English: The Mughal obsession with chronicling history in the making is seen in this painting of 1633, which depicts the capture and decapitation of the rebellious nobleman (amir) Khan Jahan Lodi only two years earlier. In this work, we see ‘Abid’s sophisticated understanding of character types, which are clearly distinguished; a central figure in the composition stares directly at the viewer in an unsettlingly engaging manner. The setting is a Safavid-type landscape, vertically composed with improbable rock formations meeting a skyline lined with cavalry. The imperial presence is evoked by the centrally placed plane tree (chunar), a favored motif in Mughal landscape, which may be compared to the same motif in a painting by the artist’s father, Aqa Riza. Dressed in a bright orange jama on the right is the Rajput officer Madho Singh, proudly holding the lance with which he fatally struck the Afghan rebel. In the mid-ground, Sayyid Muzaffar Khan of Barha and Abdullah Khan, the leaders of Shah-Jahan’s imperial forces, face each other in a near mirror image. They were well rewarded for their victory, the title Khan-Jahan given to the former as inscribed in the painting on the hilt of his sword. At the apex of the pyramid is a figure looking directly at the viewer with his arms outstretched. He may be Farid, the only son of Lodi to be captured alive, holding his arms up in surrender. He stands directly below a chinar tree, a species brought to India by the Mughals which was often associated with the Timurid dynasty, perhaps a symbol of the absent Emperor. A row of soldiers labelled ‘the world-conquering army of the Second Lord of Conjunction’ appear behind a rocky outcrop in the background.