Introduction
The Mughal
Empire
The Taj
Mahal houses the jewelled tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, much loved wife of emperor Shah
Jehan
The Mughal (or
Mogul) Empire ruled most of India and Pakistan in the 16th and 17th centuries.
It consolidated
Islam in South Asia, and spread Muslim (and particularly Persian) arts and
culture as well as the faith.
The Mughals were
Muslims who ruled a country with a large Hindu majority. However for much
of their empire they allowed Hindus to reach senior government or military
positions.
The Mughals brought
many changes to India:
- Centralised government that
brought together many smaller kingdoms
- Delegated government with respect
for human rights
- Persian art and culture
- Persian language mixed with
Arabic and Hindi to create Urdu
- Periods of great religious
tolerance
- A style of architecture (e.g.
the Taj Mahal)
- A system of education that
took account of pupils' needs and culture
Muslims in India
There had been
Muslims in India long before the Mughals. The first Muslims arrived in the 8th
century.
In the first half of
the 10th century a Muslim ruler of Afghanistan invaded the Punjab 11 times,
without much political success, but taking away a great deal of loot.
A more successful
invasion came at the end of the 12th century. This eventually led to the
formation of the Delhi Sultanate.
A later Muslim
invasion in 1398 devastated the city of Delhi.
The Mughal Empire
grew out of descendants of the Mongol Empire who were living in Turkestan in
the 15th century. They had become Muslims and assimilated the culture of the
Middle East, while keeping elements of their Far Eastern roots.
They also retained
the great military skill and cunning of their Mongol ancestors, and were among
the first Western military leaders to use guns.
Babur
Babur the first
Mughal Emperor, was a descendent of Genghis Khan and Tamerlaine.
Babur succeeded his
father as ruler of the state of Farghana in Turkestan when he was only 12,
although he was swiftly deposed by older relatives.
Babur moved into
Afghanistan in 1504, and then moved on to India, apparently at the invitation
of some Indian princes who wanted to dispose of their ruler. Babur disposed of
the ruler, and decided to take over himself.
He captured the
Turkic Ghur'iat Sultanate of Delhi in 1526, imposing his rule on most of
Northern India.
The Empire he
founded was a sophisticated civilisation based on religious toleration. It was
a mixture of Persian, Mongol and Indian culture.
Under Babur Hinduism
was tolerated and new Hindu temples were built with his permission.
Trade with the rest
of the Islamic world, especially Persia and through Persia to Europe, was
encouraged.
The importance
of slavery in the Empire diminished and
peace was made with the Hindu kingdoms of Southern India.
Babur brought a
broad-minded, confident Islam from central Asia. His first act after conquering
Delhi was to forbid the killing of cows because that was offensive to Hindus.
Babur may have been
descended from brutal conquerors, but he was not a barbarian bent on loot and
plunder. Instead he had great ideas about civilisation, architecture and
administration.
He even wrote an
autobiography, The Babur - Namah. The autobiography is candid,
honest and at times even poetic.
Babur was followed
by his son Humayun who was a bad emperor, a better poet, and a drug addict. He
rapidly lost the empire. He did eventually recover the throne but died soon
afterwards after breaking his neck falling downstairs.
While Humayan was
certainly disastrous as a ruler, his love of poetry and culture heavily
influenced his son Akbar, and helped to make the Mughal Empire an artistic
power as well as a military one.
Abu Akbar
The third Emperor,
Abu Akbar, is regarded as one of the great rulers of all time, regardless of
country.
Akbar succeeded to
the throne at 13, and started to recapture the remaining territory lost from
Babur's empire. By the time of his death in 1605 he ruled over most of north,
central, and western India.
Akbar worked hard to
win over the hearts and minds of the Hindu leaders. While this may well have
been for political reasons - he married a Hindu princess (and is said to have
married several thousand wives for political and diplomatic purposes) - it was
also a part of his philosophy.
Akbar believed that
all religions should be tolerated, and that a ruler's duty was to treat all believers
equally, whatever their belief.
He established a
form of delegated government in which the provincial governors were personally
responsible to him for the quality of government in their territory.
Akbar's government
machine included many Hindus in positions of responsibility - the governed were
allowed to take a major part in the governing.
Akbar also ended a
tax (jizya) that had been imposed on non-Muslims. This discriminatory
tax had been much resented, and ending it was a popular move.
An innovation was
the amount of autonomy he allowed to the provinces. For example, non-Muslims
were not forced to obey Islamic law (as was the case in many
Islamic lands), and Hindus were allowed to regulate themselves through their
own law and institutions.
Akbar and Godism
Akbar took the
policy of religious toleration even further by breaking with conventional
Islam.
The Emperor
proclaimed an entirely new state religion of 'God-ism' (Din-i-ilahi) - a
jumble of Islamic, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist teaching with himself as
deity. It never spread beyond his court and died when he did.
Fatehpur Sikri was
the new capital built by Akbar, as a part of his attempt to absorb other
religions into Islam. Fatehpur Sikri is a synthesis of Hindu and Islamic architecture.
Jahangir
Akbar's son, Emperor
Jahangir, readopted Islam as the state religion and continued the policy of
religious toleration. His court included large numbers of Indian Hindus,
Persian Shi'a and Sufis and members of local
heterodox Islamic sects.
Jahangir also began
building the magnificent monuments and gardens by which the Mughals are chiefly
remembered today, importing hundreds of Persian architects to build palaces and
create magnificent gardens.
Jahangir's approach
was typified by the development of Urdu as the official language of Empire.
Urdu uses an Arabic script, but Persian vocabulary and Hindi grammatical
structure.
Jahan
The architectural
achievements of the Mughals peaked between 1592 and 1666, during the reign of
Jahangir's successor Jahan.
Jahan commissioned
the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal marks the apex of the Mughal Empire; it symbolises
stability, power and confidence.
The building is a
mausoleum built by Jahan for his wife Mumtaz and it has come to symbolise the
love between two people.
Jahan's selection of
white marble and the overall concept and design of the mausoleum give the
building great power and majesty.
Jahan brought
together fresh ideas in the creation of the Taj. Many of the skilled craftsmen
involved in the construction were drawn from the empire. Many also came from
other parts of the Islamic world - calligraphers from Shiraz, finial makers
from Samrkand, and stone and flower cutters from Bukhara.
By Jahan's period
the capital had moved to the Red Fort in Delhi, putting the Fort at the heart
of Mughal power. As if to confirm it, Jahan had these lines inscribed there:
"If there is Paradise on earth, it is here, it is here."
Paradise it may have
been, but it was a pricey paradise. The money Jahan spent on buildings and on
various military projects emptied his treasury and he was forced to raise
taxes, which aggravated the people of the empire.
Aurangzeb
Jahan's son
Aurangzeb was the last great Mughal Emperor.
History's verdict on
Aurangzeb largely depends on who's writing it; Muslim or Hindu.
Aurangzeb ruled for
nearly 50 years. He came to the throne after imprisoning his father and having
his older brother killed.
He was a strong
leader, whose conquests expanded the Mughal Empire to its greatest size.
Aurangzeb was a very
observant and religious Muslim who ended the policy of religious tolerance
followed by earlier emperors.
He no longer allowed
the Hindu community to live under their own laws and customs, but imposed Sharia law (Islamic law) over the
whole empire.
Thousands of Hindu
temples and shrines were torn down and a punitive tax on Hindu subjects was
re-imposed.
In the last decades
of the seventeenth century Aurangzeb invaded the Hindu kingdoms in central and
southern India, conquering much territory and taking many slaves.
Under Aurangzeb, the
Mughal empire reached the peak of its military power, but the rule was unstable.
This was partly because of the hostility that Aurangazeb's intolerance and
taxation inspired in the population, but also because the empire had simply
become to big to be successfully governed.
The Muslim Governer
of Hydrabad in southern India rebelled and established a separate Shi'a state;
he also reintroduced religious toleration.
The Hindu kingdoms
also fought back, often supported by the French and the British, who used them
to tighten their grip on the sub-continent.
The establishment of
a Hindu Marathi Empire in southern India cut off the Mughal state to the south.
The great Mughal city of Calcutta came under the control of the east India
company in 1696 and in the decades that followed Europeans and European -
backed by Hindu princes conquered most of the Mughal territory.
Aurangzeb's
extremism caused Mughal territory and creativity to dry up and the Empire went
into decline. The Mughal Emperors that followed Aurangzeb effectively became
British or French puppets. The last Mughal Emperor was deposed by the British
in 1858.
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