Usurps the throne. — The Kings of Ahmudnuggur and Beeja-poor combine against him. — Purchases the forbearance of Beejapoor, and breaks up the league. — The King of Ahmud-nuggur again invades Berar. — Toofal Khan obtains aid from Golconda, and attacks the troops of Ahmudnuggur — he is defeated, and flies to the fort of Narnala. — Narnala and Gavulgur taken. — Toofal Khan escapes, but is seized, together with the young King Boorhan Imad Shah — they are placed in confinement in a fort, where they die.

THIS enterprising minister united in his person the grand requisites for successful ambition, viz. undaunted courage and consummate art. His power advanced so rapidly after his usurpation, that the kings of Ahmudnuggur and Beejapoor were induced to seek his destruction, and marched their united forces against him. Toofal Khan, un­able to oppose both princes, made overtures to Ally Adil Shah and his minister, presenting to that monarch an offering of valuable jewels, to relinquish the war. Moortuza Nizam Shah, having discovered this correspondence, retreated to Ahmudnuggur.

A. H. 980.
A. D. 1568.

But in the year 980 he again marched against Toofal Khan, under the pretence of releasing the imprisoned prince from his confinement in Narnala.

On this occasion, Toofal Khan became alarmed, and deputed an envoy to beg assistance from Ibra-him Kootb Shah of Golconda, and with this aid he attacked Chungiz Khan, the peshwa of Ahmudnuggur. But Toofal Khan was com­pletely defeated; and being closely pursued and much harassed, was eventually besieged in the fort of Narnala, while his son took refuge in Gavulgur. The former of these places being strongly situated on the top of a hill, and not to be taken by ordinary means, Moortuza Nizam Shah merely invested it for a time, and at length resolved to return to Ahmudnuggur. Chungiz Khan, however, succeeded in gaining over some of the garrison, part of which escaped to him from the fort. These deserters being well rewarded, and provisions becoming scarce within, others daily followed their example, till at length only twelve artillery-men remained to work the guns. Chungiz Khan, who obtained the best information from the deserters, contrived, with great labour, to drag a gun up the hill, sufficiently near to batter one of the bastions; and one night twenty-eight men and a trumpeter, headed by an officer, approached the breach, and got over the wall, when the trumpeter was ordered to blow his trumpet. Toofal Khan, supposing that a large party had gained the works, and himself being left with a very few attendants, fled into the contiguous hills, without making any attempt to defend the place. The next day, Moortuza Nizam Shah seized all that was worth taking, and permitted the fort and town to be sacked. Syud Hoossein Astrabady, who was sent in pursuit, overtook Toofal Khan on the third day, and brought him to the royal camp. Shortly after which, the fort of Gavul was taken by capitula­tion, and Shumsheer-ool-Moolk, the son of Toofal Khan, was also made prisoner. Moortuza Nizam Shah, instead of placing the captive monarch on the throne of Berar, sent him with the usurper Toofal Khan, and his son Shumsheer-ool-Moolk, to be confined in one of the Nizam Shahy forts, where, it is said, they were all three subsequently strangled by the King's order. Others assert, that their whole families, amounting to forty persons, died in one night, in consequence of the cruelty of their keepers; who, wanting to extort part of the money allowed for their subsistence, and not being gratified by compliance, shut them up in a small dungeon on a hot night, where they perished before daylight. Thus the family of Imad Shah and that of the usurper Toofal Khan became extinct.