Mughals and Daudnagar

Recently I had a chance travel through a small town of Daudnagar in Bihar, about 100 kms from Patna. I was not planning to visit that place but found out that it had a fort built between 1664 to 1673 by Daud Khan and  his grandson Ahmed Khan  and we went inside the town to see this place. Now like other places in Bihar even this place is in a dilapidated condition that you can see in below pictures

 

 

Life and Times of Daud Khan

I started searching the internet about Daud Khan and about this place and unfortunately there isn’t much information available. Here is what I could gather from the archives. I found a journal of Bihar and Orrisa Volume 4 which was published in 1918 in archive.org and that had some history of the Daud Khan. That chapter was written by Khan Bahadur Saiyid Zamruddin Ahmad and according to him Daud Khan came of a Quraish family of Hisar-i-Feroza (cuurent day Hisar). His father’s name according to Bhikhan Khan. He started his carreer Khan-i-Jahan Lodi and than joined under Dara Shikoh who gave him the title of Khan. 

As Shah Jahan was ailing, dispute arose among his sons and there was a skirmish between Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh. Daud Khan supported Dara Shikoh for a while and fought valiantly for him but eventually Aurangzeb was able to defeat Dara Shikoh. Daud deserted Dara and went back to Hisar where Aurangzeb sent him khillat probably seeing his skills. Very soon he joined Aurangzeb’s imperial  court and took the rank like other generals. It was Aurangzeb who made Daud Subedar (Governor) of Bihar. His most important event was the conquest of Palamau and its annexation to Mughal Empire.

In this account it doesn’t talk about Daud Khan Fort and Mosque and the date mentioned as the construction coincides with exit of Daud Khan from governorship of Bihar. It does mention that Daud Khan while returning from his expedition, he cut down jungle and petitioned Aurangzeb for construction of a town called after him Daudnagar. 

After moving out of Bihar he was made Governor of Khandesh to fight the Marathas then Berar and Allahabad. There is no definite date of his death but according to this account mostly he died in the year 1673 which is the year the fort was completed. 

This is the reason I think the fort was probably started by him but was  completed by his descendants who remained in Bihar.

Learnings about Mughal’s Ways of Working  

Daud Khan showed his skills in different expeditions and he was rewarded accordingly. It did not matter that he was against Aurangzeb for a while but was given progressively more responsibilities. People were very much mobile and were asked to go around places like Daud Khan himself came from Hisar and then became governor of Bihar, Khandesh, Allahabad and had career spreading current day Pakistan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Deccan. 

 Since Mughals had started from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, maybe they chose people who were descendants of people from that area. I suspect that Daud Khan and his ancestry is also from there.

 

If anyone has more details or evidence feel free to share and I would  be very happy to correct them here.