- Mughal also spelled:
- Mogul
- Persian:
- MughÅ«l (āMongolā)
Mughal dynasty
Where was the Mughal Empire?
How was the Mughal dynasty founded?
Why are the Mughals called the Mughals?
When did the Mughal Empire end?
Why was the Mughal Empire important?
What characterized the Mughal Empireās administration?
Which school of art is believed to have been developed in the Mughal Empire?
Mughal dynasty, line of Muslim rulers of Turkic-Mongol origin who ruled most of northern India from the early 16th to the mid-18th century. After that time it continued to exist as a considerably reduced and increasingly powerless entity until the mid-19th century. The Mughal dynasty was notable for its more than two centuries of effective rule over much of India; for the ability of its rulers, who through seven generations maintained a record of unusual talent; and for its administrative organization. A further distinction was the attempt of the Mughals, who were Muslims, to integrate Hindus and Muslims into a united Indian state.
Mughal Empire
At its height the Mughal Empire encompassed most of the Indian subcontinent. By the late 16th century, the Mughal ruler Akbar had extended Mughal dominion across northern India from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. Subsequent rulers pushed the frontiers southward. In the late 17th century Aurangzeb conquered the Deccan sultanates, extending Mughal rule farthest into the south and bringing the empire to its greatest overall territorial extent. In this century Mughal India accounted for roughly 24 percent of the worldās gross domestic product (GDP), making it one of the richest economies globally. Historians estimate the empireās population to have been between 100 million and 150 million in the late 17th century.
The expression gunpowder empires was popularized by American historian Marshall G.S. Hodgson in the late 20th century and refers to a group of dominant states in the Islamic world and neighboring regions during the late medieval and early modern periods, characterized by their effective use of gunpowder weapons in the expansion of territory. Empires such as the Ottomans in Anatolia, the Safavids in Persia, and the Mughals in India are considered gunpowder empires.
The Mughal Empire, like its contemporary gunpowder empires, made effective use of firearms and centralized military power in the 16th and the 17th centuries. The Mughal Empireās centralized administration and large, well-equipped army allowed it to integrate diverse regions into a single political framework. Babur, the first Mughal ruler, imported Timurid statecraft derived from the traditions of his Central Asian ancestors but adapted it to Indian conditions. Babur and his son Humayun established only a fragile hold, yet the next generation under Akbar firmly consolidated Mughal rule through institutional and inclusive governance. The Mughal emperors cultivated ties of loyalty with local nobles whose political standing relied not on landownership but on their proximity to the king. Their influence, in turn, was largely determined by their military value and usefulness to the ruler. The Mughals employed Persian as the official court language. The Mughal state endured (at least in name) until 1857, when the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II, was deposed by the British colonizers of India. During its peak the empire was a dominant force in South Asiaāpolitically, economically, and culturally.
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Mughal rulers
Babur
The Mughal dynasty was founded by a Chagatai Turkic prince named Babur (reigned 1526ā30), who was descended from the Turkic conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) on his fatherās side and from Chagatai, the second son of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan, on his motherās side. Baburās father, Umar Shaykh Mirza, ruled the small principality of Fergana to the north of the Hindu Kush mountain range; Babur inherited the principality at a young age, in 1494.
In 1504 he conquered Kabul and GhaznÄ« and established himself there. In 1511 he captured Samarkand, only to realize that, with the formidable Safavid dynasty in Iran and the Uzbeks in Central Asia, he should rather turn to the southeast toward India to have an empire of his own. As a Timurid, Babur had an eye on the Punjab region, part of which had been Timurās possession. He made several excursions in the tribal habitats there. Between 1519 and 1524āwhen he invaded Bhera, Sialkot, and Lahoreāhe showed his definite intention to conquer Hindustan, where the political scene favored his adventure.
Having secured the Punjab, Babur advanced toward Delhi, garnering support from many Delhi nobles. He routed two advance troop contingents of Ibrahim Lodi, Delhiās sultan, and met the sultanās main army at the First Battle of Panipat. By April 1526 he was in control of Delhi and Agra and held the keys to conquer Hindustan.
The Rajput confederacy, however, under Rana Sanga of Mewar threatened to revive their power in northern India. Babur led an expedition against the rana and crushed the ranaās forces at Khanua, near Fatehpur Sikri (March 1527), once again by means of the skillful positioning of troops. Babur then continued his campaigns to subjugate the Rajputs of Chanderi. When Afghan risings turned him to the east, he had to fight, among others, the joint forces of the Afghans and the sultan of Bengal in 1529 at Ghaghara, near Varanasi. Babur won the battles, but the expedition there too, like the one on the southern borders, was left unfinished. Developments in Central Asia and Baburās failing health forced him to withdraw. He died in Agra in December 1530.
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Humayun
Baburās son Humayun inherited the hope rather than the fact of empire, because the Afghans and Rajputs were merely restrained but not reconciled to Mughal supremacy by the Mughal victories at Panipat (1526), Khanua (1527), and the Ghaghara (1529). Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, encouraged by Afghan and Mughal Ć©migrĆ©s, challenged the Mughals in Rajasthan, and, although Humayun occupied Gujarat in 1535, the danger there ended only with Bahadurās death in 1537. Meanwhile, an Afghan soldier of fortune, Sher Shah of Sur, had consolidated his power in Bihar and Bengal. He defeated Humayun at Chausa in 1539 and at Kannauj in 1540, expelling him from India.
Reaching Iran in 1544, Humayun was granted military aid by Shah Tahmasp and went on to conquer KandahÄr (1545) and to seize Kabul three times from his own disloyal brother, Kamran, the final time being in 1550. Taking advantage of civil wars among the descendants of Sher Shah, Humayun captured Lahore in February 1555, and, after defeating Sikandar Sur, the rebel Afghan governor of the Punjab, at Sirhind, he recovered Delhi and Agra that July. Humayun was fatally injured by falling down the staircase of his library. His tomb in Delhi, built several years after his death, is the first of the great Mughal architectural masterpieces; it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993.