Alamgir II
Mirza Aziz-ud-Din Muhammad (; June 6, 1699 – November 29, 1759), better known by his regnal name Alamgir II (Persian: ), was the fifteenth Mughal emperor from 1754 to 1759. He was the son of Jahandar Shah. Born Mirza Aziz-ud-Din, the second son of Jahandar Shah, was raised to the throne by Imad-ul-Mulk after he deposed Ahmad Shah Bahadur in 1754. On ascending the throne, he took the title of Alamgir and tried to follow the approach of Aurangzeb (Alamgir I). At the time of his accession to the throne he was 55 years old. He had no experience of administration and warfare as he had spent most of his life in jail. He was a weak ruler, with all powers vested in the hand of his vizier, Imad-ul-Mulk. In 1756, Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded India once again and captured Delhi and plundered Mathura. While the Marathas became more powerful because of their collaboration with Imad-ul-Mulk, and dominated the whole of northern India. This was the peak of the Maratha expansion, which caused great trouble for the Mughal Empire, already weak with no strong ruler. Relations between Alamgir II and his usurping vizier, Imad-ul-Mulk had now deteriorated, their troubled relation would culminate in the murder of Alamgir by Imad-ul-Mulk. Alamgir II's son Ali Gauhar escaped persecution from Delhi, while Shah Jahan III was placed on the throne. Early life Alamgir II was born Aziz-ud-Din on 6 June 1699 at Burhanpur and was the second son of Muizz-ud-Din, the son of future Emperor Bahadur Shah (Shah Alam). His mother was a jat, Anup Bai, with little clarity about her existence. Aziz-ud-Din was 7 when his great-grandfather Aurangzeb died in the Deccan. After the death of his grandfather, Bahadur Shah I, and the war of succession that followed, his father, Jahandar Shah, was defeated, by the next Mughal Emperor, Farrukhsiyar. Aziz-ud-Din was then imprisoned in 1714 and released in 1754, by the usurping Vizier Imad-ul-Mulk, he perceived Aziz-ud-Din as a frail personality who would not object his regime. Therefore, on 2 June 1754, Aziz-ud-Din was given the title Alamgir II by the vizier out of his own recommendation, as he wanted to follow the centralised approach of Aurangzeb. Succession to throne Imad-ul-Mulk hired Maratha mercenaries to do his bidding and put all the imperial revenues into his own pocket and starved Alamgir II's family. He also persecuted Ali Gauhar, the elder son of Alamgir II. Since then, relations between Alamgir II and Imad-ul-Mulk's regime were so bad that the latter got him assassinated in November 1759. Reign After the emergence of Alamgir II the Mughal Empire had impulsively began to re-centralize, particularly when many Nawabs sought the gratification of the Mughal Emperor and his co-ordination regarding their resistance to the Maratha. This development was clearly unwelcome by Imad-ul-Mulk who sought to strengthen his authoritarianism with the undaunted support of the Marathas. His Amir-ul-Umara and Mir Bakhshi continued to be Mirza Ashraf, the son of Khan Dowran VII(a noble in the reign of