Abu'l Muzaffar Muin ud-din Muhammad Shah Farrukh-siyar Alim Akbar Sani Wala Shan Padshah-i-bahr-u-bar [Shahid-i-Mazlum] (or
Farrukhsiyar, August 20, 1685 - April 19, 1719) was the
Mughal emperor between 1713 and 1719. Noted as a handsome but weak ruler, easily swayed by his advisers, Farukhsiyar lacked the ability and character to rule independently. His reign witnessed the primacy of the
Syed Brothers who became the effective powers of the land, behind the façade of Mughal rule.
Farrukhn Siyar was born at Aurangabad in the Deccan on September 11, 1683. He was the second son of Azim ush Shan, a son of former emperor Bahadur Shah I. His mother was Sahiba Niswan, a sister of Nawab Shaista Khan, the erstwhile Mughal Subadar of Kashmir. He married his first wife, Nawab Fakhr-un-Nisa Begum Sahiba, daughter of Nawab Sa'adat Khan Bahadur [Mir Muhammad Taqi Husaini], a Kashmiri nobleman from the Marashi clan, sometime prior to December, 1715. In September 1715, Farrukhsiyar married Indira Kanwar, daughter of Maharaja Ajit Singh of Jodhpur. He was also married to at least one other lady.
Jahandar Shah was defeated at Samugarh near Agra on 10 January 1713. Following this, the Syed Brothers, helped Farukhsiyar to secure his throne. He took the throne On January 11, 1713, at the age of 30. His reign marked the ascendancy of the Syed Brothers who monopolized state power and reduced the Emperor to an effective figurehead. The town of Farrukhnagar in Gurgaon district, 32 km south of Delhi, was rechristened after his name, during his reign, here he built a Sheesh Mahal and also a mosque.
It was during Farrukhsiyar's reign, in 1717, that the British East India Company purchased duty-free trading rights in all of Bengal for a mere three thousand rupees a year. It is said that the Company's surgeon, William Hamilton, cured Farrukhsiyar from some ailment and the emperor was moved to grant trading rights to the Company.[1] Another story tells of a bribe to a eunuch of the seraglio and a rumoured British Naval attack on the Moghul navy at Surat.[2] This order, which the Company hailed as the golden firman, was not of much practical use. Even though the Company claimed duty exemptions based on this firman, the Mughal governors of Bengal, from Murshid Quli Khan onwards, ignored this order of their suzerain and continued to collect customs duty from the East India Company.
