Siddy Mowla suffered himself to be deluded, and privately began to bestow titles and offices upon his disciples, and to assume a tone and man­ner sufficiently indicative of his design on the throne. He engaged Meer Mohsun Kotwal and Nutty Pyhlwan, two of his followers, to join in the King's retinue on Friday, as he went to the public mosque, and to assassinate him; while he himself prepared about 10,000 of his adherents to support his usurpation. One of his followers, however, dissatisfied with the part assigned to him in the approaching revolution, went privately to the King, and disclosed the plot.

The King caused both Siddy Mowla and Kazy Julal-ood-Deen Kashany to be apprehended, and brought before him for examination. They per­sisted in their innocence, and as no other witness appeared against them, the accusation was ren­dered doubtful. The King, therefore, caused a fire to be prepared in the plain of Bahadurpoor, in order that they might be submitted to the fiery ordeal to purge themselves of their guilt; and having left the city to see the ceremony, he or­dered a circle to be railed off round the pile.

Siddy Mowla, and the others accused, were then brought, in order that they might walk through the flames to prove their innocence. Having said their prayers, they were just about to plunge into the fire, when the King stopped them, and turning to his ministers, asked, if it was lawful to try Mus-sulmans by the fiery ordeal? They unanimously declared, that it was the nature of fire to consume, paying no respect to the righteous more than to the wicked; and they also pronounced the prac­tice to be heathenish, and contrary to the Maho-medan law, as well as to reason.

The King now directed Kazy Julal-ood-Deen Kashany to be sent prisoner to Budaoon, and Siddy Mowla to be confined in a vault under the palace, and two other men, who had engaged to perpetrate the King's assassination, to be publicly executed. At the same time, he banished a number of those who were suspected of being accessaries. While the police were carrying Siddy Mowla through the court to his prison, the King pointed him out to some Kalendars who stood near the throne, and said, “Behold the man who was projecting such “an evil against us. I leave him to be judged by “you, according to his deserts.” At these words, a Kalendar, whose name was Sunjurry, started forth, and running towards the prisoner, began to cut him with a razor.

Sidda Mowla, without offering resistance, en­treated him to be more expeditious in sending him to God. He then addressed himself to the King, who was looking over the balcony, and said, “I “am rejoiced that you have thought of putting a “period to my life at once; yet it is sinful “to distress the pious and the innocent; and be “assured that my curse will lie heavy upon you “and your unfortunate posterity.” The King, hearing these words, became pensive and per­plexed. His son, the Prince Arkully Khan, who hated Siddy Mowla for the great intimacy which existed between him and his elder brother, Khan Khanan, seeing the Emperor's irresolution, beckoned to an elephant rider, who was in the court ready mounted, to advance, and tread Siddy Mowla to death. Zeea Burny, the author of the history of Julal-ood-Deen Feroze, informs us that he himself was then in Dehly, and that immediately after the death of Siddy Mowla, a black whirlwind arose, which, for the space of half an hour, changed day into night, and drove the people in the streets against one another, so that they could scarce grope their way to their own habitations.

The same author relates, that no rain fell in these

A. H. 690.
A. D. 1291.

provinces during that year, A. H. 690; and a famine ensued, by which thousands of Hindoos daily died in the streets and highways, while whole families drowned themselves in the river.

The prosperity of the King began visibly to de­cline; for every day new factions and disputes arose, which greatly disturbed his administration. Domestic calamities also pressed hard upon him, among which was the illness of his eldest son Khan Khanan. Medicines were of no avail; and the distemper gaining ground, that Prince fell a victim to the disease in a few days.

The King, after the decease of his son, marched his army towards Runtunbhore, to quell an insur­rection in those parts, leaving his son Arkully Khan in Dehly, to manage affairs in his absence. The enemy retired into the fort of Runtunbhore, and the King reconnoitred the place, but, de­spairing of reducing it, marched towards Oojein, which he sacked. At the same time, also, he broke down many of the temples of Malwa, and after plundering them of much wealth, returned to Runtunbhore. He summoned the fort a second time; but finding the Raja paid no attention to his threats, he gave orders to undermine the walls. But again wavering in his resolution, he decamped, saying, that he found the place could not be taken without the loss of many lives, and therefore he would lay aside the design. Mullik Ahmud Among other things there were two brazen idols, which were thrown down before the Budaoon gate of Dehly, to be trodden under foot.

Julal-ood-Deen Feroze was much pleased with the success and conduct of his nephew on this expedition, for which he rewarded him with princely presents, and annexed the province of Oude to his former government of Kurra.

Alla-ood-Deen, upon this preferment, acquainted the King that there were some princes of great wealth towards Chundery, whom (if the King would give permission) he would reduce. The King was induced to consent to this measure from the account he had learnt of the riches of those rajas; but the object of Alla-ood-Deen appears to have been to establish an independent power. He was narrowly watched, however, by Mullika Jehan, the King's favourite wife, who suspected him of being too ambitious, and warned the King that Alla-ood-Deen aimed eventually at fixing himself in an independent sovereignty in some remote part

A. H. 693.
A. D. 1294.

of India. Accordingly, in the year 693, after taking leave of the King at Dehly, Alla-ood-Deen proceeded towards Kurra, where he enlisted many chiefs of distinction, who had formerly been dependents of the Bulbun family. He then marched with 8000 chosen horse, by the nearest road, against Ram Dew, Raja of the Deccan, * who possessed the wealth of a long line of kings.

Alla-ood-Deen arriving on the Deccan frontier, pressed forward towards the capital. The first place of any consequence which he reached was Elichpoor, where having made a short halt to refresh his army, he moved by forced marches to Dewgur, the lower town of which was not entirely fortified, the outer wall being then incomplete. When the news of Alla-ood-Deen's progress reached the Raja, he, together with his son Shunkul Dew, was absent in a distant part of his domi­nions: the Raja hastened his return, and endea­voured to intercept the enemy with a numerous army. For this purpose, he threw himself between Alla-ood-Deen and the city, and opposed him with great gallantry, but was eventually defeated with severe loss.

This expedition is otherwise related in the Moolhikat, and in the Tubkat Nasiry, by con­temporary authors. Alla-ood-Deen (say these writers) left Kurra Manukpoor on pretence of hunting, and having passed quietly through the territories of many petty rajas, purposely avoided all hostilities; giving out that he had left his uncle, the King, in disgust, and was going to offer his services to the Raja of Rajmundry, one of the rajas of Tulingana. Accordingly, after a march of two months, he arrived without any remarkable opposition at Elichpoor, from whence he suddenly marched, in the direction of Dewgur, the capital of Ram Dew. On his reaching that place, he found the Raja himself in the city, but his wife and eldest son were at worship at a temple at some distance.

On the approach of Alla-ood-Deen, Ram Dew was in the greatest consternation. Having, how­ever, collected three or four thousand citizens and domestics, he opposed the Mahomedans at the distance of two coss (four miles) from the city, but being defeated, retired into the fort which had at that time no ditch. * It happened that some of Ram Dew's subjects, who had brought salt for sale from the Concan, had left their bags close to the fort walls, and fled on the approach of the enemy. The garrison, supposing the bags to contain grain, carried them into the fort as a supply for a siege. Alla-ood-Deen so effectually sur­rounded the place that the inhabitants had no opportunity to escape, which enabled him to levy large sums on the merchants by way of contri­bution. He also captured forty elephants and several thousand horses, belonging to Ram Dew, in the town.

In the mean time he gave out that his force was only the advance-guard of the King of Dehly's army, consisting of twenty thousand horse, which was in full march to the place. This information ex­cited general apprehension throughout the Deccan; and the rajas, instead of uniting for their common safety, each endeavoured to secure himself against attack. Alla-ood-Deen pillaged the city, seized on the merchants, brahmins, and principal inha­bitants, and tortured them to make discovery of their property, while at the same time he conducted the siege of the fort.