’, turned the tide in favour of Aurangzeb. ‘The battle (of Samugarh)’, as Smith
says, ‘really decided the war of succession. All the subsequent efforts to retrieve the cause then lost,
whether made by Dara Shikho himself, by his son Suleiman Shikoh, or by Shuja and Murad Bakhsh,
were in vain. Aurangzeb proved himself to be by far the ablest of the princes in every phase of the
contest, which was not ended until two years later, in May 1660, when Shuja met his miserable fate’.
 
9. On 8th June 1658, Aurangzeb took possession of Agra fort and imprisoned Shah Jahan therein for
life. Shah Jahan died there on 22nd January 1666, gazing for the last time on the tomb of his beloved
wife with whom he now lies buried.
 
10. Murad was apprehended on June 25, 1658, and finally imprisoned and executed at Gwalior, in
December 1661. A charge of murder was brought against him by the son of Ali Naki who was Murad’s
one time Diwan. The Prince was tried and condemned by a Kazi ‘with all the forms of law’.
 
11. On July 21, 1658, Aurangzeb had himself crowned, though his formal enthronement was deferred
until June 1659.
 
12. Suleiman Shikoh had defeated Shuja at Bahadurpur (near Benares) in February 1658. Aurangzeb
again routed him at Khajwah (Fathpur District), on January 5, 1659. Thence he fled to Arakan where
he met with his death in May 1660.
 
13. Dara was hunted from place to place through Multan, Sindh, Kathiawar and Gujrat. He was
betrayed once near Ajmer, by Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur. Finally, while he was trying to escape to
Persia, he was again betrayed by Malik Jiwan Khan, the Afghan chief of Dhandar (near Bolan Pass), on
June 9, 1658. The death of his beloved wife Nadira Begam (daughter of Parviz) had much distracted
Dara. ‘Death was painted in his eye ... Everywhere he saw only destruction, and losing his senses
became utterly heedless of his own affairs’. In the words of Khafi Khan, ‘Mountain after mountain of
trouble thus pressed upon the heart of Dara, grief was added to grief, sorrow to sorrow, so that his
mind no longer retained its equilibrium ... ... At the end of Zi-l Hijja, 1069 (September 1659), the
order was given for Dara Shikoh to be put to death under a legal opinion of the lawyers, because he
had apostatized from the law, had vilified religion, and had allied himself with heresy and infidelity.
After he was slain, his body was placed in a howda and carried round the city (as once before when he
was alive). So once alive and once dead he was exposed to the eyes of all men, and many wept over
his fate. He was buried in the tomb of Humayun.
 
“Dara, like Khusru, was an enlightened and popular Prince. Bernier, who was an eye-witness to these
tragic happenings, records: ‘Everywhere I observed the people weeping, and lamenting the fate of
Dara in the most touching language ... ... from every quarter I heard piercing and distressing
shrieks, ... men, women, and children wailing as if some mighty calamity had happened to
themselves.”