Shahzada Mirza Muhammad Salim Shah, known as Mirza Salim, was a Mughal prince born in 1799 at the Red Fort in Delhi. He was a son of Emperor Akbar II and Mumtaz-un-Nissa Begum and a younger brother of Bahadur Shah II. His life unfolded during the decline of the Mughal Empire, as the East India Company extended its control over Delhi and its court.
Background
Mirza Salim was born in 1799 in the Red Fort, Delhi, the palace complex that Shah Jahan commissioned in the seventeenth century as an imperial residence. He was a son of the Mughal emperor Akbar II and his consort Mumtaz-un-Nissa Begum. His brothers included Bahadur Shah II, Mirza Jahangir, and Mirza Jahan Shah, and he was younger than each of them.
Within the family, Salim is described as a favourite brother of Mirza Abu Zafar, the prince who later became Bahadur Shah II. He consistently agreed with that brother's decisions and supported him. The succession was contested at court: one of Akbar II's consorts, Mumtaz Begum, pressed the emperor to name her son Mirza Jahangir as his successor rather than the elder Siraj Uddin Zafar.
Akbar II reigned during a period of weakening Mughal authority. The East India Company had consolidated its rule over parts of the disintegrating Mughal Empire, abandoning the pretence of governing in the emperor's name and removing his name from the Persian inscriptions on company coins. Sir Archibald Seton, a Scottish official of the Company who had served in Bengal from 1780, was the British Resident at the Red Fort during this period.
The dispute over succession produced a confrontation at the palace. Mirza Jahangir fired at Seton as the Resident left the Red Fort, and although the shot missed, the Company responded by exiling the prince, who was sent to Allahabad around 1812. Salim died on 8 September 1836 at the Red Fort in Old Delhi. The events of the Indian rebellion of 1857 later brought the Mughal dynasty to an end, after his death.
Religion
Salim is documented as a Sunni Muslim. Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam, and its adherents follow the Sunnah, the recorded practice of the Prophet Muhammad, as a principal source of religious guidance alongside the Quran. The Sunni tradition developed its legal schools in the early centuries of Islam, and its community life centered on mosques, religious scholarship, and Islamic law.
Salim belonged to the Timurid house, whose members ruled the Mughal Empire in India. Islamic faith and law therefore formed part of the religious setting of the Delhi court in which he grew up, and his affiliation placed him within the dominant Muslim tradition of the Mughal world.
Connections
Salim married Malika Sultan-uz-Zamani Begum Sahiba and Khushru-uz-Zamani Begum Sahiba, both of whom are named as his wives in reference sources. Wikidata records a spouse relationship beginning in 1813.
His children included two sons, Mirza Gouhar Shah Bahadur and Mirza Hamid Shah Bahadur, and two daughters, Husain Jahan Begum Sahiba and Zainat un-nisa Begum Sahiba. His family connections linked him with the Timurid household of Akbar II and with the princes who contended for the succession in the early nineteenth century.
Father:
Akbar II
Mughal emperor who reigned until his death in 1837.
Mother:
Mumtaz-un-Nissa Begum
Brother:
Bahadur Shah II
Son of Akbar II who succeeded him as the last Mughal emperor.
Brother:
Mirza Jahangir
Akbar II's preferred heir, who was exiled by the East India Company after attacking the British Resident Archibald Seton in the Red Fort.
Brother:
Mirza Jahan Shah
Wife:
Malika Sultan-uz-Zamani Begum Sahiba
Wife:
Khushru-uz-Zamani Begum Sahiba
Son:
Mirza Gouhar Shah Bahadur
Son:
Mirza Hamid Shah Bahadur
Daughter:
Husain Jahan Begum Sahiba
Daughter:
Zainat un-nisa Begum Sahiba
References
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia article covering Mirza Salim's parentage, his brothers, his family, and his death in 1836.
