Bahadur Shah I

Bahadur Shah I, born Muhammad Mu'azzam at Burhanpur on 14 October 1643, was Aurangzeb's son and the Mughal emperor from 1707 to 1712. He was viceroy in the Lahore region in the 1690s and governor of Kabul from 1699. When Aurangzeb died on 20 February 1707 he came down from Kabul to fight for the throne. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism records that he asked Guru Gobind Singh for help in the war of succession, and that the Guru sent Sikhs who fought for him at the battle of Jajau on 8 June 1707, after which he took the throne as Bahadur Shah.

His reign touches the Panth at two points: how he treated Guru Gobind Singh, and the war he made on Banda Singh Bahadur.

Key moments

• 23 July 1707: he received Guru Gobind Singh at Agra and honoured him with a robe and gifts. The meeting opened talks on the state's religious policy.
• 1707 to 1708: the Guru travelled south with the imperial camp while the emperor marched against his brother Kam Bakhsh, and the talks were left unresolved. At Nanded, Wazir Khan of Sirhind had two Pathans sent to murder the Guru, and one stabbed him. The emperor sent surgeons, including an Englishman named Cole. The wound reopened and the Guru passed away on 7 October 1708.
• 1710: back from the Deccan, he faced the revolt of Banda Singh Bahadur. The Encyclopaedia describes a general mobilisation, a call for volunteers for a jihad and new laws against Sikhs, and an order that Hindus in imperial offices shave their beards so that Sikhs in disguise could be picked out. His forces stormed the fortress of Lohgarh but could not capture Banda Singh.
• 10 December 1710: he issued a general warrant for the faujdars to kill the worshippers of Nanak.
• August 1711 to February 1712: he stayed about six months at Lahore while Banda Singh remained free. He grew melancholic and died on 27 February 1712.

What he is remembered for. In the Panth's memory he is the emperor who honoured Guru Gobind Singh at Agra and left the talks with him unresolved, and who within two years of the Guru's passing issued an order to kill Sikhs. Banda Singh was captured at Gurdas Nangal in December 1715, after the emperor's death, in the reign of Farrukh-siyar.