Third son of Aurangzeb, proclaimed emperor
Irvine's opening register of Alamgir's family gives Azam Shah's birth and place among his brothers: "Muhammad Azam the third son was born of Dilras Banu Begam, daughter of Shah Nawaz Khan Safawi on the 12th Shaban, 1063 (9 July, 1653). He is usually styled Ali-jah and often Azam Tara" (vol. I, p. 2). On his father's death, once the funeral rites were done, he had himself enthroned: "the funeral ceremonies being completed and the first days" (vol. I, p. 7) "of mourning having elapsed, Azam Shah on the 10th Zul Hijja 1118 (14th March 1707), the Id-uz-zuha, ascended the throne with the usual ceremonial" (vol. I, p. 8), the khutba was read in his name "by the style and title of Abul-fayaz, Qutb-ud-din, Muhammad Azam Shah, Ghazi" (vol. I, p. 8). The page records that submission was partial: "the leaders of the Mughals, however, a very important and influential body, held aloof" (vol. I, p. 8).
Defeat and death at Jajau
Azam Shah's forces met his brother Bahadur Shah's at Jajau — Irvine elsewhere dates the encounter to "the battle of Jajau on the 18th Rabi I. 1119 H. (18th June 1707)" (vol. I, p. 204). Late in the fighting his eldest son Bidar Bakht was killed: the page names him only in an aside about his own young son Bidar Dil, wounded moments before and sent to the rear — "a ball from a swivel-gun (jazair) struck his father Bidar Bakht, and killed him" (vol. I, p. 32). Irvine's account of the battle's close continues directly: "Azam Shah, in spite of the death of his eldest son and of so many leaders, urged on his elephant, amidst a rain of arrows and balls, into the thick of the fight" (vol. I, p. 32), until, struck repeatedly, "at length a musket ball struck him on the forehead and killed him" (vol. I, p. 33) — a shot "believed to have been from the hand of Isa Khan Main, a zamindar from the Lakhi Jangal of subah Lahor, then serving with the troops of Prince Muizz-ud-din" (vol. I, p. 33). In the battle's aftermath "Rustam Dil Khan ... cut off the dead Prince's head and made his way with it to Bahadur Shah, thinking it would be an acceptable offering," but the victor, the page says, "received nothing but reproaches from the compassionate Bahadur Shah" for the act (vol. I, p. 33).