After the death of the Emperor Aurangzeb, Khan started providing mercenary services to several local chieftains in the politically unstable Malwa region.

[6] Khan successfully protected Mangalgarh from its other Rajput neighbors, married into its royal family, and took over the state after the death of its heirless dowager Rani.

[8] During the early 1720s, he transformed the village of Bhopal into a fortified city, and claimed the title of Nawab, which was used by the Muslim rulers of princely states in India.

Dost Mohammad Khan was born in 1657[citation needed] at the Tirah region in the Subah of Kabul situated on the North-western frontiers of the Mughal Empire (now corresponding to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan).

[10] Attracted by the promise of a bright future in the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb's service, Khan set out for Jalalabad, near Delhi, where his Pashtun relatives had settled.

According to the Khan's rozanmacha (daily diary), Aurangzeb was impressed by him, presented him with two fistfuls of gold coins, and asked Fazlullah to treat him well and give him an appropriate command.

[10] Following the death of the emperor Aurangzeb, Malwa started witnessing power struggles between the various chieftains in the area due to lack of a central authority.

Dost Mohammad Khan became the leader of a band of around 50 Pathan mercenaries, and started providing the local chieftains protection against pillage and strife.

Berasia, a small mustajiri (rented estate) near Mangalgarh, was under the authority of the Delhi-based Mughal fief-holder Taj Mohammad Khan.

Advised by Mohammed Sala, Sunder Rai and Alam Chand Kanoongo, Dost Mohammad Khan took on the lease of Berasia.

[18] The lease involved an annual payment of 30,000 rupees, which he was able to pay with help of his wife Fatah Bibi, who belonged to the Mangalgarh royal family.

Khan appointed Maulvi Mohammad Saleh as the qazi (judge), built a mosque and a fort, and installed his loyal Afghan lieutenants in various administrative capacities.

[10] The rampant power struggles and disloyalty, especially his imprisonment by his own men after the Gujarat raid, had made Khan distrustful of people around him.

Khan's father, Mehraj Bibi (his wife – the girl he was engaged to in Tirah) and his five brothers arrived in Berasia in 1712, with around 50 tribesmen of the Mirazikhel.

[20] Narsingh Deora demanded tribute from the Patel of Barkhera in Dillod, who had earlier given shelter to Dost after he fled away from the Mughal camp.

After a lunch arranged by him for both the parties, he stepped outside on the pretext of ordering ittar (perfume) and paan (betel leaf), which was actually a signal for Khan's hiding men to kill the Rajputs.

In 1722, he visited Berasia with a proposal that the two cousins join hands in extending their territory, and their acquisitions of land and property be equally divided.

Disillusioned with the Mughal court, Nizam-ul-Mulk also intended set up his own independent state, and left for the South as the Governor of Malwa and Deccan.

[24] Khan also seized control of several territories in Ashta, Debipura, Doraha, Gulgaon, Gyaraspur, Ichhawar, Sehore and Shujalpur.

Nizam Shah, the strongest of the local Gond warlords, ruled his territory from the Ginnor fort (Ginnorgarh in the present-day Sehore district).

[8] Kamlapati offered Dost Mohammad Khan a hundred thousand rupees to protect her honor and her kingdom and to avenge her husband's death.

Historians have debated the reason for Khan's loyalty: some say he was enchanted with Kamlapati's charm and beauty; others think that he believed in keeping his word to women (he had been loyal to the Rani of Mangalgarh till her death as well).

[10] In Annals and antiquities of Rajasthan, James Tod mentions a folk story that describes how the "Queen of Ganore" killed Khan with a poison dress, when he asked her to marry him.

One day, during a shikar (hunting) trip, Dost Mohammad Khan and his wife Fatah Bibi decided to rest in the Bhopal village.

[10] Dost Mohammad Khan and his family gradually started using Bhopal as their main bastion, though Islamnagar still remained the official capital of his state.

Dost Mohammad Khan was well-aware of the power of Nizam-ul-Mulk, who was the Subahdar (Governor) of Malwa; he had seen his strong force passing through Bhopal on its way to the Deccan in the south.

Several Pashtuns, including those of Yusufzai, Rohilla and Feroze clans, settled in Bhopal during his reign due to relatively peaceful environment of the area.

Kunwar Sardar Bai (later Fatah Bibi), his favorite wife of Rajput descent, was childless, but had an adopted son called Ibrahmin Khan.

The Nizam overruled the appointment, and sent the Dost's hostage teenage son Yar Mohammad Khan to Bhopal with a thousand horsemen.

Most of Dost Mohammad Khan's descendants along with the bulk of the Muslim Nobility would later migrate to Pakistan, some returned to their native Tirah region while the majority settled in the port city of Karachi.