Suffur 1.
A. H. 917.
April 29.
A. D. 1511.

service, he called together his creatures on the 1st of Suffur, in the year 917, to consult with them regarding a lucky day for deposing Ismael Adil Shah, and for causing his own name to be read in the Khootba at Beejapoor. After much debate, the first of the ensuing month, Rubbee-ool-Awul, was fixed as the time propitious to his designs, he little sup­posing that the recorders of fate were then penning the concluding pages of the journal of his vain­glorious life.

The young King and his mother were much alarmed at the intelligence of the Regent's inten­tions; and though the number of their friends was small, they contrived a plan to avert the danger. God having decreed the preservation of the Adil Shahy family, and the long continuation of its royal power, the astrologers represented to Kumal Khan, that the appearance of the heavenly bodies indicated certain days of the present month as unfavourable to his designs, he would, therefore, do well to avoid approaching any persons of whom he had the least suspicion. Fully impressed with these observations, the Regent committed the charge of the city to his own dependents; and having chosen an apartment in the citadel, close to the royal palace, shut himself up with his own family and officers, keeping the gates of the fort strongly barred within, and having guards with­out. After taking these precautions, he remained in one room for some days, pretending to suffer under a severe head-ache, vainly thinking by these precautions to evade that fate to which he was destined. The measures adopted by the Pro­tector proved favourable to a plan which the Queen-mother had formed to destroy him. In order to carry it into effect, she applied to Yoosoof Toork, the foster-father of Ismael Adil Shah, who had been treated with great indignity by the Regent, and who mortally hated him, to be her agent in the business. This old officer entered into the Queen's plan, saying, that he would undertake to slay the Regent at all risks, and regretted that instead of one life he had not a thousand to sacri­fice for his prince; for though it was clear one man could effect little against eight thousand Dec-canies and Abyssinians, yet as he knew his life would be taken the instant Kumal Khan ascended the throne, he was willing to render it up as a sacri­fice for his sovereign, and desired to be informed how he could be useful.

The Queen now sent for an old female attendant of her own, whom she knew to be employed as a spy upon her actions by Kumal Khan, and pre­tended to be under great uneasiness at the report of the Regent's indisposition. She desired the old female to take a sum of money, as a wave-offering for his recovery, and to make enquiries regarding his health. When the old woman left her, and had gone some paces, the Queen called her back, as if suddenly recollecting something, and said that her faithful servant Yoosoof Toork was very much depressed in spirits, and wished to go on pilgrimage to Mecca; she, therefore, desired the old female to take him with her, and to prevail on Kumal Khan to grant him leave, and to give him, as usual, a pân * of dismissal with his own hand, telling the Regent she should regard it as a personal favour. The female consented; and going first in to Kumal Khan, delivered the Queen's offering and message in such a manner, that the Protector was highly pleased, and gave orders to admit Yoosoof. The Toork approaching, according to custom, with great respect and humility, made his obeisance, and uttered several flattering speeches, which pleased Kumal Khan, who calling him nearer to him, stretched out his hand to give him a pân. Yoosoof putting his hands under the cloth that covered his shoulders, advanced as if to receive it. The Pro­tector stretched forth his hand to put the pân on the cloth, when Yoosoof, with the quickness of light­ning, drawing a dagger concealed beneath the cloth, stabbed Kumal Khan in the breast with all his force, so that he fell down and expired imme­diately with a loud groan; upon which the attend­ants rushing in cut the assassin to pieces with their swords, as also the old woman, whom they con­cluded had acted in concert with him.

The mother of Kumal Khan, a woman of mas­culine spirit, commanded the attendants to refrain from clamour; and placing the body dressed out, supported by pillows on a musnud, in a balcony of the palace, as if to receive compliments from the court, instructed the Protector's son, Sufdur Khan, to go down and tell the guards it was his father's orders to surround the royal apartments and to seize Ismael Adil Shah. She sent orders also to the troops without the citadel to enter the city, and pay their compliments to the Regent as their sovereign prince.

Sufdur Khan, conceiving the force within suffi­cient to take the young King prisoner, closed the gates of the citadel, and with his relatives and fol­lowers armed with musketry, sabres, spears, bows and arrows, advanced to the apartments where the Prince resided with his mother and family. The Queen apprehending that Yoosoof had failed in his attempt, and that Kumal Khan out of resent­ment had hastened his operations to dethrone her son, thought it prudent to pretend ignorance of Yoosoof's design, and to endeavour to avert the storm by flattery and submission. But the King's foster-aunt, Dilshad Agha, who had lately come from Persia to Hindoostan in the latter part of the reign of Yoosoof Adil Shah, remarked, that, in such a crisis as the present, valour and fortitude would be of more avail than submission. She instantly or­dered the palace-gates to be shut, and sent out her eunuch, Mullik Sundul, to the few of her country­men on duty in the outer court of the seraglio, informing them, that Kumal Khan, with a view of deposing Ismael Adil Shah their sovereign, who was of the same country as themselves, was ad­vancing to assassinate him and the whole of the royal family. She entreated them, therefore, that if they were men, they would not regard the superi­ority of the enemy, but valiantly assist their Prince against the traitor, who, by the divine blessing, would be overwhelmed in the enormity of his accursed ingratitude.

The foreign guards declared their resolution to defend their young sovereign, and both Dilshad Agha and Booboojee Khanum (the Queen-mother) now came out, dressed as men, and clad in armour, with bows and arrows in their hands, attended by the young King, Ismael Adil Shah, who had the yellow umbrella of his father held over him by a Toorky female, named Moor-tufa.

Meanwhile Sufdur Khan, the Regent's son, who was endeavouring to force the gates, was opposed by the Toorks with arrows from the palace wall. The young King, as well as the women, assisted, but the enemy's superiority was so great, that the party of brave Toorks had little chance. Many of them were killed by musket-balls, and the rest falling back, a mournful cry of despair ensued. At this instant, Moostufa Khan and Sikundur Khan Koomy, who had formerly the charge of the cita­del, (and whom Kumal Khan, thinking weak and insignificant, had not thought worth while to ex­pel,) hearing of the disturbance, hastened with fifty Deccany matchlock-men to the foot of the palace wall, and hailing Dilshad Agha ascended the terrace, and joined the royal party. The minister's party, though now kept in check, could not effectually be repulsed. Many persons continued to fall on both sides; and Dilshad Agha sent a servant privately over the wall into the city, to inform all the foreigners of the danger to which their King was exposed, entreating them to hasten to his assistance, promising to admit them over a bastion behind the palace. The rebels not having secured this spot, many of the King's friends ascended by ropes thrown over to them by this enterprising female for the purpose, till at last the party in the palace amounted to one hundred and fifty foreign archers, fifty matchlock-men, nineteen Toorky slaves, and twenty-five Abyssinians. Dil-shad Agha, with a veil on her head, fought with them, and by animating speeches encouraged their exertions, promising that the King would reward them all with high honours. Sufdur Khan, perceiv­ing that the numbers within increased, secured the approaches to the palace to prevent more from entering, and made a desperate attack with five hundred men, bringing cannon also to batter down the walls. Many of the besieged fell at this time, and almost all the Deccanies and Abys­sinians threw themselves over the battlements and fled. The foreigners now concealed them­selves, and remained silent behind the parapet wall. Sufdur Khan, concluding they had fled, broke open the outer gate of the palace, and en­tered the court, but while endeavouring to force the inner door the gallant Dilshad caused a volley of shot and arrows to be discharged from the ter­race, which did great execution, killing and wound­ing some of the principal men of the minister's party. An arrow also pierced the eye of Sufdur Khan, who ran under a wall over which the King himself was standing; and the royal youth, know­ing his person, rolled down a heavy stone from the terrace, which crushed him to death as he lay couched to avoid the shot. The troops, seeing their chief killed, ran to the house of Kumal Khan, where they now learned that he also was dead, upon which they opened the gates of the citadel, and fled in different directions. Khoosroow Khan Toork, a faithful slave of the late king, perceiving the numbers of the enemy without to be consider­able, shut the gates again; and, at the suggestion of Dilshad, sent out the heads of the minister and his son with a guard by a sally-port, to be displayed through the streets of the city, for the information of the people. Mahomed Ein-ool-Moolk (who had given his daughter to Sufdur Khan in marriage), together with all the principal friends of the Regent, quitting their houses, made their escape out of the city. At length, the capital being cleared of the rebels, the King came out with the body of his foster-father Yoosoof, which he caused to be de­posited near the tomb of the venerable Ein-ood-Deen Jooneidy; and after distributing alms, he ordered a dome to be erected over the remains of his faithful servant, and a mosque to be built, for the maintenance of which public lands were allotted. During his whole reign, Ismael Adil Shah went constantly once a month to visit this tomb.