Bahadur Shah Zafar

Bahadur Shah II (Abu Zafar Siraj-ud-din Muhammad; 24 October 1775 – 7 November 1862), also known by his poetic title Bahadur Shah Zafar (Persian: بهادر شاه ظفر; Zafar lit. 'Victory'), was the twentieth and last Mughal emperor and an Urdu poet. He was a titular Emperor with his authority limited to the Walled City of Delhi, but was declared the Emperor of India by the forces opposing East India Company forces across the Indian subcontinent during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Zafar was exiled to Yangon in British-controlled Burma in December 1857 by the East India Company after rebel defeat in the war, putting an end to the nearly 500-year long Timurid dynasty started by Timur.

His spouse was Zeenat Mahal. He was the second son and the successor to his father, Akbar II, who died in 1837.

Bahadur Shah Zafar's father, Akbar II, had been imprisoned by the British and he was not his father's preferred choice as his successor. One of Akbar Shah's queens pressured him to declare her son, Mirza Jahangir, as his successor. However, the East India Company exiled Jahangir after he attacked Archibald Seton, their resident in the Red Fort, paving the way for Bahadur Shah to assume the throne.