Bahadur Shah Zafar was the last Mughal emperor. He was just a nominal emperor as the Mughal Empire existed only in name during his period. It was the mid-nineteenth century. The East India Company had become a dominant political and military power by then, and Zafar’s authority was limited only to the walled city of Old Delhi (Shahjahanbad). Hundreds of kingdoms and principalities fragmented the land outside the region controlled by the Company. Following his involvement in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Bahadur Shah Zafar was convicted with several charges. The British exiled him to Rangoon in British-controlled Burma (now Myanmar).
Bahadur Shah Zafar’s court had prolific Urdu writers including Mirza Ghalib, Dagh, Mumin, and Zauq. He himself was a noted Urdu poet who wrote a number of Urdu ghazals.
Though some parts of his works were lost, a large collection did survive. It was later compiled into the Kulliyyat-i-Zafar.
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