CHAND BIBI, also known as Chand Sultana, wife of Ali Adal Shah of Bijapur, one of the most distinguished women that have ever appeared in India. When the emperor Akbar sent an expedi tion into the Dekhan, there were four parties in the field supporting claimants to the throne of Ahmadnaggur, and this princess was acting as regent for her infant nephew, Bahadur Nizam Shah. She appealed successfully to the belliger ents to unite against the Moghuls.• Nehang, an Abyssinian, cut his way into Ahmadnaggur while the Moghuls were in the act of investing the place, and the other two joined the Bijapur army then marching against the Moghuls. Prince Murad pressed the siege ; two mines were rendered useless by the countermines of the besieged ; a third mine created a wide breach, and Chaud Bibi rushed to defend it, in full armour, and a naked sword in her hand, and a veil over her face, and, after an obstinate continu ance of the assault, the Moghuls withdrew in the evening, and they were afterwards bought off with the cession of Berar (February 1596, A.H. 1004).
The Moghuls had not long withdrawn, when Muham mad Khan, whom Chand Bibi had appointed her prime plotted against her authority, and called in the aid of Prince blurad. An indecisive battle was fought on the banks of the Godavery, and Akbar sent Abul Faz1, and subsequently he himself left the Panjab in 1598, and reached the Dekhan before the middle • of 1599, and sent forward Prince Denial and the Khan-i-Khanan to invest Ahmadnaggur ; and Chand Bibi was negotiating a peace with them, when her mutinous soldiery burst into the female apartments, and put her to death. In a few days the Moghuls stormed the fort, and gave no quarter to the fighting men. Chand Bibi is the favourite heroine of the Dekhan, and is the subject of many fabulous stories, which even Khafl Khan and Kazi Shahab ud-Din perpetuate.—Elphin. pp. 459-460.