Mughals Flashcards
Mughal empire 1526
Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi at the Battle of Panipat, establishing the Mughal Empire.
Mughal Empire - 1562-1573:
Construction of Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar’s new capital.
- 1600- Mughal empire
Establishment of the English East India Company.
1605-1627 Mughal ruler
Reign of Jahangir, son of Akbar, known for his patronage of the arts and his relationship with the Mughal courtesan Anarkali.
1611-1612: Mughal empire
Nur Jahan, Jahangir’s wife, becomes the de facto ruler of the empire.
- 1628-1658 Mughal empire
: Reign of Shah Jahan, known for constructing the Taj Mahal and for his military campaigns.
- 1658-1707: Mughal empire
Reign of Aurangzeb, known for his strict adherence to Islamic law and expansionist policies.
- 1679
Imposition of the Jizya tax on non-Muslims by Aurangzeb.
- 1707
Death of Aurangzeb marks the beginning of the decline of the Mughal Empire.
- 1739
Invasion of Delhi by Nadir Shah of Persia, leading to the looting and weakening of the empire.
- 1757
Battle of Plassey, British East India Company gains control over Bengal.
Babur’s rule
- 1526-1530:
Humayan’s rule
1530-40
Shur Shur Suri’s rule
Not a Mughal, but ruled during Humayun’s exile
1540-1556
Akbar’s rule
1556-1605
Jahangir’s rule
1605-1627
Shah Jahan rule
1628-58
Aurangzeb’s rule
1658-1707
population of Indian subcontinent
- McEvedy and Jones put the total population for the Indian subcontinent in 1500 at 100 million, climbing to 185 million by 1800.
Irfan Habib s estimates are somewhat higher; he suggests that the figure in 1600 was 140-150 million, rising to about 200 million in 1800.
rise of technology in Mughal Empire
o tobacco and maize, spread rapidly throughout South Asia in the seventeenth century. Others, such as chili peppers, were adopted more slowly but diffused widely. The Mughal empire succeeded in part because of its command of gunpowder technology. Gunpowder, cannon, and muskets were manufactured in India in considerable numbers to meet military needs.
o Cultural resistance precluded widespread adoption of movable-type printing in India until the early nineteenth century
control of Indo Muslims in Mughal Empire
By 1500 Hindu society in nearly every region of the subcontinent save the extreme south was conditioned to accept the authority of an Indo-Muslim ruler — whether of foreign or Indian origin. Generations of Hindu kings, warriors, and priests, fought and lost, rebelled and lost, and finally accepted service within the Muslim political order. Rajput, Maratha, and Telugu and other warrior castes recognized the legitimacy of Islamic political power in return for assurances of continued dominance in the countryside. (Richards)
Mughals as hers to indo-Muslim tradition
- As heirs to the Indo-Muslim political tradition, the Mughals found conditions favorable for political centralization. They could turn to numerous precedents in their efforts to build a reliable yet flexible political and administrative system.
o All earlier sultans had recruited and maintained a nobility firmly bound to themselves and relatively free of constraining local ties.
o Earlier regimes had induced local Hindu warrior-aristocracies to maintain order and help levy taxes in the countryside.
paper as a tool of Mughal empire
- The introduction and wide use of paper in the eleventh century made the centralized administration of large, complex organizations much easier. Rulers could exercise tighter control over people, land, resources, and money by using paper documents and records
reliance on Sufi patrons
- the Sufi role in expanding the imperial frontier- under the Mughals, whose conquest from 1574 of the great forest region of Bengal provided them with an inexhaustible supply of land to grant to pious and loyal subjects. Sufis employed local woodsmen to clear the land for agriculture. In so doing, they introduced the indigenous peoples of the rainforest to Islam in its Sufi form, expanding not only the frontiers of the empire but also bringing about a process of “conversion by the plough.
o the motivation seems to have been the creation of a stable and uniform religious establishment that was loyal to (because dependent on) patrons representing the state.