‘No sooner had Sultan ‘Alauddin returned (from Chitor), than the Mughal danger arose once more. The Mughals in Mawaraun Nahr heard that Sultan ‘Alauddin had gone to lay siege to a distant fort and that there were no troops in Delhi. Targhi collected twelve tumans of horse and by forced marches reached Delhi before he was expected. In the same year, when ‘Alauddin had marched to Chitor, Malik Fakhruddin Jauna, the Dad-bek-i Hazrat and Malik Chajjū, nephew of Nusrat Khan and governor of Karra, had been sent to Arangal with the amirs and horse and foot of Hindustan. But when they reached Arangal, it began to rain in torrents, and harassed by the rainy season, the army of Hindustan could achieve nothing there. Towards the beginning of the winter, it returned to Hindustan, greatly reduced in numbers. It had lost all its baggage. The army of Sultan ‘Alauddin had also lost its baggage at the foot of the Chitor fort in the siege operations and the rain.

‘The Sultan had not been in Delhi for a month, no muster of the troops had been held and the material lost had not been replaced, when Targhi, all of a sudden, arrived with thirty or forty thousand horsemen and encamped on the bank of the Jumna. The people of the City, therefore, found their communica­tions with the outside world cut off. The condition of Sultan ‘Alauddin’s army was pathetic. The Sultan, as explained above, did not get sufficient time to replace the horses and material he had lost at Chitor. Malik Fakhruddin Jauna returned to Hindustan after losing his army and its material in Warangal, and as the Mugals had so encamped as to close all the roads, no horse or foot from the army of Hin­dustan could reach the City. At Multan, Depalpur and Samana there was no force strong enough to break through the Mughal lines and join the Sultan at Siri. The army of Hindustan was summoned, but as the Mughals had captured all the fords, it was compelled to remain at Koil (Aligarh) and Barran (Bulandshahr).

‘Sultan ‘Alauddin, therefore, came out of the City with the few troops he had and encamped at Siri. He laid aside all thought of open battle and dug a trench round his camp; on the outer side of the trench he constructed a wooden defence of stakes made from the doors of the houses of Delhi in order to prevent the Mughals from breaking into his camp. He ordered the garrison to be watchful and awake; they were to keep an armed guard at the trenches, so that the Mughals may not be able to cross them, and five armed elephants were made to stand in the trench of every detachment. The Mughals swarmed round the camp and wished to make a sudden assault on the Sultan’s army. Never before had the Mughal dan­ger been so great in Delhi as in this year, and if Targhi had remained for another month, there was a great likelihood that the Citizens, growing sick of the situation, would have submitted (to him). The Mughal danger weighed heavily on all hearts; no water, grass or wood could be brought to the City from outside; and the caravan routes of the corn merchants had been closed. The Mughal horsemen came to the Chautra-i Subhani, Muri and Kudhi; they often alighted on the embank­ment of the Royal (Shamsi) Tank, where they held their drinking parties, and sold the corn and provisions of ‘Alauddin’s stores at a very cheap rate. This prevented an excessive scarcity of corn in the City. Two or three skirmishes took place between the mounted foraging parties of the two armies, but neither side gained a deci­sive victory, Thank God! the accursed Targhi did not succeed in breaking into the Sultan’s camp and annihilating his army. After two months the prayers of the helpless (were heard by the Almighty) and Targhi collected his spoils and retired to his own land.

‘This deliverance of the City and the army of Islam from the Mughals appeared a strange thing to experienced men. The Mughals had come at the proper time and in sufficient numbers to capture the City; they had closed all roads for the entrance of soldiers and provisions; the Sultan’s army had no equipment and no reinforcements could reach it; and yet the Mughals were unable to overcome or prevail.’*

Ferishta, who contents himself with summarising Barni, is pleased to add: ‘The Sultan, in his excessive anxiety, appealed to Shaikh Nizamuddin Aulia. That very night, it is said, Targhi, who had besieged Delhi for two months, was overpowered by a strange terror and retreated in haste—an action for which no material reasons can be found. The people of Delhi considered it to be the result of the Shaikh’s intervention and numbered it among his miracles.’ Targhi’s apparent success, it must not be forgotten, had been due to the rapidity of his movements. ‘Alauddin’s defence of Siri for two months must have given the amirs of the Doab and the Punjab time to collect their forces. It is difficult to explain the ‘strange terror’ that took possession of Targhi’s mind, but his com­munications were in danger and he may not have felt himself strong enough to meet the forces which were sure, sooner or later, to march for the relief of Delhi from all sides.