The Mughal Empire

1526-1858 A.D.

By: Lauren Sibille, Asia DaCosta

Marilyn Sanabria2nd Period

The white area on the map is where the Mughal Empire was during most of it’s rule.

Background Information 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 foundation of the Mughal Empire was established around 1504 by Al-

Din Muhammad. Also known as Babur (“The Tiger”). Muhammad was a Chagatai Turk who claimed descent from both Genghis

Khan and Tamerlane. He took control of Kabul (the largest city in Afghanistan) and eastern regions of Khorasan, which included the fertile Sindh region and lower valley of Indus River.

In 1526, the Muhammad defeated the last of the Turkic Delhi Sultans, Ibrahim Sha Lodi, at the First Battle of Panipat to put the newly founded Kingdom in motion.

Why was the Mughal Empire important?

The Mughals brought many changes to India:• Centralized government which 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

Political OrganizationThe Empire Babur founded was a sophisticated

civilization based on religious toleration. It was a mixture of Persian, Mongol, and Indian culture.

While Humayun, Babur’s successor, 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.

Akbar established a form of delegated government in which the provincial governors were personally responsible to him for the quality of government in their territory.

This is a Delhi tomb in India.

Emperors of the Mughal Empire

• Babur, the first Mughal emperor, was followed by his son Humayun who was a bad emperor, a better poet, and a drug addict.

• The third Emperor, Abu Akbar, is regarded as one of the great rulers of all time.

• Akbar was followed by Jahangir, and then his son Jahan. They both had major religious and cultural influences in the Mughal Empire.

Emperors (cont.)• Jahan's son, Aurangzeb, was to be the last great

Mughal Emperor.• He was a strong leader, whose conquests

expanded the Mughal Empire to its greatest size.• Under Aurangzeb, the Mughal Empire reached the

peak of its military power, but the rule was unstable mostly because the empire got too big to handle.

• Aurangzeb's extremism caused Mughal territory to dry up and the Empire went into decline. The last Mughal Emperor was disposed of by the British in 1858.

You can see here that only under the emperors Jahan and Aurangzeb did the Mughal Empire ever reach most of India.

Role of Religion• Under Babur, Hinduism was tolerated and new

Hindu temples were built with his permission.• Babur’s first act after conquering Delhi was to

forbid the killing of cows because that was offensive to Hindus.

• He even wrote an autobiography, The Babur - Namah. The autobiography is candid, honest, and at times even poetic.

• Akbar proclaimed an entirely new state religion of 'God-ism', a jumble of Islamic, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist teaching with himself as deity. It never spread beyond his court and died when he did.

Role of Religion (cont.)• Fatehpur Sikri was the new capital built by

Akbar.• Akbar believed that that a ruler's duty was

to treat all believers equally, all religions should be tolerated, and, whatever their belief.

• 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.

This is the famous Fatehpur Sikri which 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.

Cultural Developments• Jahangir began building the magnificent

monuments and gardens by which the Mughals are chiefly remembered today.

• 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, Jahangir’s successor, commissioned the Taj Mahal.

This is the world famous Taj Mahal which was built by Emperor Jahan as a symbol of the empire’s stability, power, and confidence.

Social Aspects• Generally the Mughal Empire is thought of as a prosperous

time period. • Even though the Mughal Empire existed 300-500 years

ago, its influence still exists in current day India. • The social aspects of the Mughal Empire and India today

especially relate including family life, religion, art, music, literature, and education.

• During the Mughal Empire, women had a significant role in family life.

• Women received salaries, owned land, participated in business transactions, and literary activities.

• Aristocratic women painted, wrote poetry, and played music because they received a higher education.

Social Aspects (cont.)The Mughal Empire was run by Muslim emperors, however

India was and still is Hindu dominated. Hindus, specifically of the upper class, adopted the Muslim

practice of isolating women, called purda. The Hindu practice of cremation of widows, called suttee,

continued even though the Mughals tried to abolish it.The Mughal rulers sometimes forced Islam upon the

Hindus, but many times the Hindus resisted.Hindu men would marry Islam women and convert them to

Hinduism in order to keep their religion prominent. Families looked down upon Hindus if one converted to

Islam. Child marriage also remained common. Depending on the emperor, there was religious acceptance

and tolerance, but religious segregation still existed.

Economic DevelopmentsProductive agricultural economy was the base and

foundation to all of the Islamic empires. They relied heavily on crops of wheat and rice.The profit from agricultural trade and production

went mostly to finance armies and bureaucracies.

The Columbian exchange brought change (though not as dramatic as the change in Europe and Asia) by introducing American food crops such as maize, potatoes, and tomatoes.

Maize was used as feed for animals because it was not popular for food use for the Islamic people.

Economic Developments (cont.)Tobacco and coffee traded by European merchants

became very popular in the 16th century. Plantations specialized in the production of these

items in a similar way as sugar in America.The interest in coffee and tobacco sparked a new

tradition of coffee and smoke houses where the people could indulge in both of the addictive substances.

In the mid sixteenth century, both the drink and tobacco were outlawed because of their distraction on moral teachings.

The rise in population in the Mughal empire was attributed mainly to their success in agriculture rather than trade. The people of the Mughal empire also participated actively.

Bibliography • "History of the Mughals." SSCNet. 31 Jan.

2008 <http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/     Mughals/mughals.html>. "History of the Mughals." SSCNet. 31 Jan. 2008

• <http://www.BBC.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/mughal empire_1.shtml>. "Social Aspects of the Mughal Empire in India." Menloschool. 31 Jan. 2008     

• <http://sun.menloschool.org/~sportman/westernstudies/first/1718/2000/cblock/mughal/social.html>.