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92 THE KOH-I-NUR.
Mohammed
Shah, a feeble irresolute man, was appointed by Fate to hold the
sceptre of India at the moment when she was to meet her fiercest foe.
Thamas Kouli Khan, better known as Nadir Shah, had raised himself to
the throne of Persia and, like all usurpers, felt the need of
strengthening himself at home by a successful foreign war. He
accordingly invaded India, at the head of a small force of hardy
fighters, who, in the words of Nadir's grandiloquent Persian
biographer, " threw the shadow of their sabers across the existence of
their foes." In short they killed all before them and entered the
Punjaub early in the year 1739, by pretty much the same route as that
followed by Baber, the ancestors of the Moguls. But the Moguls were
changed since the days of Baber. Mohammed Shah was completely defeated
the moment he encountered Nadir Shah.
However,
booty, rather than territory, was the object of the invader, so he did
not dethrone Mohammed, but only levied tribute from him.
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