Guardian to Akbar
Bairam Khan had served Humayun since his youth, sharing his exile and fighting beside him on the road back into India. When Humayun died leaving a thirteen-year-old on the throne, the page credits Bairam with securing the succession: "In the year 963, 1556, he was made the guardian of Prince Muhammad Akbar, and was appointed to suppress Sikandar K. Sur, and to manage the affairs of the Panjab." (vol. I, p. 371) He took the title Khan-Khanan and governed as regent for four years, but Akbar grew resentful of his high-handedness, and in 1560 dismissed him from court without an audience.
Rebellion and death at Pattan
Stripped of office, Bairam raised a brief revolt in the Punjab before submitting; Akbar pardoned him and granted leave to make the pilgrimage to Mecca rather than punish him. On the road, at Pattan in Gujarat, an Afghan whose father had died fighting Bairam years before approached him under pretence of paying respects and stabbed him as he stepped from his boat. The page records the end plainly: "The Khān-Khānān uttered the kalma Allah Akbar and departed from this world and obtained the martyrdom which he had long prayed for" (vol. I, p. 375). His body was afterward carried to Mashhad for burial, as he had wished.