Shah Bahadur was born to Muhammad Shah in 1725 A.D. He succeeded his father to the throne as the 15th Mughal emperor at a tender age of 23. His mother Udham Bai was also known as Kudsiya Begam. When Ahmed Shah Bahadur succeeded the throne the Mughal dynasty was already on the verge of collapse. During that time the Mughal capital, Delhi had been invaded and plundered and much of the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent have been ransacked by the invasions of Nadir Shah. He inherited a much weakened Mughal state and after ruling unsuccessfully for six years, that is from 1748 to 1754 A.D., he was blinded and killed in his sleep by Wazir Ghazi-ud-Din, the son of Asaf Jah I in the month of January at the age of thirty-five only. Ahmad Shah Bahadur was characterized as a "good natured imbecile" without personality, training and qualities of leadership and was entirely dominated by others including his mother Udham Bai and the eunuch superintendent of the harem, the emperor's vicar Javid Khan. The son of Ahmad Shah Bahadur, Bidar Baksh temporarily rose to power in 1788 as puppet of Ghulam Qadir.