The Mughal Empire: 1526 to 1540 and 1555 to 1857
Arrival of the Mughals
The Mughal Empire was established and ruled by a Muslim dynasty of Chagatai Turco-Mongol origin from Central Asia. It would grow to be the second biggest in the Indian subcontinent’s history, extending for four million square kilometres at its peak, taking in large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan.
Its founding can be dated to Babur’s defeat of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526. Babur and his successors were Turco-Mongols of the Timurid dynasty, directly descended from both the great Genghis Khan (r. 1206-27), founder of the Mongol Empire, and Timur. Born in 1483, Babur had succeeded 11 years later to the tiny kingdom of Ferghana on the Jaxartes River (now called Sir-Daria). In 1497, he took Samarkand, Timur’s capital and, driven out of the Oxus Valley by a rebellion, he captured Kabul in 1504. In 1519, he began a series of incursions into India and, during his campaign of 1526, he took Delhi. A year later he defeated the Rajputs of Chittor who ruled over Ajmere, Mewar and Malwa. He extended his power as far as Multan in the south of the Punjab and Behar in the eastern Ganges valley. By the time Babur died, his vast empire reached from the River Oxus in Central Asia to the borders of the Gangetic delta in Lower Bengal.
The Mughals were of mixed race, and after the death of Babur incorporated Rajput blood through marriages that were arranged with Hindu princesses. Babur was succeeded by his son, Humayun (r. 1530-40) who was born in 1508. When he came to the throne, he had to hand Kabul and the western Punjab to his brother and rival for the throne, Kamran Mirza (1509-57). This left Humayun with India to rule but the Mughals were hated by the descendants of the early Afghan invaders and he was driven out of the subcontinent. The force that made him flee in 1540, after ten years of fighting, was led by the governor of Bengal, Sher Shah Suri (r. 1540-45), who was a Pashtun. The Pashtuns were an ethnic group native to Afghanistan and the northwest of modern-day Pakistan. Sher Shah proclaimed himself Emperor of Delhi but was killed in battle while attacking the fortress of Kalinjar. His son Islam Shah (r. 1545-54) succeeded him but Humayun had now recovered Kabul and he returned to defeat Sher Shah’s nephew, Sikander Shah (?-1559) in 1555. After briefly reigning again, he soon died.
Akbar the Great
It was with the third Mughal emperor, Akbar (r. 1556-1605), known as Akbar ‘the Great’, that the Mughal Empire really came into its own. The son of Humayun, he came to the throne aged 14 and his reign began, therefore, with a regent, Bairam Khan (?-1561) in place. Khan, a Turkoman by birth, had worked for Humayun and was, in effect, in command of the army that restored him to the throne. Under the title, Khan Baba (‘the king’s father’), he helped the young ruler to expand and consolidate his territory in India, turning his small kingdom into a large empire. It grew to incorporate almost the entirety of the Indian subcontinent north of the Godvari River. However, his domination reached across the whole country because of Mughal military, political, economic and cultural power. Akbar’s approach towards those he conquered was conciliatory. He used marriage and diplomacy to bring territories peacefully under his control and established a centralised administration so that he was aware of and in control of what was happening in the farthest-flung corners of his empire. He was ruling a culturally diverse empire but he employed policies that did not interfere with tribal ties and did not force Islam on his subjects.
Akbar began by advancing from the Punjab and re-capturing Delhi which Sikander Shah’s general, Hemu (r. 1556), had taken. Panipat, where Babur had won thirty years previously, was again the battlefield and on 5 November 1556, the youthful Akbar, with Khan Baba’s support, defeated Hemu. Thus, India finally passed from the Afghans to the Mughals.
When Akbar ascended the throne, India was divided into tiny Hindu and Muslim kingdoms. By the time of his death in 1605, he ruled an empire that was almost totally united and that was unfailingly loyal to him. The Muslim states that had resulted from the earlier invasions by various peoples including the Turks, Afghans and Mughals were fashioned into provinces and many of the Rajput nations and Hindu kings maintained their independence although he ensured that they were dependent upon his authority. Of course, there was always a military threat to fall back on but Akbar gave all his subjects political equality in his Persianised empire. All the sacred books and epic poetry written in Sanskrit were translated into Persian and, as well as demonstrating respect for Hindu laws, he showed an interest in the Hindu religion rather than proscribing it. He forbade some practices, such as animal sacrifice, trial by ordeal and child marriage, however. He permitted Hindu widows to re-marry and although he did not ban the practice of sati he ensured that widows could not be forced to participate in the ritual.
With Hindu support, Akbar subdued the Muslim kingdoms of north India and defeated Hindu powers from the Punjab to Bahar. Lower Bengal was seized from the Afghan descendants of Sher Shah and for almost two centuries it would remain a part of the Mughal Empire, governed by officials appointed in Delhi. Only in 1765 did it leave the empire, as an imperial grant to the British. Meanwhile, Orissa was taken by Akbar’s Hindu general, Todar Mal (?-1589), in 1575. Gujarat was taken by 1573 and Malwa had fallen to the empire the year before. Kashmir was captured in 1587 but continued to rebel until 1592; Sind was annexed in 1592; and Kandahar in 1594. The empire of Akbar was now vast, stretching from Afghanistan, across India north of the Vindhya Range, over to Orissa in the east and Sind in the west. He made Agra his new capital, calling it Akbarabad. It would remain capital until Shah Jahan made Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi) his base in 1649.
It proved more difficult to consolidate the Mughal Empire in the south. For the twelve years after 1586, Akbar was up against the courage and wiliness of Chand Bibi (1550-1599) the Muslim warrior queen of Ahmadnagar. She succeeded in uniting the Abyssinian and Persian factions in southern India and made alliances with other Muslim states. Akbar attacked in 1599 and she put up a brave defence, but she was assassinated by mutinous troops who believed a false rumour that she was in cahoots with the Mughals. Akbar also took Khandesh but returned to his capital in 1601, perhaps believing that the conquest of the south was beyond even his capabilities.
He left behind a well-organised empire, separated into provinces, each of which had a governor who was in charge of both civil and military matters. He had also made efforts to prevent his troops from mutinying and rebelling, paying his generals with cash instead of grants of land, as had previously been the practice. He also prevented his generals in the provinces from seeking independence by creating an almost feudal set-up, Hindu tributary princes being equal to the Mughal nobles.
Akbar’s Successors
Akbar’s son, Salim, took the throne under the imperial name of Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) which means ‘conqueror of the world’. He ruled for 22 years but for much of that time he was quelling rebellions by his sons, dealing with his wife Nur Jahan (1577-1645) whose persistent plotting is said to have troubled him in his final years on the throne, and simply enjoying himself. He failed to extend the territories of the empire he had inherited from his father, despite wars in southern India and the Deccan. By the close of his life, his own son, Prince Khurram had fled to the Deccan where he joined in alliance with the Abyssinian prime minister of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate, Malik Ambar (1549-1626). Ambar had managed, against the odds, to maintain the independence of Ahmadnagar. Meanwhile, the Rajputs were starting to stir, hoping to regain their independence.
Jahangir’s wife Nur Jahan, although described as ‘the light of the world’, actually cast a huge shadow across his reign. A strong, charismatic woman, she wielded an inordinate amount of influence over her husband and is considered by many historians to have been the real power behind the throne. She was in charge of the imperial seal, implying that before anything was given legal validity, it had first to be seen and approved by her.
She had been born into an impoverished noble family and she and Jahangir had fallen in love while still young. Emperor Akbar, however, was against the relationship and married her off to a soldier. When he took the throne, Jahangir ordered that she be divorced from her soldier husband. The husband refused to comply and Jahangir had him murdered. She moved to the royal palace where she began to exert influence over the emperor. At first all was well, but soon the resentment and jealousy felt against her by the imperial princes and Jahangir’s generals began to manifest itself.
After Jahangir’s death, his son Prince Khurram became emperor as Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58). He immediately dealt with Empress Nur Jahan, banishing her from the palace, and murdered his brother, along with every other member of his family who might have sought to usurp his throne. He proved to be a just ruler and ably managed the finances of the empire. Kandahar was finally lost but the empire’s borders were extended in the Deccan and in the south. Ahmadnagar was at last annexed by the empire in 1636 and Bidar fort was captured in 1657. Bijapur and Golkonda became tributary states and would eventually succumb following the accession of Shah Jahan’s successor, Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707).
During his reign great structures were built that are amongst some of the most magnificent monuments to the Mughal Empire. He had the splendid mausoleum of the Taj Mahal constructed at Agra, a memorial to his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631). He also supervised the construction of the beautiful marble Moti Masjid (‘Pearl Mosque’) inside the Agra fort that had been re-built in red sandstone by Akbar. He transferred the seat of government back to Delhi, adorning the city with many wonderful buildings, such as the great mosque, the Jama Masjid which was built between 1644 and 1656 and reputedly cost a million rupees. The Palace of Delhi was constructed in marble and stone in the form of a giant parallelogram 1,600 by 3,200 feet.
Aurangzeb
Abu’l Muzaffar Muhi-ud-Din Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir, commonly known as Aurangzeb, was the third son of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. Under him, the Mughal Empire reached its greatest extent. But before acceding to the imperial throne, he was rivalled by his brother Dara Shikoh (1615-59) designated as next emperor by Shah Jahan.
When Shah Jahan became ill in 1657, a war of succession seemed inevitable. Although the emperor’s health recovered on this occasion, it was too late for either of the brothers to withdraw and hostilities broke out between them. Aurangzeb displayed great military skill, guile and a ruthless determination to win, defeating Dara in the Battle of Samurgah in May 1658 and proclaiming himself emperor. He had a number of his family murdered and imprisoned his father in his palace in Agra until his death eight years later in 1666.
His reign can be split in two. The first years until 1680 proved him to be a capable ruler, a Muslim leading an empire that was both Hindu and Muslim. He was hated for the ruthlessness he displayed but admired for his energy and skill. For much of this time, he was engaged in preventing the Persians and the Central Asian Turks from making progress in the northwest of the empire. He also had problems with the leader of the Marathas, Shivaji (r. 1674-80) who raided the Gujarati port of Surat twice, in 1664 and 1670. He followed the same method with the Maratha ruler as his great-grandfather Akbar had – he defeated him, and then gave him an imperial rank, allowing him to remain in position, but subject to the empire. Shivaji reneged on his side of the bargain, fleeing to the Deccan where he died in 1680, still ruling an independent kingdom.
It was around this time that Aurangzeb seems to have undergone a change of thinking. He became a pious Muslim and began to treat Hindus as subordinates rather than the equals they had previously been. He became increasingly puritanical as his reign progressed, and his edicts were enforced by officials called muhtasibs – censors of morals. He also decided to annex the Maratha kingdom, rather than just subdue it. In 1679, he re-instated the jizya, a poll tax on non-Muslims that Akbar had abolished during his reign. He also destroyed numerous temples, amongst which were three of the most sacred to Hindus – the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the Kesava Deo temple and the Somnath temple – replacing them with mosques. The Rajputs rebelled against him in 1680 and there was little enthusiasm for the Mughal Empire amongst Hindus.
He still enjoyed success, however. In 1686-87, his troops took the Deccan kingdoms of Bijapur and Golkonda but the insecurity and lack of stability in the empire led to an economic crisis. This was not helped by war with the Marathas who spread the conflict across southern India by employing guerrilla tactics. His focus on the south led to a vacuum in the north of the empire and the government of the region weakened. There was unrest amongst those living on the land resulting in the growth of religious movements such as the Satnamis and the Sikhs in the Punjab. The Satnamis were crushed by the emperor in 1672 and Aurangzeb executed the Sikh leader Tegh Bahadur three years later for refusing to embrace Islam. This led to conflict with the Sikhs for the remainder of his reign.
Aurangzeb ruled for almost half a century, extending the empire to the south as far as Tanjore (modern-day Thanjavur) and Trichinopoly (modern-day Tiruchirappali). But the cracks had begun to show. The militancy of the Sikhs and the Jats was a warning of trouble to come in the north of the empire and both Hindus and Rajputs had been angered by Aurangzeb’s attitude towards them. He left a number of incipient problems that would lead, inevitably, to the collapse of the Mughal Empire in the middle of the eighteenth century.
End of Empire
After Aurangzeb, emperors tended to be pawns in the hands of powerful statesmen or generals. These wily operators placed the emperor on the throne, controlled him while he was there and, when it suited them, killed him and replaced him with another puppet. The decline of the empire had well and truly begun. As Vizir-e-Azam, or Prime Minister, the unscrupulous General Zulfiqar Khan (1657-1713) controlled two of the six emperors that followed Aurangzeb – Bahadur Shah (r. 1707-12) and Jahander Shah (r. 1712-13). Bahadur was the first Mughal emperor to rule over an empire that was crippled by unbridled revolts and Jahandar was an incompetent who ruled for just under a year before he was killed in battle at Agra. The victor in this battle was the next emperor, Farrukhsiyar (r. 1713-19) who won with the support of the powerful Mughal army generals, the Sayyid brothers, Syed Hassan Ali Khan Barha (1666-1722) and Syed Hussain Ali Khan Barha (1668-1720). The brothers became known as ‘king-makers’.
By 1720, however, the break-up of the empire had begun. Chin Qulich Khan had been given the title Nizam-al-Mulk – the title for rulers of Hyderabad – in 1713 by Emperor Farrukhsiyar. This title was used by rulers of Hyderabad until 1947. Emperor Muhammad Shah (r. 1719-48) added Asaf Jah to the title in 1725. In 1724, the Nizam declared himself independent ruler of the Deccan where he had been viceroy from 1720.
At Awadh (Oudh to the British), Saadat Ali Khan (r. 1722-39), who had risen to be prime minister of the empire, more or less created his own dynasty as the Nawab of Awadh. He was succeeded by his son-in-law, Safdar Jung (r. 1739-54) and he, in turn, was followed by his son Shuja-ud-Daula (r. 1753-75). The latter is best known for his important participation in two key battles in Indian history. The Third Battle of Panipat was fought in 1761 between the Maratha Empire and the invading forces of the King of Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 1747-72) who was supported by two Indian allies – the Rohilla Afghans of the Doab, and the army of Shuja-ud-Daula. This battle was the biggest of the eighteenth century, recording perhaps the largest number of casualties in a single day in a classic formation battle between two armies. Between 90,000 and 150,000 died. It halted the Maratha advance in the north and destabilised the Maratha Empire for perhaps a decade. It also overthrew the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan III and restored the rightful emperor, Shah Alam II. Shuja-ud-Daula also participated in the 1764 Battle of Buxar between his own forces, allied with those of Mir Qasim, Nawab of Bengal, and the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, against troops of the British East India Company, led by Hector Munro, 8th Laird of Novar (1726-1805).
Meanwhile, the Mughal Empire’s Hindu population was also seeking self-determination. Ajit Singh (r. 1699-1724) declared independence for Marwar and most of the Rajputs broke away from the empire in 1715. The Marathas were now on the scene, having subjugated much of the south. They obtained Malwa from the Mughals in 1749 and Orissa and Bengal in 1751.
External Enemies
In 1739, the Persian ruler, Nadir Shah (r. 1736-47), swept into India. A military genius, sometimes described as the ‘Napoleon of Persia’, Nadir Shah was a Turcoman who rose to power during a period of anarchy in Persia. Having succeeded in reuniting Persia and defeating invaders such as the Russians and the Ottomans, he overthrew the Safavids who had ruled Persia for two centuries and declared himself Shah. The empire he built incorporated Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the North Caucasus, Iraq, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, North India, Oman and the Persian Gulf.
The Mughal Empire was ripe for the taking. The nobles were recalcitrant, provinces were declaring themselves independent and the Maratha Empire was advancing into Mughal territory from the southwest. Nadir Shah crossed the border and defeated the Mughal forces defending the Khyber Pass, even though outnumbered by two to one. He crossed the Indus before the end of 1738 and advanced on Delhi where Emperor Muhammad Shah began to assemble a 300,000-strong army. In February 1739, at the Battle of Karnal, Nadir Shah defeated the Mughals who outnumbered his army by six to one in just three hours. Delhi was sacked and 20,000 of its inhabitants were killed in one day. Muhammad Shah pleaded with the Persian ruler for mercy and, in return for the keys to the vast Mughal treasury, Nadir Shah agreed to withdraw. That is how the splendid Peacock Throne which had been commissioned by Shah Jahan in the early seventeenth century ended up in Persian hands, although it soon disappeared, never to be seen again except in the form of a replica made in India. Nadir Shah is said to have escaped over the passes of the Indian northwest carrying booty worth around the equivalent of $155 million.
The Persian attack was followed by six invasions between 1747 and 1767 from Afghanistan. They were led by Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 1747-72), who, after the assassination of Nadir Shah in 1747, had been chosen as King of Afghanistan. After establishing the Durrani Empire with its capital at Kandahar, he and his troops pillaged the north, exhibiting ruthless cruelty as they went. In 1752, he gained the Punjab from the Mughals and five years later, he and his men subjected Delhi to untold cruelty while his troops pillaged through the countryside, killing, plundering and destroying Hindu temples and holy places. Whole regions and large cities were denuded of people who fled in fear. One account by the Tyrolean Jesuit missionary and geographer, Joseph Tieffenthaler (1710-85), graphically describes the actions of this bloodthirsty horde:
‘They burned the houses together with their inmates, slaughtering others with the sword and the lance; hauling off into captivity maidens and youths, men and women. In the temples they slaughtered cows and smeared the images and pavement with the blood.’ (Cows were, of course, sacred to Hindus.)
Between 1748 and 1761 as the British and the French fought in southern India, the Mughals lost Karnataka. The English Lord Clive (1725-74) obtained Orissa, Bengal and Bihar in 1765 from the titular Mughal emperor and the Mughal Empire now barely existed. The British moved in and used the Mughal Empire as a structure on which they could pin their ambition, installing puppet emperors whose power extended little further than their palace walls. Beyond those walls, the battle was on for the spoils, the Marathas, the British and the Sikhs fighting for ultimate control of the subcontinent.