Mughal empire

Timeline

1. 1526 First Battle of Panipat — Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi
2. 1527 Battle of Khanwa — Rana Sanga defeated
3. 1539–40 Humayun loses at Chausa and Kannauj to Sher Shah; exile
4. 1555 Humayun recovers Delhi
5. 1556 Akbar crowned; Second Battle of Panipat
6. 1576 Battle of Haldighati
7. 1605 Jahangir succeeds
8. 1628 Shah Jahan succeeds
9. 1658 Aurangzeb seizes the throne
10. 1707 Aurangzeb dies — rapid decline begins
11. 1739 Nadir Shah of Persia sacks Delhi
12. 1857–58 Bahadur Shah II leads the Revolt; deported to Rangoon

Babur (1526–30)

• Founder of the Mughal empire — Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur.
• Lineage: Chengiz (Genghis) Khan on his mother’s side, Timur on his father’s side.
• Inherited Farghana at 12; ruler of Samarkand briefly (he took it more than once but could not hold it); captured Kabul in 1504.
• Dreamt of repeating Timur’s invasion of India.
• Popularised the use of gunpowder (artillery) in north India, with the Ottoman tactic of tulughma (flanking) and a line of carts.
• Battles:
• 1526 — First Battle of Panipat: defeated Ibrahim Lodi
• 1527 — Battle of Khanwa: defeated Rana Sanga of Mewar; Babur declared it a jihad and took the title Ghazi
• 1528 — Battle of Chanderi: defeated Medini Rai
• 1529 — Battle of Ghaghra: defeated the Afghans under Mahmud Lodi
• Author of Baburnama (Tuzuk-i-Baburi):
• written in Chaghatai Turkish
• mentions Rana Sanga and Krishnadevaraya as the great Hindu rulers of his time
• translated into Persian by Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan under Akbar
• Introduced the Charbagh garden style — a garden divided into four parts by water channels.
• 1530: died at Agra; buried in Kabul.

Humayun (1530–40, 1555–56)

• Son of Babur; a liberal, cultured ruler.
• Shared the empire with his brothers (Kamran got Kabul, Kandahar and Punjab) and then battled with them.
• Battles:
• 1531 — Kalinjar: treaty with the king Pratap Rudra Dev
• 1532 — Chunar (Chunargarh): siege ended in a treaty with Sher Khan (Sher Shah Suri)
• 1539 — Battle of Chausa: defeated by Sher Shah Suri
• 1540 — Battle of Kannauj (Bilgram): decisively defeated by Sher Shah; Humayun went into exile in Persia
• 1555 — Battle of Sirhind: defeated the successors of Sher Shah (Sikandar Suri) and regained Delhi
• Akbar was born (1542) at Amarkot in Sindh during the exile.
• Humayun Nama was composed by his sister Gulbadan Begum.
• Died (January 1556) after slipping down the stairs of his library (Sher Mandal, in the Purana Qila).
• His garden tomb in Delhi, commissioned by his widow Bega Begum, was a model for the Taj Mahal.
• Lane-Poole: “Humayun stumbled out of his life, as he had stumbled through it.”

Akbar (1556–1605): conquests

• Became king at 13–14 (1556) under the protection of Bairam Khan, his regent until 1560.
• Battles and conquests:
• 1556 — Second Battle of Panipat: defeated Hemu, Adil Shah Sur’s general — after an arrow hit Hemu in the eye
• 1562 — conquered Malwa from Baz Bahadur
• 1568–69 — Chittor, Ranthambore and Kalinjar
• 1573 — conquered Gujarat from Muzaffar Shah (III); the Buland Darwaza at Fatehpur Sikri celebrates it
• 1576 — conquered Bihar and Bengal from Daud Khan Karrani
• 1576 — Battle of Haldighati: Rana Pratap of Mewar was defeated by Man Singh, fighting on Akbar’s side
• later: Kashmir (1586), Sindh (1591), Kandahar (1595), Ahmednagar (1600) and Asirgarh (1601)
• Established Fatehpur Sikri, honouring the Sufi Shaikh Salim Chishti.

Akbar: religious policy

• Abolished the pilgrim tax (1563) and abolished jizya (1564).
• Tried to stop sati — he forbade forced sati (the mindmap says “banned sati”).
• Built the Ibadat Khana (1575) at Fatehpur Sikri for religious debates.
• Philosophy of Sulh-i-Kul — peace with all.
• The Mahzar (1579) made him the final arbiter in religious disputes.
• Introduced Din-i-Ilahi (1582) — a spiritual order with few members (Birbal among them), not a mass religion.

Akbar: administration

• Introduced the Mansabdari system:
• officers received a rank (mansab) and were given the title of Mansabdar
• each rank had two parts — zat (personal rank, fixing status and pay) and sawar (the number of cavalrymen, with horses, to be maintained)
• salary was fixed in cash but usually paid by assigning a jagir (the right to collect land revenue)
• rank was not hereditary
• Todar Mal introduced the Dahsala (Bandobast) system of taxation (1580) — cash rates based on the average produce and prices of the last 10 years.

Akbar: scholars and culture

• Abul Fazl — Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari.
• Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan — translated Baburnama into Persian; also wrote Hindi dohas.
• Faizi (poet laureate), Badauni (Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, critical of Akbar), Tansen (music) and Birbal.
• A translation bureau rendered the Mahabharata into Persian as Razmnama.
• Tulsidas (Ramcharitmanas) was a contemporary.
• Died in 1605; tomb at Sikandra near Agra.

Jahangir (1605–27)

• Also Salim.
• 1611: married Mehrunnisa, known as Nur Jahan; her family (Itimad-ud-Daula, Asaf Khan) dominated the court.
• Suppressed the revolt of Usman Khan in Bengal.
• Ahmadnagar in the Deccan resisted the Mughals under its Abyssinian minister Malik Ambar, a pioneer of guerrilla warfare.
• Zanjir-i-Adl — a chain of justice hung at the Agra Fort for petitioners.
• Visited by two Englishmen:
• Captain William Hawkins (1608)
• Sir Thomas Roe (1615–19), ambassador of James I, who was granted permission to establish a factory at Surat
• The 5th Sikh Guru, Arjan Dev, was put to death (1606) for supporting the rebellion of Jahangir’s son Khusrau.
• Author of Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (his memoir).
• Mughal painting peaked under him — Ustad Mansur (birds and animals) and Abul Hasan.

Shah Jahan (1628–58)

• Also Khurram.
• Married Mumtaz Mahal (Arjumand Banu) and built the Taj Mahal in her memory.
• Deccan and frontier:
• 1633 — the Nizam Shahi dynasty of Ahmednagar brought under his control
• 1636 — the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda accepted Mughal suzerainty
• 1638 — annexed Kandahar (lost to Persia again in 1649)
• Built the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid in his new capital, Shahjahanabad (Delhi).
• The Peacock Throne (Takht-i-Taus) was made during his reign.
• European travellers:
• Bernier — French physician
• Tavernier — French gem merchant
• Peter Mundy — English trader
• Manucci — Italian
• Scholars:
• Abdul Hamid Lahori — Padshahnama
• Pandit Jagannath — Rasagangadhara (Sanskrit poetics)
• His eldest son Dara Shikoh translated the Upanishads into Persian as Sirr-i-Akbar (“the great secret”).
• Held captive by Aurangzeb in the Agra Fort after the war of succession; died in 1666.

Aurangzeb (1658–1707)

• Defeated his brother Dara Shikoh (Samugarh, 1658) to become emperor.
• Took the title “Alamgir” (conqueror of the world).
• 1659: ended the depiction of the kalma on coins and the celebration of Navroz.
• 1663: banned sati.
• Reintroduced jizya (1679).
• Executed the 9th Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur (1675).
• The 10th Guru, Gobind Singh, started the Khalsa panth (1699).
• Conspired with Raja Jai Singh (Treaty of Purandar, 1665) and imprisoned Shivaji at Agra; Shivaji escaped in 1666.
• 1689: executed Sambhaji (son of Shivaji).
• Annexed Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687).
• Scholars: Muhammad Kazim — Alamgirnama; the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri (a digest of Islamic law) was compiled.
• 1707: died at Ahmednagar; buried at Khuldabad, near Daulatabad, in a simple grave.

Later Mughals

• Bahadur Shah I (1707–12) — adopted the title Shah Alam I.
• Jahandar Shah (1712–13) — helped to power by Zulfiqar Khan; abolished jizya.
• Farrukhsiyar (1713–19) — helped by the Sayyid brothers (the “king-makers”), who later deposed him; issued the 1717 farman giving the East India Company duty-free trade in Bengal.
• Muhammad Shah “Rangeela” (1719–48) — Nadir Shah of Persia invaded (1739, Battle of Karnal), sacked Delhi and took away the Takht-i-Taus (Peacock Throne) and the Koh-i-noor diamond.
• Ahmad Shah (1748–54) — attacked by Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan.
• Shah Alam II (1759–1806) — lost the Battle of Buxar (1764) and granted the diwani of Bengal to the Company (1765).
• Bahadur Shah II “Zafar” (1837–57):
• last Mughal emperor, and a poet
• led the Revolt of 1857
• 1858: deported to Rangoon
• 1862: died there

Who wrote what

European visitors

Memory hook

Source check

• Where the mindmap differs from standard textbooks. Use the standard version in the exam.