Person · first Bakhshi (Mir Bakhshi), 1713

Sayyid Husain Ali Khan

Held the office of first Bakhshi (Mir Bakhshi) under farrukh-siyar, per vol. I, p. 258.

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The younger, more forceful brother

Husain Ali Khan and his elder brother Hasan Ali Khan (later Abdullah Khan Qutb-ul-mulk) were sons of Sayyid Abdullah Khan, called Sayyid Miyan, who had risen under Alamgir's Mir Bakhshi Ruhullah Khan before attaching himself to Prince Muhammad Muazzam Shah Alam. The page records that the younger brother was "admitted by every one to have been a man of much greater energy and resolution than his elder brother" (vol. I, p. 203), and that under Alamgir he had already held charge first of Rantambhor in subah Ajmer and then of Hindaun Biana in subah Agra.

Following Prince Muizz-ud-din to Multan, the brothers fell into dispute with him when he assigned the honours of an expedition against a Biluch zamindar to his favourite Isa Khan Main instead of to them. The page states plainly that "the Sayyids quitted the service in dudgeon and repaired to Lahor, where they lived in comparative poverty, waiting for employment from Munim Khan, the nazim of that place" (vol. I, p. 203) — the setback from which the brothers' later rise had to be rebuilt.

First Bakhshi under Farrukh Siyar

After Farrukh Siyar's victory, the reorganisation of the administration carried out on the way from Agra to Delhi raised the family to the summit of the new government: the elder brother became chief minister as Nawab Qutb-ul-mulk, and the page records that "Sayyid Husain Ali Khan was appointed first Bakhshi with the titles of Umdat-ul-mulk, Amir-ul-umara, Bahadur, Firuz Jang, Sipah-sardar" (vol. I, p. 258) — the chief military-administrative office of the empire, and the peak this page traces for him.

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