[2] Feroz Jung was raised under the scrutiny and austerity of his father Ghazi ud-Din, spending his days under the care of tutors and mullahs, and allowed the company of only eunuchs on Fridays.
The historian William Dalrymple describes the result as a "precocious intellectual achievement...undermined by unbounded ambition and profound immorality that led to his turning on all who helped him, starting with his patron Safdar Jang.
"[3]: 154 Safdar Jang, the Nawab of Awadh, and Wazir-ul-Malik-i-Hindustan (Prime Minister of Hindustan), had intervened to secure Feroz Jung's estates after the death of his father and had appointed him the imperial paymaster at the age of sixteen.
[4] The French military commander Jean Law described that Safdar Jang regarded Feroz Jung "like his own son and could scarcely have imaged that he was actually nursing a serpent at his breast.
[3]: 155 According to the Mughal historian Ghulam Hussain Khan, "Old Delhi, which used to be even wealthier and populous than the new city, Shahjahanabad, was plundered and sacked so thoroughly that an infinity of people lost their consorts and children, and were totally ruined, besides numbers that were massacred.
The Marathas, aided by Malhar Rao Holkar, defeated Ahmad Shah Bahadur's army at Sikandrabad in May 1754 and captured members of the emperor's household, including 8,000 women.
Imad-ul-Mulk, with the support of Raghunath Rao, proceeded to Delhi, and deposed Ahmad Shah Bahadur on 2 June 1754 and imprisoned at the Salimgarh Fort in December.
He supposedly intercepted the secret dispatches from Ahmad Shah Bahadur to Suraj Mal where the imprisoned emperor promised to aid to the Jats if they continued to hold out against the Mughal army besieging Bharatpur.
Imad-ul-Mulk made peace with Suraj Mal, returned to Delhi and had Ahmad Shah Bahadur and his mother Qudsia Begum blinded with hot needles.
[12][3]: 156 Afghan emperor Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded India for the fourth time in 1756, on the invitation of Mughlani Begum to defeat Sikh rebels in Punjab.
However, actual control of Delhi was given to Najib-ud-Daula, the Rohilla Mir Bakhshi of the Mughal army who had defected to support Ahmad Shah's invasion, in return for an annual tribute of 20 lakh rupees.
Imad-ul-Mulk feared that emperor Alamgir would invite Ahmad Shah Durrani or use his son, Prince Ali Gauhar to dispossess him of his newfound power.
At the Battle of Panipat in January 1761, a coalition of Afghan, Rohilla and Awadh troops defeated the Marathas, shattering their influence over the Mughal imperial throne and over northern India.
He poetically described Maharvi's death, حیف واویلا جہاں بے نور گشت (What a pity, where there is no light) in 1205 Hijri, indicating his residence in Maharshrif until at least 1791 CE.