Siege of Bidar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
changes City of Bidar incorporated into the Mughal Empire
| Siege of Bidar | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Mughal-Bijapur War 1657-1686 | |||||||||
 Gateway to Bidar Fort | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Mughal Empire | Adil Shahi dynasty | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Iftikhar Khan | Siddi Marjan | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
5,000 Total 1,000 cavalry 4,000 infantry | |||||||||
The siege of Bidar (March 1657) was a twenty-seven day siege of Bidar Fort (in Bidar, a city in present-day Karnataka, India) mounted by the Mughal Empire against the Bijapur Sultanate. The siege was led by the Mughal prince Aurangzeb during the reign of his father Shah Jahan, and was the opening military confrontation to his broader invasion of the Bijapur Sultanate that same year. The garrison was commanded by Siddi Marjan, governor of the city, who eventually surrendered and then died of his wounds. The siege was a Mughal victory, with Bijapur subsequently negotiating a peace treaty with Shah Jahan. The city of Bidar was ceded to the Mughal Empire, becoming one of the earliest cities in the Deccan to fall into Mughal control.
The city of Bidar had been in the control of the Bijapur Sultanate since 1619, when Ibrahim Adil Shah II had annexed the Bidar Sultanate and ended the Barid Shahi dynasty. Ibrahim Adil Shah appointed an Abyssinian named Sidi Marjan or Malik Marjan as the city's governor. He governed the city for around thirty years, and under his tenure Bidar Fort underwent extensive fortification work and repairs.[1] Lying on the northeastern frontier of the Sultanate, Bidar and its fort had strategic importance.[2]
In 1652, the Mughal prince Aurangzeb, son of reigning emperor Shah Jahan, was appointed for the second time as Viceroy of the Deccan, governor of all Mughal holdings in the Deccan region.[3] Aurangzeb was an advocate of annexing the Deccan Sultanates in order to expand Mughal territory southwards and make the Deccan provinces more prosperous; the Mughal-Deccan territories at the time did not yield the revenue needed to sustain Aurangzeb's princely establishment. Aurangzeb and the turncoat Mughal vizier Mir Jumla had been devising plans to seize Bijapur upon the reigning sultan Muhammad Adil Shah's death, and Aurangzeb had been bribing nobles and commanders of Bijapur to defect. In November of 1656 the sultan died; his successor Ali Adil Shah II was only eighteen and faced a precarious position in the court.[4] On 26 November 1656 Shah Jahan permitted Aurangzeb to invade Bijapur territory. On 18 January 1657, Aurangzeb arrived in the Mughal capital of the Deccan, Aurangabad.[2] Accompanied by his son Muhammad Mu'azzam and generals Mir Jumla and Iftikhar Khan, he began marching towards Bidar, the first stop on the path to invading Bijapur.[1][2]