The Mughal Empire

EXCHANGE in EAST ASIA and THE INDIAN OCEAN HIST 1301 | History The Mughal Empire Al-Din Zahir Establishing a vast empire has always been Muhammad Babur's desire. His father was a grandson of the renowned conqueror Timur, and he ruled the small central Asian state of Fergana in what is now Uzbekistan. His mother was descended from Chinggis Khan, the Mongol leader's family. Following his father's untimely death in 1494, at the age of eleven, Babur assumed leadership of Fergana and set out to conquer all the territories that had previously belonged to his famous grandfather Timur. In 1504, he took a risky action. With just his family and two hundred combatants, he crossed the Hindu Kush mountains and took control of Kabul, an Afghan metropolis. Babur destroyed the considerably larger army of the Delhi Sultanate, a Muslim kingdom in northern India, in 1526 by employing strategies he had learnt from the Persians, with whom he had previously partnered, including the deployment of artillery. This led to the establishment of the Mughal (the Persian pronunciation of Mongol) Empire. Babur did not assimilate into Indian culture, despite his affinity with his new homeland and his ambition to govern India. He was fascinated by the temperature, flora, and wildlife of the subcontinent, but he was not much interested in the Hindu religion or its inhabitants. He said that the Indian populace lacked etiquette and personal attractiveness. Although he appreciated the riches of the land, he made an effort to create a taste of his native country for himself and his family by creating Persian-style gardens. He kept his eyes fixed on central Asia and kept up a post road and waystations linking Kabul with the Mughal capital, Agra. He was buried in Agra after he passed away, but his remains were eventually returned to Kabul to be buried there per his desires. Humayun, Babur's eldest son, inherited Mughal India upon his death in 1530. The reign of Humayun was not a happy one. After just ten years, Sher Shah Suri, the ruler of the Indian state of Bihar, beat him in war and forced him to leave. Humayun fled to the Safavid Shah Tahmasp's court in Persia, where he was fully assimilated into Persian culture. He went back to India in 1555 and reclaimed his kingdom, although his reign was not long-lived. Humayun passed away after slipping on a high stairway just a few months after retaking Delhi, India. Akbar, the 14-year-old son of Humayun, assumed the throne. Despite being illiterate, probably due to severe dyslexia, Akbar rose to become the most successful Mughal emperor. Akbar accepted India, in contrast to his father and grandfather, who had stayed focused on central Asia. He made a concerted effort to welcome Indians into his realm, both Muslims and Hindus. Local rulers were permitted to keep control of their regions as long as they submitted to him, despite his relentless military expansion of the Mughal Empire throughout the northern section of the subcontinent and into the central plains to the south. Akbar married the sisters and daughters of local rulers, both Hindu and Muslim, in an effort to strengthen his position of power in India. His Hindu spouses were not coerced into becoming Muslims, and their marriage rituals blended parts of Islam and Hinduism. Nonetheless, Akbar brought to India a practice common in the Muslim world: the royal family's female members were sequestered in a harem. Despite being apart from the males of the court, women continued to have influence; spouses, mothers, and even nursemaids frequently participated in crucial political decisions. However, during Akbar's reign, attempts to exclude women from public life also resulted in the removal of their names from official records, and the norm of separating women from males extended from Mughal families to Hindu upper classes. While Mughal customs certainly had an impact on Hindus, Akbar did not attempt to force his subjects to adopt Islamic habits or convert to Islam. He removed the jizya, a levy levied on non-Muslims, in 1568. He lifted the ban on the construction of new Hindu temples and gave some of them financial backing to continue their operations. Islam's legal code, sharia, solely applied to Muslims; Hindus were ruled by a different set of laws. In Akbar's government and army, Hindus and Muslims were accepted. Akbar transformed the administrative structure of his kingdom. Provinces were created within the realm, and each province was given a chief judge, a governor, a military commander, and a financial administrator. Akbar appointed mansabdars, or government workers. Promotion was contingent on work; behaviour that angered Akbar may lead to a reduction in status or relocation to an unfavourable area. Additionally, it was the duty of each mansabdar to enlist cavalry into the Mughal army. Akbar commanded an assessment of his kingdom and an estimation of the financial potential of each sector. Afterwards, taxes gathered on designated farming units were used to pay the mansabdars for their labour. They were given greater territory as their status increased. However, these territories were also redistributed on a regular basis, and Akbar regained full ownership of a mansabdar's fortune upon his death. If the emperor so chooses, a mansabdar's son may be permitted to inherit his father's wealth. These measures guaranteed the continued allegiance of Akbar to those in charge of running the empire. In addition to accepting Hindus into his government and marrying Hindu ladies, Akbar shown tolerance towards people of different religions and their followers. He built a hall so that people might argue religions there. Initially, only Muslim intellectuals participated, debating theological and legal issues among themselves and responding to questions presented by Akbar. But Akbar soon became unsatisfied, thinking some of their beliefs were too strict. He subsequently extended an invitation to participants from many religions, including Portuguese Jesuit missionaries. Though he denied the Jesuits' ideas on Jesus' divinity and apparently thought their emphasis on monogamous marriage humorous, Akbar found Christianity to be intriguing. But in the end, Akbar rejected all officially acknowledged religions and founded his own cult, Din-i Ilahi (the Divine Faith). This religion, which had Akbar occupying a central position, blended aspects of several other faiths. He issued a proclamation in 1579 stating that he would make the final decision on all religious matters. His cult's followers saw him as God's ambassador and felt obligated to accept all religions in his capacity as the divine. Akbar started worshipping "divine light" and stopped doing the five required prayers that Muslims must recite daily. In addition, he started a custom of regularly showing himself to his subjects on a balcony so they could see him; this was similar to a Hindu ritual in which devotees get blessings by looking at the picture of a god. The Muslims at Akbar's court were extremely concerned by all these developments. But under Akbar, India flourished for the most part. Much of the subcontinent was unified and tranquil after his conquests. Despite being illiterate, he hired a sizable number of academics and translators, built schools for both Muslims and Hindus, and accumulated a sizable library of literature in several languages. Trade both domestically and internationally prospered. India received gold and silver in return for textiles, spices, and priceless jewels. Trade in handicrafts flourished, and merchants became rich. The peasants paid high taxes to support the bureaucracy of the empire, but during periods of drought or other natural calamities, they were exempt from paying the entire amount owed. Wealthy Mughal women who reinvested in commerce the profits from landed estates, gifts from the emperor and his predecessors to female relatives, were among those who profited from Akbar's success. They supported artists and poets, constructed shelters for travellers, endowed mosques, and funded humanitarian causes with the money they made. As part of their efforts to influence the Mughal government's operations, they also gave gifts to the emperor and other court officials using their money. Akbar's heirs were unable to match his accomplishments. After his death in 1605, the throne was inherited by his son Jahangir. In an attempt to surpass his father, Jahangir hired a sizable studio of artists to paint him as a more powerful monarch than past kings. Jahangir's studio paintings were influenced by European paintings, particularly portraits, that he received from the English, with whom he had developed business ties. Muslim intellectuals who were outraged by Akbar's religious policies were given favours by Jahangir. However, he established an imperial religion similar to that of his father, and followers said Jahangir could cure them and would often come to them in dreams. Like Akbar, he married both Muslim and Hindu ladies and invited individuals from many religious backgrounds to his court. Jahangir drank a lot, just like his grandfather Humayun, and this had a negative effect on his health. As he grew physically weaker, he gave his favourite wife, Nur Jahan, a Muslim Persian, considerable authority inside his kingdom. She conducted diplomacy, participated in public ceremonies, and issued imperial decrees. She also assisted Jahangir in selecting a son to be his heir, Shah Jahan, and set up the son's marriage to her niece. Shah Jahan took the throne in 1628 after Jahangir died. He started a number of construction projects and commissioned the construction of the Peacock Throne, an elevated platform covered by a vault adorned with gold, semiprecious stones, and peacock sculptures, in an effort to impress his followers and other kings with his significance. Of these, the most exquisite was the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum built in 1631 for Mumtaz Mahal, the beloved wife of Shah Jahan, who had passed away the year before giving birth to their fourteenth child. The mausoleum, located in the city of Agra, is regarded as an outstanding example of Persianate architecture and brilliantly captures the Mughal dynasty's hybridised Indo-Islamic culture. It was constructed in a garden at one end of a reflecting pool and has four free-standing minarets—towers used by Muslims to call people to prayer—around a huge dome. The Taj Mahal is coated in white marble in a manner appropriate for the final resting place of a Muslim holy man, in contrast to the ordinary materials used for tombs in that region of India, such as sandstone. It is adorned with semiprecious stones and has lines selected by Shah Jahan himself from the Quran written in exquisite calligraphy. Shah Jahan began construction on the Red Fort, another enormous construction project, when he relocated the Mughal Empire's capital from Agra to Delhi in 1648. Palaces and administrative buildings were built inside this red sandstone stronghold; many of them were made of polished white marble or stucco, or they were decorated with glazed tiles that looked like marble. Water for the city was brought in by Persian water wheels and canals, and it was removed by a sewage system. Channels of scented water ran across the city. Officials built their own stately homes inside the city walls. Gardens and mosques were constructed; many of the affluent Mughal ladies who funded them. Even while these construction projects significantly improved the aesthetics of Delhi and Agra, they depleted the government coffers and increased the tax burden on India's peasants.