Sultán Ahmad was at this time so powerful,
as to be capable of riding three koss either for
the sake of amusement or the chase; and, as he
often came to Itimád Khán's house at unseasonable
times, the Khán received him with fear and
trembling. Although Wajíhu-l-Mulk continued
to urge Itimád Khán to put the Sultán to death,
he continued to delay the measure. One day,
however, Wajíhu-l-Mulk sent a message to the
Sultán, saying, that if a promise of succeeding
as prime-minister was given him, he would put
Itimád Khán to death. The Sultán, unconscious
of any thing being intended, encouraged him by
a promise of succeeding the minister; but, when
Wajíhu-l-Mulk told this to Itimád Khan, he
would not, he said, give credence to such a
thing, without having heard it with his own
ears. Wajíhu-l-Mulk, therefore, having carried
the Khán at night time to a house near Bhaddar,
concealed him in an antechamber; whence he
sent this message to the Sultán, “that, as he
could not venture to publicly meet the Sultán for
fear of Itimád Khán's spies, he begged the latter
would take the trouble of meeting him, in order
that an agreement might be drawn up. Wajíhu-l-Mulk
then prepared a royal seat for the
Sultán at the door of the antechamber where
he had concealed Itimád Khán. The Sultán
accordingly came and took his seat, when Wajíhu-l-Mulk
recapitulated to him what he had before
said, requesting that an agreement between
them might be drawn up. The former, without
hesitation, repeated all that had already passed
between them; when Itimád Khán, who had
overheard the whole conversation, presenting
himself from the antechamber, asked the Sultán
what he had ever done that he should conspire
against his life. The Sultán, who became petrified
with astonishment, was immediately
killed by Itimád Khán's servants, who, according
to order, inflicted on him several blows of a
stick. Having afterwards taken up his dead
body, they threw it on the sands of the Sabarmatí
river, which is close by the houses of
Bhaddar. These events happened on Monday,
April 12,
A.D. 1561.
Those who found the body thought some of his intimate associates must have murdered the Sultán; and, on removing it from thence, it was buried in the vault of Sultán Ahmad I.
Previously to the Sultán's murder, Beirám
Khán had been murdered at the city of Patan,
on his way to Mekka; as Arsh Ashiáni
Akbar Pádsháh, on that very year, for the
several reasons detailed in the Akbar-Námah,
had given him permission to go to the Holy
City, on a pilgrimage. Beirám Khán, on arriving
at Patan, encamped there on the plain,
intending to rest himself for some days. As
Músá Khán Faoládí was at this time in uncontrolled
power in that quarter, a crowd of
Afgháns, who increased the disorders of the
country, had collected about him. Among
others, was a person named Mubárak Khán
Lohání; who, as his father had been inadvertently
killed, in the battle of Máchíwáráh, by
Beirám Khán, was now determined to take revenge.
The Afghans accordingly excited a
tumult, both on account of this occurrence, and
because a Kashmírian woman, the wife of Selím
Khán, by whom she had a daughter, after betrothing
her to the son of Beirám Khán, was
now accompanying him on his pilgrimage to
Mekka. One day, Beirám Khán had gone to a
pleasure seat, situated in the midst of a large
lake, near the city; and had returned in the
boat which had conveyed him there, when the
above-mentioned Afghán, accompanied by thirty
or forty others, arrived on the borders of the
lake, just as Beirám Khán had mounted his
horse. On this occasion, the dishonourable
Afghán, though the Khán had requested the
whole to come to him, so struck him on the
back with a dagger that it passed out at his
breast. The others, then drawing their swords,
completed his business, and put him to death.
His followers and attendants, distracted and
astonished, took to flight; and left the Khán's
bleeding body in the dust, where it was allowed
to lie, until some Fakírs and inhabitants carried
it away, and buried it near the mausoleum of
Shaikh Hissám. This event happened on Friday,
the 14th of Jumádá-ul-awal, A. Hij. 968,
22nd January,
A.D. 1561.
Beirám Khán's body was afterwards carried to the holy Mashhad, and buried there, through the exertion of Hussain Kúli Khán.
After Beirám Khán's death, the robbers of Patan plundered his followers, and left them nothing. Khoájah Malik, and several others, who brought away Abdú-l-Karím, (son and rightful heir of the Khán,) with his mother, saved them from that calamity, and sent them to Ahmadábád; whence, after four months, they went to the capital, (Dehlí) by desire of the Emperor Akbar.