Mughal emperors

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badshah of the Mughal

Empire
FORMER MONARCHY
IMPERIAL

Imperial Standard

Akbar the Great

First monarch Babur
Last monarch Bahadur Shah II
Style
Official
residence

His Imperial
Majesty
Agra Fort

Monarchy
started

21 April 1526

Monarchy
ended

20 June 1858

The Mughal era is a historic period of the Mughal

Empire in South Asia (mainly Northern India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh) that was ruled by
members of the Barlas Mongol Timurid Dynasty. It
ruled from the early 16th century to the early 18th
century when the Mughal emperors' power
dwindled. It ended with the establishment of
the British Raj in 1858.
The imperial family was descended from Genghis
Khan, founder of the world's largest contiguous
empire and Tamerlane or Timur the Great. Due to
descent from Genghis Khan, the family was
called Mughal, the Persianized version of his ethnic
group, which is referred to as the Mongolic peoples.
The English word mogul (e.g. media mogul,
business mogul), meaning influential or powerful, or
a tycoon, was derived from the name of this
dynasty.[1] From their descent from Tamerlane, also
called the Amir, the family used the title ofMirza,
shortened Amirzade, literally meaning 'born of the
Amir'.[2] The burial places of the emperors illustrate
their expanding empire, as the first emperor Babur,

born in Uzbekistan is buried in Afghanistan, his sons

and grandsons, namely Akbar the
Great and Jahangir inIndia and Pakistan respectivel
y, and later descendants, Shah
Jahan and Aurangzeb in India. The last
emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar is buried in Burma.
They were also a prominent influence of literature
in Urdu, Hindi, and Bengali. They have been
continuously portrayed in many films, the most
famous of which, Mughal-e-Azamis about
Emperor Jahangir's love story; considered an Indian
classic and epic film and also the Bollywood
film Jodhaa Akbar about Emperor Akbar's (Emperor
Jahangir's father) love story and also a hindi serial
joddha akbar same as the hindi movie joddha akbar.
Emperor Jahangir's son was the
Prince Khurram who later went on to become
Emperor Shah Jahan and built one of the seven
Wonders of the World, the famous Taj Mahal to
memorialize his love for his wife.

Map

Contents

[hide]

1 Mughal Empire
o

1.1 Babur

1.2 Humayun

1.3 Akbar

1.4 Jahangir

1.5 Shah Jahan

1.6 Aurangzeb

1.7 Later Mughals

1.8 List of Mughal Emperors

1.9 Later Emperors

1.10 Mughal family

2 Marathas

3 Nizams of Hyderabad

4 Sikhs

5 Europeans
o

5.1 British influence

6 Successors

7 References

8 Further reading

9 External links

Mughal Empire[edit source | edit

beta]

The Taj Mahal - the most famous structure in India built during
Mughal Era

Main article: Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire lasted for more than three
centuries, and was one of the largest centralized
states in pre-modern history, as well as the
precursor to the British Raj.
The titles of the first of the six Mughal Emperors
receive varying degrees of prominence in presentday Pakistan and India. Some favourBabur the
pioneer and others his great-grandson, Shah
Jahan (r. 1628-58), builder of the Taj Mahal and
other magnificent buildings. The other two
prominent rulers were Akbar (r. 1556-1605)
and Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707). Both rulers
expanded the empire greatly and were able looters.
However, Akbar was known for his religious
tolerance as a ploy to usurp and administrative

genius, whereas Aurangzeb was a proselytizer of

orthodox Islam across the heterodox Indian
landscape.

Babur[edit source | edit

beta]

Main article: Babur

Babur was the first Mughal emperor. He was born
on 14 Feb 1483 in Andijan (present
day Uzbekistan), the eldest son of Amir Umar
Shaykh Mirza, the son of Ab Sad Mirza (and
grandson of Miran Shah, who was himself son
of Timur) and his wife Qutlugh Nigar Khanum,
daughter of Younus Khan, the ruler
ofMoghulistan (and great-great grandson of Abhavh
Timur, the son of Esen Buqa II, who was the greatgreat-great grandson of Chaghatai Khan, the
second born son of Genghis Khan). Babur was
known for his love of beauty in addition to his
military ability. Babur concentrated on gaining
control of northwestern India. He was invited to India
by Daulat Khan Lodi and Rana Sanga who wanted
to end the Lodi dynasty. He defeated Ibrahim Lodi in
1526 at the First battle of Panipat, a town north
of Delhi. In 1527 he defeated Rana Sanga,
the Rajput rulers and their allies at Khanwa. Babur
then turned to the tasks of persuading his Central

Asian followers to stay on in India and of

overcoming other contenders for power, mainly
the Rajputs and the Afghans. He succeeded in both
tasks but died shortly thereafter on 25 December
1530 in Agra. He was later buried in Kabul.
Babur Defeats Sultan Ibrhm, the last of the Ld Sultans of
Delhi (page from the Baburnama)

Further information: Baburnama

Babur kept the record of his life in Chagatay Turkish,
the spoken language of the Timurids and the
whole Turco-Mongol world at the time.
TheBaburnama is one of the longest examples of
sustained narrative prose in Chagatai
Turkish. Akbar's regent, Bairam Khan,
a Turcoman of
easternAnatolian and Azerbaijani origin whose
father and grandfather had joined Babur's service,
wrote poetry in Chaghatai and Persian. His son,
Abdul-Rahim Khankhanan, was fluent in
Chaghatai, Hindustani, and Persian and composed
in all three languages. Using Babur's own text he
translated theBaburnama into Persian. The
Chaghatai original was last seen in the imperial
library sometime between 1628 and 1638
during Jahangir's reign.

Humayun[edit source | edit

beta]

Flight of Sultan Bahadur During Humayun's Campaign in

Gujarat 1535

Baburs favorite son Humayun took the reins of the

empire after his father succumbed to disease at the
young age of forty-seven. Humayun lost control of
his kingdom early on in his reign, but later
with Persian aid, he would eventually regain an
even larger one.
Further information: Sher Shah Suri
In 1539, seeking to expand his realm,
the Pashtun general Sher Khan met Humayun at the
battle of Chausa; a town situated
between Varanasi and Patna. Humayun was
defeated and barely escaped with his own life and in
the following year, 1540, his army of 40,000 was
defeated by Sher Khan's Afghan army of 15,000. A
popular Pashtun general, Khulas Khan Marwat, was
leading Sher Khan's Army. This was the first military

venture of Khulas Khan Marwat and soon he would

prove nightmarish for the Mughals.
Further information: Suri Empire
Sher Khan's Army, under the command of Khulas
Khan Marwat, then established a monarchy in Delhi
with Sher Khan ruling under the title Sher Shah Suri;
he ruled from 1540 to 1545. Sher Shah
Suri consolidated his
realm from Punjab to Bengal (he was the first
conqueror to enter Bengal since Ala-ud-din Khilji;
more than two centuries earlier). He is credited with
having organized and administered the government
and military in such a manner that future Mughal
kings used it as their own models. He also added to
the fort in Delhi (supposed site of Indraprastha), first
started by Humayun, and now known as the Purana
Qila (Old Fort). The Masjid Qila-i-Kuhna inside the
fort is a masterpiece of the period, though only parts
of it have survived.
Sher Shah Suri died from a gunpowder explosion
during the siege of Kalinjar fort on 22 May 1545
fighting against the Chandel Rajputs.[3][4] His charred
remains were interred in atomb at Sasaram (in
present day Bihar), midway between Varanasi
and Bodh Gaya. Although rarely visited, future great

Mughal builders such as Akbar, Jahangir and Shah

Jahan would emulate the architecture of this tomb.
The massive palace-like mausoleum stands at 37
metres and three stories high.[5] Sher Shahs
son Islam Shah held on to power until 1553 but
following his death the Sur dynasty lost most of its
influence due to strife and famine.
Humayun was a keen astronomer. He died after
falling down the stairs of his own library in 1556.
Thus Humayun ruled in India for barely ten years
and died at the age of forty-eight, leaving behind the
then only thirteen-year-old Akbar as his heir. As a
tribute to his father, Akbar later built a tomb in
Humayun's honour in Delhi (completed in 1571),
from red sandstone. Humayun's Tomb would
become the precursor of future Mughal architecture.
Akbars mother and Humayuns wife Hamida Banu
Begum personally supervised the building of the
tomb in his birthplace.

Humayun's Tomb

Akbar[edit source | edit

beta]

Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun whose rule

was interrupted by the Afghan Sur Dynasty, which
rebelled against him. It was only just before his
death that Humayun was able to regain the empire
and leave it to his son. In restoring and expanding
Mughal rule, Akbar based his authority on the ability
and loyalty of his followers, irrespective of their
religion. In 1564 the jizya tax on non-Muslims was
abolished, and bans on temple building and Hindu
pilgrimages were lifted.
Akbar's methods of administration reinforced his
power against two possible sources of challenge
the Afghan-Turkish aristocracy and the traditional
interpreters of Islamic law, theulama. He created a
ranked imperial service based on ability rather than
birth, whose members were obliged to serve
wherever required. They were remunerated with
cash rather than land and were kept away from their
inherited estates, thus centralizing the imperial
power base and assuring its supremacy. The military
and political functions of the imperial service were
separate from those of revenue collection, which
was supervised by the imperial treasury. This

system of administration, known as the mansabdari,

was based on loyal service and cash payments and
was the backbone of the Mughal Empire; its
effectiveness depended on personal loyalty to the
emperor and his ability and willingness to choose,
remunerate, and supervise.
Akbar declared himself the final arbiter in all
disputes of law derived from the Qur'an and the
sharia. He backed his religious authority primarily
with his authority in the state. In 1580 he also
initiated a syncretic court religion called the Din-iIlahi (Divine Faith). In theory, the new faith was
compatible with any other, provided that the devotee
was loyal to the emperor. In practice, however, its
ritual and content profoundly offended orthodox
Muslims. The ulema found their influence
undermined.
Several well known heritage sites were built during
the reign of Akbar. The fort city of Fatehpur Sikri was
used as the political capital of the Empire from 1571
to 1578. The numerous palaces and the grand
entrances with intricate art work have been
recognized as a world heritage site by UNESCO.
Akbar also began construction of his own
tomb at Sikandra nearAgra in 1600 CE.

Jahangir[edit source | edit

beta]

Mughal Emperor Jahangir receiving his two sons, in 1605-06

Prince Salim (b. 1569 son of a Hindu Rajput

princess from Amber), who would later be known as
Emperor Jahangir showed signs of restlessness
towards the end of the long reign of his father Akbar.
During the absence of his father from Agra he
pronounced himself king and turned rebellious.
Akbar, however, was able to wrestle the throne
back.
Due to the early deaths of his two brothers, Murad
and Daniyal from alcoholism, Salim had no reason
to concern himself about his siblings' aspirations to
the throne.
Jahangir finally began his era as Mughal emperor
after the death of Akbar in the year 1605. He
considered his third son Prince Khurram(the future
Shah Jahan, born 1592 to Hindu Rajput princess
Manmati), his favourite. In 1615, a standoff between
Prince Khurram and The Rana of Mewar resulted in
a treaty acceptable to both parties. Khurram was
also kept busy with several campaigns in Bengal
and Kashmir. Jahangir claimed Khurram's victories
of this period as his own.

Shah Jahan[edit source | edit

beta]

The Taj Mahal, named for Arjumand Banu, who was

called Mumtaz Mahal, became one of the Seven
Wonders of the World.
The great Jama Masjid built by Shah Jahan was the
largest in India at the time. He renamed Delhi after
himself as Shahjahanabad. The Red Fort made of
red sandstone built during his reign near Jama
Masjid around the same time came to be regarded
as the seat of power of India itself. The Prime
Minister of India addresses the nation from the
ramparts of this fort on Independence day even to
this age.Shah Jahan also built or renovated forts in
Delhi and in Agra. White marble chambers that
served as living quarters and other halls for public
audiences are examples of classic Mughal
architecture. Here in Agra fort, Shah Jahan would
spend eight of his last years as a prisoner of his
son, Aurangzeb shuffling between the hallways of
the palace, squinting at the distant silhouette of his
famous Taj Mahal on the banks of River Jamuna.

Aurangzeb[edit source | edit

beta]

Aurangzeb, who was given the title "Alamgir" or

"world-seizer," by his father, is known for expanding
the empire's frontiers and for his acceptance of
Islam law. During his reign, the Mughal empire

reached its greatest extent

(the Bijapur and Golconda Sultanates which had
been reduced to vassalage by Shah Jahan were
formally annexed).
In 1679, Aurangzeb enforced the jizyah tax on NonMuslims like Zakt tax was enforced on Muslims.
This action by the emperor, incited rebellion among
Hindus and others in many parts of the empire
notably the Jats, Sikhs, and Rajputs forces in the
north and Maratha forces in the Deccan. The
emperor managed to crush the rebellions in the
north. Aurangzeb was compelled to move his
headquarters to Aurangabad in the Deccan to
mount a costly campaign against Maratha guerrilla
fighters led by Shivaji and his successors, which
lasted twenty-six years until he died in 1707 at the
age of eighty-nine.
Aurangzeb, as is his father before him, is
remembered as a builder-emperor. The Badshahi
Masjid (Imperial Mosque) in Lahore was constructed
in 1673 on his orders. It was not only the largest
mosque ever built by a Mughal emperor but was at
that point the largest mosque in the world. He also
constructed the Alamgiri Gate of the Lahore Fort,
which is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Moti
Masjid inside Delhi's Red Fort was also finalized by

him. He is also known for his fanatic view of Islam,

due to which he razed many Hindu Temples.
The Kashi Vishwanath Temple of
Kashi/Varanasi, Kesava Deo Templeof Mathura
were some of the most famous temples he raze. He
was of the view that royal treasury does not belong
to king but common man. He did not use any of the
royal treasury for him and his family. In fact, he used
to write holy qur'an and earn money and his wife
used to weave caps and copies of the holy quran to
support his earnings.

Later Mughals[edit source | edit

beta]

When Aurangzeb died close to the age of eighty,

there were seventeen legitimate claimants to the
throne that included not only his sons but also his
grandsons and great grandsons. After the death of
the emperor two brothers fought near Agra in the
same battle site that Aurangzeb had fought his
brother Dara Shikoh. Prince Muazzam prevailed and
killed his brother Prince Azam Shah and assumed
the title Bahadur Shah I or Shah Alam I.
After the death of Bahadur Shah I, a civil war broke
out. Jahandar Shah,a son of Bahadur Shah I,
emerged victorious in it with the support of Zulfiqar
Khan who was the most powerful noble of the time.

In Deccan Saiyid Husain Ali Khan colluded with the

Marathas and attacked Delhi and using trickery and
intrigue seized Farrukhsiyar in the Red Fort[citation
needed]
. The emperor was blinded and caged and later
poisoned as well as stabbed to death[citation needed].
However, prior to his death, Farrukhsiyar had the
dubious distinction of aiding the British to have a
firm foothold in India, by signing the much-coveted
farman an imperial directive that would seal the
future of British takeover of India.
Marathas were now constantly attacking Delhi. Of
more consequence and humiliation was the plunder
of Delhi by Nadir Shah. A Timur descendent, Nadir
Shah usurped the throne in Persia and
seized Kandahar and Kabul. He marched through
Panjab and was invited by Muhammad Shah as a
guest to Delhi (only because he had neither the will
nor the resources to fight him). Within forty-eight
hours, using a lame excuse, Nadir Shah ordered a
general massacre of Delhi citizens and looted every
bit of wealth they could extort out of the royalty as
well as Delhis citizenry. Nadir Shah remained in
Delhi for forty eight days and departed with millions
worth of gold, jewelry and coins. Even the emperors
bejeweled peacock throne made during Shah
Jahan's reign was packed on elephants and carried

away to Persia. Another prize, the Koh-Inur diamond (Humayuns diamond) now passed into
Persian hands. Later an Afghani, Ahmad Shah
Abdali started his incursions into Delhi just for the
purpose of looting the capital. In a series of attacks
starting in 1748 until 1761, Abdali would not only
pillage and loot Delhi, he also cleaned out
Mathura, Kashmir and cities in Panjab. From the
east the British defeated the Nawab of Bengal and
occupied the state of Bengal.

Two Mughal Emperors and Shah Alam Racinet, c. 1876

The raids by Nadir Shah and repeated incursions of

Abdali resulted in quick disposal of the next two
emperors Ahmad Shah and Alamgir II until in
1759 Shah Alam II ascended the throne. His reign
would last several decades. However, he would
preside over more loss of territory to the British.
When the Nawab of Bengal lost to Robert Clive,
Shah Alam II was forced to recognize Clive as a

diwan (chancellor) and Bengal slipped to the British

hands permanently.
In 1806 Shah Alams son Akbar Shah II acceded to
the much diminished empire of the Mughals and
ruled until 1837.He gave the title "raja" to Ram
mohan roy. His son Bahadur Shah Zafar would be
the last emperor of Mughals before the British
deposed him in 1858 and the Mughal dynasty would
officially come to an end. During the Indian
Rebellion of 1857, Bahadur Shah II was forced to
take the side of the mutineers though he had no
power to affect the outcome of the events. The
mutineers had outwitted his British sponsors and
now the emperor neither had the troops nor the
competence. He had no choice but to join the
winning side. However, the success of the mutineers
was soon reversed and the octogenarian (he was
eighty-two years old) was relieved of his empire and
deposed in 1858. The emperor was then exiled to
Rangoon in Burma where he died in obscurity in
1862.

List of Mughal Emperors[edit source | edit

Portrait

Titular Name

beta]

Birth Name

Bi

Bbur

Zahir-ud-din Muhammad

23 Febru
14 Febru

Humayun

Nasir-ud-din Muhammad
Humayun

17 Mar

Sher Shah Suri

Farid Khan

Islam Shah Suri

Jalal Khan

Humayun

Nasir-ud-din Muhammad
Humayun

14

17 Mar

Akbar-e-Azam

Jalal-ud-din Muhammad

14 Octo

Nur-ud-din Muhammad
Salim

Jahangir

Shah-Jahan-e- Shahab-ud-din Muhammad

Azam
Khurram

Alamgir

Muhy-ud-din Muhammad
Aurangzeb

20 Sep
15

5 Janua

4 Novem

Silver Rows signify the brief interregnum during

which the Suri Dynasty ruled Northern India.

Later Emperors[edit source | edit

Portrait

Titular
Name

Bahadur
Shah

beta]

Birth Name

Qutb ud-Din
Muhammad
Mu'azzam

Birth

Reign

19 June 1707
14
27 February
October
1712
1643
(4 years, 253
days)

Jahandar
Shah

Ma'az-ud-Din
Jahandar Shah
Bahadur

9 May
1661

27 February
1712 11
February
1713
(0 years, 350
days)

Farrukhsiyar

11 January
1713 28
20 August
February
1685
1719
(6 years, 48
days)

Rafi-ul Darjat

28 February
30
6 June 1719
November
(0 years, 98
1699
days)

Shah Jahan
II

Rafi ud-Daulah

6 June 1719
19
September
June 1696
1719
(0 years, 105
days)

Neku Siyar

Nikusiyar
Mohammed

Farrukhsiyar

Rafi-ul
Darjat

1679

1719

Mohammed
9 August
Mohammed Ibrahim
Ibrahim
1703

Muhammad
Shah

Ahmad Shah
Bahadur

Alamgir II

Shah Jahan
III

Roshan Akhtar
Bahadur

Ahmad Shah
Bahadur

Aziz-ud-din

Muhi-ul-millat

17 August
1702

1720

27
September
1719 26
April 1748
(28 years,
212 days)

26 April 1748
23
2 June 1754
December
(6 years, 37
1725
days)

6 June
1699

2 June 1754
29
November
1759
(5 years, 180
days)

10 Decembe
1759 10
October 1760

Shah Alam II

Akbar Shah
II

Bahadur
Shah II

25 June
1728

24 Decembe
1759 19
November
1806 (46
years, 330
days)

22 April
1760

19 Novembe
1806-28
September
1837

Abu Zafar Sirajuddin

Muhammad Bahadur
24
Shah
October
Zafar or Bahadur
1775
Shah Zafar

28
September
1837 14
September
1857 (19
years, 351
days)

Ali Gauhar

Mirza
Akbar or Akbar
Shah Saani

Mughal family[edit source | edit

Genealogy of the Mughal Dynasty

beta]

The Mughal Emperors practiced polygamy.

[6]
Besides their wives, they also had a number of
concubines in their harem, who produced children.
This makes it difficult to identify all the offspring of
each emperor. The principal offspring of each
emperor are provided in the chart below.

Marathas[edit source | edit

beta]

Maratha chieftains were originally in the service of

Bijapur sultans in the western Deccan, which was
under siege by the Mughals.
Shivaji Bhonsle (163080) Shivaji was a fighter
regarded as the "father of the Maratha nation," who
took advantage of this conflict and carved out his
own principality near Pune, which later became the
Maratha capital. Adopting guerrilla tactics, he
waylaid caravans in order to sustain and expand his
army, which soon had money, arms, and horses.
Shivaji led a series of successful assaults in the
1660s against Mughal strongholds, including the
major port of Surat. Shivaji's battle cries
were swaraj (translated variously as freedom, selfrule, independence), swadharma (religious
freedom), and goraksha (cow protection).
Aurangzeb relentlessly pursued Shivaji's successors
between 1681 and 1705 but eventually retreated to

the north as his treasury became depleted and as

thousands of lives had been lost either on the
battlefield or to natural calamities. In 1717 a Mughal
emissary signed a treaty with
the Marathas confirming their claims to rule in the
Deccan in return for acknowledge the fictional
Mughal suzerainty and remission of annual taxes.
The Marathas, despite their military prowess and
leadership, were not equipped to administer the
state or to undertake socio economic reform till
death of Shivaji, but ShahujiBhosle understood the
limitations & brought Peshwa raaj, like PM's of
current day & expanded his empire in 2/3rd of
current India. They were primarily suited for stirring
the regional & Hindu dharma pride rather than for
attracting loyalty to an all-India confederacy. They
were left virtually alone and without supplies before
the invading Afghan forces, headed byAhmad Shah
Abdali (later called Ahmad Shah Durrani), Maratha's
won 2 battles of Panipat, but lost third Battle of
Panipat|Panipat in 1761, due to no co-operation
by Rajput & Sikhempires, to whom Maratha's never
attacked & respected till. The shock of defeat
hastened the break-up of their loosely knit
confederacy into five independent states and

extinguished the hope of Maratha dominance in

India.

Nizams of Hyderabad[edit source | edit

beta]

Maratha raids
into Berar, Kandesh, Gujarat and Malwa resumed
after the death of Aurangzeb, and loosened Mughal
control in the Deccan. In 1724 Asaf Jah, the
Mughal Nizam ul Mulk, or viceroy, of the Deccan,
defeated several contenders for control of the
Mughal southern provinces, and established himself
of ruler of an independent state with its capital
atHyderabad. He and his successors ruled as
hereditary Nizams, and their state, known
as Hyderabad after the capital, outlasted the Mughal
empire, persisting until it was incorporated into
newly independent India in 1948. Nizam-ul-Mulk
Asaf Jahi was a strong ruler and established an
orderly system of administration. He also attempted
to reform the revenue system. The dynasty founded
by him came to be known as the Asaf Jahi dynasty
and lasted until the accession of Hyderabad
to Independent India

Sikhs[edit source | edit

beta]

This section does not cite any references

or sources. Please help improve this

section by adding citations to reliable
sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (July 2013)
The Afghan defeat of the Maratha armies
accelerated the breakaway of Punjab from Delhi and
helped the founding of Sikh overlordship in the
northwest. Rooted in the bhakti movements that
developed in the 2nd century BC. but swept across
North India during the 15th and 16th centuries, the
teachings of the Sikh gurus appealed to the hardworking peasants. Facing extended persecution
from the Mughals, the Sikhs, under Guru Gobind
Singh formed the Khalsa (Army of Pure). The khalsa
rose up against the economic and political
repressions in Punjab toward the end of
Aurangzeb's rule. Guerrilla fighters took advantage
of the political instability created by the Persian and
Afghan onslaught against Delhi, enriching
themselves and expanding territorial control. By the
1770s, Sikh hegemony extended from the Indus in
the west to the Yamuna in the east, from Multan in
the south to Jammu in the north. Jassa Singh
Ahluwahlia entered Delhi with a large Sikh army in
1776, established hegemony, but then decided
unilaterally to return to Punjab.

The Sikhs, however, were a loose and disunited

conglomerate of twelve kin-groups. Ultimately, Ranjit
Singh was able to unite these groups by force, and
start Sikh rule that would extend from Afghanistan to
the River Sutlej, and from Kashmir and Ladakh to
the borders of Sindh. Ranjit Singh employed French
and British officers and introduced strict military
discipline into his army. It is said that his guns were
cast with the utmost of excellence and quality, in
that they were superior to any that the British had at
the time. Further fired by the prayers of the Sikh
Dharma, the Sikhs became a potent power in Northwest India, plugging the Khyber pass from which
numerous invasions had been launched into India,
including by Alexander the Great, Chengiz Khan the
Mongol nomad, Nader Shah the Persian king, and
Mahmud Ghazni and Ahmad Shah Abdali the
Afghans.
Ranjit Singh wrested Kashmir from Afghan rule after
the Afghans backtracked on fulfilling their part of the
promise for the conquest of Kashmir for which Ranjit
Singh committed troops from the outside in the form
of assistance, for which he was to be paid a certain
sum from the Kashmir treasury. But, the ruler of
Afghan instructed his brother, Dost Muhamed, the
new Governor of Kashmir, to withhold payment to

Ranjit Singh. At that insult, Ranjit Singh quietly

withdrew his troops, and ambushed near Khyber
pass the whole Afghan army returning from Kashmir.
Only six people managed to escape that ambush
the ruler of Afghanistan, his brother, and four others
who ran from battle, leaving their army to be
slaughtered by the Sikhs.

Europeans[edit source | edit

beta]

This section does not cite any references

or sources. Please help improve this
section by adding citations to reliable
sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (June 2013)
Vasco da Gama led the first documented European
expedition to India, sailing into Calicut on the
southwest coast in 1498. In 1510
the Portuguese captured Goa, which became the
seat of their activity. Under Admiral Afonso de
Albuquerque, Portugal successfully challenged Arab
power in the Indian Ocean and dominated the sea
routes for a century.Jesuits came to convert, to
converse, and to record observations of India.
The Protestant countries of the Netherlands and
England, upset by the Portuguese monopoly,

formed private trading companies at the turn of the

17th century to challenge the Portuguese.
Mughal officials permitted the new carriers of India's
considerable export trade to establish trading posts
(factories) in India. The Dutch East India
Company concentrated mainly on the spice trade
from present-day Indonesia. Britain's East India
Company carried on trade with India. The French
East India Company also set up factories.

An engraving titled "Sepoy Indian troops dividing the spoils

after their mutiny against British rule" gives a contemporary
view of events from the British perspective.

During the wars of the 18th century, the factories

served not only as collection and transshipment
points for trade but also increasingly as fortified
centres of refuge for both foreigners and Indians.
British factories gradually began to apply British
law to disputes arising within their jurisdiction. The
posts also began to grow in area and population.
Armed company servants were effective protectors
of trade. As rival contenders for power called for

armed assistance and as individual European

adventurers found permanent homes in India, British
and French companies found themselves more and
more involved in local politics in the south and
in Bengal. Plots and counterplots climaxed
when British East India Company forces, led
by Robert Clive, defeated the forces of Nawab,[citation
needed]
Siraj-ud-Dawlah at Plassey (Pilasi) in Bengal in
1757, through treachery of his real maternal uncle.

An Indian depiction of a 17th-centuryDutch ship off

the Coromandel Coast

British influence[edit source | edit

beta]

This section does not cite any references

or sources. Please help improve this
section byadding citations to reliable
sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (June 2013)
English company agents became familiar with
Indian customs and languages,

including Urdu and Persian, the unifying official

language under the Mughals. In many ways, the
English agents of that period lived like Indians,
intermarried willingly, and a large number of them
never returned to their home country. The
knowledge of India thus acquired and the mutual
ties forged with Indian trading groups gave the
English a competitive edge over other Europeans.
The French commercial interestCompagnie des
Indes Orientales (East India Company, founded in
1664)--came late, but the French also established
themselves in India, emulating the precedents set
by their competitors as they founded their enclave
at Pondichry on the Coromandel Coast.
In 1717 the Mughal emperor, Farrukhsiyar (r. 171319), gave the Britishwho by then had already
established themselves in the south and the easta
grant of thirty-eight villages near Calcutta,
acknowledging their importance to the continuity of
international trade in the Bengal economy. As did
the Dutch and the French, the British
brought silver bullion and copper to pay for
transactions, helping the smooth functioning of the
Mughal revenue system and increasing the benefits
to local artisans and traders.

The fortified warehouses of the British brought

extraterritorial status, which enabled them to
administer their own civil and criminal laws and
offered numerous employment opportunities as well
as asylum to foreigners and Indians. The British
factories successfully competed with their rivals as
their size and population grew. The original clusters
of fishing villages (Madras and Calcutta) or series of
islands (Bombay) became headquarters of the
British administrative zones, or presidencies as they
generally came to be known. The factories and their
immediate environs, known as the White-town,
represented the actual and symbolic preeminence of
the Britishin terms of their political poweras well
as their cultural values and social practices;
meanwhile, their Indian collaborators lived in the
Black-town, separated from the factories by several
kilometres.
The British company employed sepoysEuropeantrained and European-led Indian soldiersto protect
its trade, but local rulers sought their services to
settle scores in regional power struggles. South
India witnessed the first open confrontation between
the British and the French, whose forces were led
by Robert Clive and Franois Dupleix, respectively.
Both companies desired to place their own

candidate as the nawab, or ruler, of Arcot, the area

around Madras. At the end of a protracted struggle
between 1744 and 1763, when the Peace of Paris
was signed, the British gained an upper hand over
the French and installed their man in power,
supporting him further with arms and lending large
sums as well. The French and the British also
backed different factions in the succession struggle
for Mughal viceroyalty in Bengal, but Clive
intervened successfully and defeated Nawab Sirajud-daula in the Battle of Plassey (Palashi, about 150
kilometres north of Calcutta) in 1757. Clive found
help from a combination of vested interests that
opposed the existing nawab: disgruntled soldiers,
landholders, and influential merchants whose
commercial profits were closely linked to British
fortunes.
Later, Clive defeated the Mughal forces
at Buxar (Baksar, west of Patna in Bihar) in 1765,
and the Mughal emperor (Shah Alam, r. 1759-1806)
conferred on the company rights to collect revenue
from Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha, a region of roughly
25 million people with an annual revenue of 40
million rupees (for current value of the rupee). The
imperial grant virtually established the company as a

sovereign power, and in 1773 East India Company

appointed its first governor in Bengal.
Besides the presence of the Portuguese, Dutch,
British, and French, there were two lesser but
noteworthy colonial groups. Danish entrepreneurs
established themselves at several ports on
the Malabar coast and the Coromandel coast
notably Tranquebar, in the vicinity of Calcutta, and
inland at Patna between 1695 and 1740. Austrian
enterprises were set up in the 1720s on the vicinity
of Surat in modern-day southeastern Gujarat. As
with the other non-British enterprises, the Danish
and Austrian enclaves were taken over by the British
between 1765 and 1815.

Successors[edit source | edit

beta]

British Empire (18581947)

Republic of India (1947 onwards)

Islamic Republic of Pakistan (1947 onwards)

Mughal pretenders

References[edit source | edit

1.

^ "Definition of Mogul".

beta]

Thefreedictionary.com.
Retrieved 2012-04-29.

2.

^ "Plight of Mirza Sulayman".

Collections.vam.ac.uk. 25
August 2009. Retrieved 2012-04-29.

3.

^ Shershah Suri's Tomb, Sasaram - Ticketed

Monument Archaeological Survey of India

4.

Kissling, H. J.; N. Barbour; Bertold Spuler; J.

S. Trimingham; F. R. C. Bagley; H. Braun; H. Hartel
(1997). The Last Great Muslim Empires. BRILL. p. 302. ISBN 9004-02104-3. Retrieved 2011-07-20.
^

5.

^ "Shershah Suri's Tomb, Sasaram - Ticketed Monument Archaeological Survey of India".

Asi.nic.in. Retrieved 2012-04-

29.
6.

Dalrymple, William (2006). The Last Mughal.

London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p. 44. ISBN 978-14088-0092-8.
^

This article incorporates public domain

material from websites or documents of
the Library of Congress Country Studies.
- India Pakistan

Further reading[edit source | edit

beta]

Majumdar, R. C. (ed.), The History and Culture

of the Indian People, Volume VI, The Delhi
Sultanate, Bombay, 1960; Volume VII, The
Mughal Empire, Bombay, 1973.

The Mughal Empire

Vinay Lal

The great grandson of Tamerlane, Babar, who on his mother's side was descended
from the famous Genghiz Khan, came to India in 1526 at the request of an Indian
governor who sought Babar's help in his fight against Ibrahim Lodi, the last head of
the Delhi Sultanate. Babar defeated Lodi at Panipat, not far from Delhi, and so
came to establish the Mughal Empire in India. Babar ruled until 1530, and was
succeeded by his son Humayun, who gave the empire its first distinctive features.
But it is Humayun's son, Akbar the Great, who is conventionally described as the
glory of the empire. Akbar reigned from 1556 to 1605, and extended his empire as
far to the west as Afghanistan, and as far south as the Godavari river. Akbar, though
a Muslim, is remembered as a tolerant ruler, and he even started a new faith, Din-iIlahi, which was an attempt to blend Islam with Hinduism, Christianity, Jainism,
and other faiths. He won over the Hindus by naming them to important military and
civil positions, by conferring honors upon them, and by marrying a Hindu princess.

Akbar was succeeded by his son Salim, who took the

title of Jahangir. In his reign (1605-1627), Jahangir
consolidated the gains made by his father. The courtly
culture of the Mughals flourished under his rule; like
his great grand-father, Babar, he had an interest in
gardens, and Mughal painting probably reached its
zenith in Jahangir's time. Jahangir married Nur Jahan,
"Light of the World", in 1611. Shortly after his death in
October 1627, his son, Shah Jahan, succeeded to the
throne. He inherited a vast and rich empire; and at midcentury this was perhaps the greatest empire in the
world, exhibiting a degree of centralized control rarely
matched before. Shah Jahan left behind an
extraordinarily rich architectural legacy, which includes
the Taj Mahal and the old city of Delhi, Shahjahanabad.
As he apparently lay dying in 1658, a war of succession
broke out between his four sons. The two principal
Rejoicing at birth of Prince claimants to the throne were Dara Shikoh, who was
Salim (Jahangir). Mughal, c. championed by the those nobles and officers who were
committed to the eclectic policies of previous rulers,
1590.
and Aurangzeb, who was favored by powerful men
(Click for a large image view.) more inclined to turn the Mughal Empire into an
Islamic state subject to the laws of the Sharia. It is
Aurangzeb who triumphed, and though the Mughal Empire saw yet further
expansion in the early years of his long reign (1658-1707), by the later part of the
seventeenth century the empire was beginning to disintegrate.

Aurangzeb remains a highly controversial figure, and no monarch has been more
subjected to the communalist reading of Indian history. He is admired by Muslim

historians for enforcing the law of the Sharia and for disavowing the policies
pursued by Akbar; among Hindus, laymen and historians alike, he is remembered
as a Muslim fanatic and bigot. In the event, Aurangzeb's far-flung empire
eventually eluded his grasp, and considerable disaffection appears to have been
created among the peasantry. After Aurangzeb's death in 1707, many of his vassals
established themselves as sovereign rulers, and so began the period of what are
called "successor states". The Mughal Empire survived until 1857, but its rulers
were, after 1803, pensioners of the East India Company. The last emperor, the
senile Bahadur Shah Zafar, was put on trial for allegedly leading the rebels of the
1857 mutiny and for fomenting sedition. He was convicted and transported to
Rangoon, to spend the remainder of his life on alien soil.

The Mughal Empire, 1526 to 1707

Source: F. Robinson, Atlas of the Islamic
World since 1500 (Oxford, 19822), p.59.