Page 154 - Lohgarh

Chapter 9

Death of Emperor

Bahadur Shah

Bahadur Shah Decides to Stay in Lahore

st
Bahadur Shah reached Lahore in the evening of the 1 of August 1711.
As he was accompanied by a very large force he decided to put up his
camps in the territory of Alowal village, instead of the Fort of Lahore.
The eldest prince Azim-us-Shan put up his camps in village Awan. He
created a defense of the carts of treasury and ammunition around his
own tent. The second prince Muazz-ud-Din put up his camp near
Parwezabad and prince Rafi-us-Shan near the Dharmu Bagh area.
Mohammed Jahan Shah chose the plains of Shamir Khush. The eldest
prince had 31 thousand soldiers and the rest three had 11 thousand
soldiers each. 1
By this time the Muslim residents of Lahore had been living under
the fear of the Sikhs. Earlier, the Muslim priests had made an attempt
to fight a holy war to quell the Sikh rebellion, but they were badly
defeated. A very large number of their leaders lost their lives during
their battle against the Sikhs. This created an atmosphere of awe and
terror and an average Muslim dreaded even the simple mention of the
possibility of a Sikh attack. But, now, as a huge royal army of about one
hundred thousand soldiers, under the command of the Emperor himself,
had reached Lahore, these Muslim clergy heaved a sigh of relief. One
day, Sayyad Inayatullah, Sayyad Ataullah, Mohammed Taqi etc., the
leaders of the Muslim holy war, went to have an audience with the
Emperor and assured him of their complete help in his crusade against
the Sikhs. Bahadur Shah had already got the information about their